r ellenberger

Our last day but arrived but not before a lovely nights sleep in the quiet of the mountains surrounded by powdery snow. Because of the hotel mixup the night before we had breakfast included in our room rate, a nice bonus, but when we got downstairs to breakfast we found out they had laid out a full buffet spread and we were the only guests! We checked out after breakfast and headed off towards Oslo. The drive was pretty unremarkable, more stunning scenery, ice cold fjords and rolling pine forests. We drove until Drammen, then stopped for lunch and a walk around. Not much doing and the place reminded me of Launceston in Tasmania, a bit hard on its luck. We drove onwards until Jevnaker where we stopped for a stroll around, and then before we knew it we were at the airport. We had Jamie Oliver's for dinner, and then the holiday was over :(

Woke up to a nice sunny morning and amazing view. It actually started getting light really early, so considering it only got proper night time dark around midnight, it must have only been dark for about 4-5 hours. Anyway we went down and had a chat with the Romanian twins running the hotel, before tucking into a full buffet breakfast. Then we checked out, dropped everything in the car and took a walk around the town. There was a fruit and cider walk which wasn't too long so we did that, saw all the farmers working on their fruit trees. Unfortunately it's not the right season so we couldn't try any of the cider they make. Some amazing views of the fjord though, and it was super sunny so we were pretty warm by the time we got to the top of the hill where the farms were. Afterwards we started the drive to our next destination. It was time for lunch though so we stopped at a Thai food truck in Eidfjord. We then continued, but got to the mountain where there is a corkscrew like...

We woke up to rubbish weather, rain and very low cloud which was a pity because we had the Nærøyfjord cruise booked for 9.30. We had some fried eggs for breakfast in the hostel kitchen, then drove over to the pier and parked the car. We wanted to change the time of our booking to either later in the day or possibly the next day to try and get some better weather. Alas, as the girl at the counter explained, the terms and conditions clearly stated we needed to change the time of the ticket the day before... Pity those t&c were not visible or mentioned when we booked, but whatever. Jackie got pissed but what could we do. We waited in the mall along with everyone else and then commenced a mad rush to push our way onto the boat. After grabbing some seats we were lucky enough to find ourselves situated next to some Indo or Philo dudes who proceeded to strike model poses against the ships windows which their friends duly captured in photograph, and who then started to serenade each other...

Woke up to a lovely sunny morning, didn't sleep amazingly because we couldn't work out how to turn the heater off and Ryan convinced me I shouldn't open the window because we'd freeze, so alternative is sleep in a sauna 😐 Anyway we had a big buffet breakfast at the hotel (the manager was being very nice, but a little creepy, kept touching me, then stroked my hand when we left) then set off for Aurland. We took route 7 and route 50 which was the scenic route, and it was amazing, we pretty much extended a 2.5 hour drive into a 3.5 hour drive because we stopped so much to take photos. There were also many tunnels which were quite scary - we'd be driving in this extremely bright, snowy white mountain landscape and then we'd hit a pitch black tunnel with no time to adjust our eyes. There were about 7 tunnels, all bored into the mountainside, some were several hundred metres, but some were as long at 5km! Finally we reached the town Aurland, and we proceeded to driv...

Wet landed at a snowy Oslo airport around 1pm, picked up our i10 hire car and set of for our first nights accommodation which was in the town of Nesbyen . The landscape on this first part of the drive was very picturesque; pine trees coated in white snow filling the valleys. We pulled into a rest stop afyer and hour of driving for lunch; peanuts and a chicken curry i had cooked the day before that we had brought along. We drove along route E16 until Honefoss, then took route 7. We went through one 3km tunnel, and when we popped out the other side all the snow was gone? Everything was a bit brown looking, but the scenery kept shifting and soon we were crossing rivers, following the edge of frozen lakes and cutting through mountains. We tried to get out of the car and grab as many happy snaps as possible, eventually stopping off in Flå at around 6pm for groceries and Micky D's for dinner. It was a short thirty minute ride to the hotel, and after checking in we went out f...

This is an ex ante post ... We are so bad at blogging. On day three we went to Toledo, but not before having a nice breakfast at a local cafe. We wandered down to the train station to find that the next train to Toledo was fully booked. We had to wait another hour and a half before the next train, so we purchased tickets and then went for a walk. We didn't have anything in mind, just wandered up to the  Observatorio Astronómico de Madrid  and then tried to make it into the  El Retiro Park . We were defeated by a large wall the blocked us for a good ten minutes and had us wandering around looking for an entrance, which we eventually found. We cruised through the park and then back to the station, and then took the very quick train to Toledo. Arriving at the train station there is a tourist office in the train station, selling tours and maps etc. but walking a further 10 metres down, we found the official tourist office dispensing free maps and information! They tol...