From Hirtshals to Gudvangen, September 12, 2019

We took the ferry from Hirtshals to Bergen and drove onwards on the main road from Bergen to Oslo to the small village, Gudvangen, at Nærøfjord, a side fjord to the big Sognefjorden.

Stavangerfjord, Our ferry from Hitshals to Bergen on the way to entering Hirtshals.

We boarded Stavanger and the ferry set off trucks and passengers. Until Stavanger we sailed on the open sea but from Stavanger to Bergen we sailed in the achipelago. We passed a number of salmon farms along the way. They have moved from the protected but very vulnerable fjords to the more open archipelago. Here is the first salmon aquaculture we passed.

The weather was far from impressive, with fog and rain.

We got very close to some of the skærs (a very small island in the archipelago).

Fortunately, we occasionally saw glimpses of the sun as we got closer to Bergen. The closer we got to Bergen, the more urban got the houses, along our route

In Bergen, it rained MUCH - it poured down. We drove for three hours from Bergen along the main road to Oslo to the small but very touristy village of Gudvangen. Fortunately, the rain took off a bit as we got more inland. A big leap: Here's a picture from the main road from Bergen to Oslo. It must have been raining a lot in Norway lately because there was plenty of water in the

The ferry from Gudvangen to Kaupanger. In Gudvangen we had booked a hotel, and the next day we went on the ferry over to Kaupanger on the other side of the Sognefjord. The Kaupanger ferries are old ferries that they once saw in Norway, it is a kind of museum route. Down by the ferry was full of Chinese travel companies. There were a lot of offers for the tourists and the staff in the shop and the restaurant were dressed up as Vikings. The trip through the very narrow Nærøfjord to the Sognefjord is part of the concept "Norway in a nutshell" and is obviously very attractive to tourists.

The view from our hotel in Gudvangen towards Nærøfjord. We stayed at an old but renovated hotel which was not as touristy as any of Gudvangen. The hotel was close to the ferry to Kaupanger (everything in Gudvangen is close to the ferry to Kaupanger because Gudvangen is a very small village).