This blog entry relates my travels around the southern coast of Norway, dubbed the Norwegian Riviera as it is very much the countrys favourite summer holiday destination. I took a break from the highlights of the western fjords and cruise ships, and delved I feel into a bit of the real Norway beyond the picture postcards. I spent a lovely three days on Norways southern coast, international tourist track, and spoke in Norwegian for pretty much my whole time there, impressing myself with how much I could get by with it. I could certainly say things I needed to say, and read things, but when people spoke back to me it was a bit trickier to understand. But I loved being able to practise it there, without people readily speaking back to me in English - those six months of learning Norwegian on DuoLingo certainly started to pay off!
After some amazing sights and experiences in Bergen and Stavanger, I took a bus heading back towards Oslo along Norways beautiful southern coast, alighting at a small coastal town around an hour east of Norways fifth largest city, Kristiansand, in a place called Arendal. I must admit
that I wanted to stay there as its this towns name which inspired Elsa and Anna to live in Arendelle in Disneys Frozen. I do like to follow my imagination in a country when I visit it, and Frozen definitely stirred up impressions of how I imagined Norway to be. I thought that after Stavanger, the south of Norway would be a little flatter and less beautiful, but boy was I wrong! After having taken a highly scenic train journey from Oslo to Bergen, and then an adventurous sea journey from Bergen to Stavanger, I took a beautiful bus journey this time. The whole five hours was filled with crossing bridges over vast valleys, skirting azure fjord waters with sparkling sunlight reflections, and traversing mountains through long, dark tunnels. The tunnels in Norway even have road junctions and roundabouts in them! I learned in Stavanger that Norway has the worlds highest bridge per capita ratio in a country, and Im not surprised - they are everywhere. The country Id seen thus far was invariably hilly, and walking the streets even of cities involved up and down motions constantly. I remember also reading that one of the reasons for Viking expansions
overseas was that the Vikings were running out of flat farmland at home. I found this a bit hard to believe at the time looking at a map and the size of Norway, but after having been there, I can understand this - there is hardly any flat land anywhere! This certainly makes for a beautiful country, with stunning scenery and landscapes. I felt that the journey from Stavanger to Arendal had more stunning scenery than any road journey I had taken in England, even those passing through the Peak and Lake Districts.
After departing busy Kristiansand, I told the bus driver that I was alighting in Arendal, and was glad that I did as I dont think he would have made that stop otherwise. I was deposited at an shopping centre on the outskirts of town, and had booked an Air BnB around away as the crow flies, so it seemed convenient to be able to walk between the two. I hadnt counted on the rugged terrain between the shopping centre and my though, and ended up walking 25 minutes in total with backpacks in tow, having to circumnavigate the shopping centre and
its car park, find a bridge to cross over the steep river gorge next to it, navigate the windy roads which zigged and zagged up and down two hilly stretches, and use gravel and dirt paths along the way. Google Maps was useless there as the roads were inaccurate and it didnt show the paths that I needed to take between them. Thank goodness for Maps.Me though which did, and Ive no idea how the app is able to know all the tiny little paths interspersing the winding country roads in such an location, but it did! It was certainly an adventure getting to my one that I wasnt looking forward to repeating at around 6.
