Dag 1

Kystriksveien Blog - Day 1 (20/08/2012)
This is the first day of our trip along the Norwegian Coastal Road, or the Kystriksveien Rv17.
Kystriksveien is the 670 km long road between Steinkjer and Bodø.

We start our trip from Bodø which is in the north. 1pm we land at the airport of Bodø, which is the biggest airport in the region. Bodø (population 47 800) is the capital of Nordland county and it is situated on a peninsula between Saltfjorden and Landegofjorden. Bodø is an important connecting point for flights to other places in Nordland and the railway has its northem terminal here. The airport, located just south of the city centre and the railway station, situated in the northern part of the town, are within walking distance of about 3 km, 45 mins.

In front of the airport parking place, just outside the main entrance of the terminal, is a footpath to the city centre. We first decide to visit the Norsk Luftfartsmuseum (the Norwegian Aviation Museum). It is 2 km far from the airport.

After a 30 minute walk along a main street, we reach the museum. It’s an aviation centre with numerous planes showing the history of aviation in Norway. Just inside the museum there is a locker room, so we decide to leave our heavy backpacks and jackets here. The lockers are so spacious that we can put all our stuff in. The adult ticket costs 110 NOK. We pay only 80 NOK, because we have student discounts. The building shape of the museum is like a big plane’s propeller! You can see it well while you are landing the airport.

The building is divided into two parts: the civil and the military one. You can board some planes and it is very funny! There are also interactive exhibitions for both adults and children. Unluckily some of them are out of order especially the main attraction: the flight simulator. Manu become sad in discovering that.

We have to visit the museum in 2 hours, because the centre closes at 4pm but probably 3-4 hours should be better to see the entire exposition. Near the museum there is a bus stop to the city centre which leaves every 15 mins. We take the bus (the ticket costs 32 NOK) and we stop very close to the Tourist Information Centre, signaled by a big ‘I’ in italics (like in the official logo). Here we ask a guy for the bus to Saltstraumen and the bus terminal. He is very kind to us and speaks very good English!

Just a curious encounter. On the walk to the Information Centre we come across into two moored warships! The biggest one has a large red star carved on the prow and it is Russian, the other one is Norwegian. The harbour of Bodø is very close to the railway station and so to the city centre. From the harbour ferries to the wonderful Lofoten islands leave.

Walking along the main street of Bodø, you can reach the city centre where you find the Tourist Information Centre, the bus terminal and a shopping center. We have just a look around the city centre, but there are no things of historical interest, because most of Bodø was destroyed during a German air attack in the World War II.
Our bus to Saltstraumen leaves at 5.10pm, so we have time to go to the supermarket ‘REMA 1000’, which is between the Information Centre and the bus terminal, to buy some food because we know we’ll not have time to buy it tomorrow.

The bus arrives at Saltstraumen at 6pm (ticket is 32 NOK, with student discount).
The stop is along the street before a big bridge (yes, Norway is full of great high bridges. They are amazing!) and in front of a pretty church. We turn right to a camping site near a Joker mini market.

At the camping reception we are given the timetable of the tidal current and are told the next best time to see the maelstrom is at 7.49pm. We also find out that it is possible to leave luggage at the reception while reaching the sighting point of the maelstrom. Anyway we have only our backpacks and we decide to keep them with us.It takes 10 mins walk to reach the place under the the north side of the bridge, where the view is beautiful. Here there are also some benches and tables.

Saltstraumen is a small strait with a very strong tidal current located about 10 km southeast of Bodø. This vortex has the strongest tidal current in the world. Just about 400 million cubic meters of water flows under the 770m long bridge in and out four times every 24h through a 150m wide sound. This phenomenon is very particular because the sea is very calm and the current is only under the bridge! There are also some motorboats which allow you to get almost in the maelstrom and to look it close!

We decide to wait for 7.49pm tidal current having dinner with sliced bread and some excellent Norwegian smoked salmon! The atmosphere is great, because there are only few men who try to fish inside the current (we find out that it is very easy to fish here, because the maelstrom attract a lot of fish! Unlucky we don’t have a fishing rod, so we are only viewers). At 7.49pm we cannot see anything different and disappointed we decide to have a walk near the fjord. It is sunset and there is no one, just a few seagulls. The landscape and the colors are amazing! If you have time, we suggest this walk along the path that starts under the bridge and goes north.

At 09.15pm it’s time to go, so we come back to the main street, waiting for the bus to Glomfjord.
The bus arrives at 09.35pm and we stop the bus by shaking (in Norway you can stop buses everywhere even if there is no bus stop! :)  We arrive in Glomfjord at 11:45, after a short sleep. When we get off the bus a young man approaches us: he is the owner of Glomfjord Overnatting.

He is very kind and takes us to our room. The accommodation is just a few minutes by car from the Glomfjord centre. It is situated between two important tunnels of the RV17: the Glomfjord and the Fykan ones.

The Overnatting has some rooms with a large common room (there is Wi-Fi here), a common full equipped kitchen, two toilets and a bathroom with a brand new shower and two sinks. Our room is quite small but essential and clean. Beds are really comfortable and there are bedlinen too. That’s all we need! Before going to bed we talk with Øyvind, the owner, about the plans for the following day because he volunteers to drive us to Holand where we’ll take a boat to the second biggest glacier in Norway!

Dag 2

Kystriksveien Blog - Day 2 (21/08/2012) - “The adventure day!”
This morning we meet Øyvind at 10.30am. He arrives in his car and he’ll drive us to Holand where a boat leaves to Svartisen (in English “black ice”), the second largest glacier on the Norwegian mainland!

After a good breakfast with milk chocolate and biscuits we start the adventure!
Øyvind gets in his off-road car and drives us to another place before going to the glacier
During the short journey, we ask him if there are reindeers nearby, but he says that in this area there are only a lot of moose and he shows us a picture from his phone taken in his yard where you see a small moose!

Along the main street (RV17) to Holand, there is a small street between the Fykan tunnel  and the Svartisen one. While driving, Øyvind shows us a very strange staircase up to the mountain. He calls it the “Stairway to Heaven”... There are 1127 wood stairs that rise to the top of the mountain! He stops his car near an old cable car and we start climbing. We cross a wooden hanging bridge (to be honest Øyvind shakes the bridge while we are crossing it to scare us:) then he takes us to the steps!  At the beginning of the staircase (about 10 minutes from the bridge), Øyvind asks us if we want to climb and he says he takes 20 minutes to reach the top and 10 minutes to get down. But he is trained!

Would you believe it or not we are very curious and still full of forces we accept the challenge!
We climb, climb and climb! Benny can’t keep Øyvind’s pace! She feels a bit sick....maybe the milk chocolate is still in her stomach! :)   After 45 mins we finally reach the top! From the top the landscape is amazing! It is worth the effort! The only problem is that we don’t have much time because we have to take the boat to the glacier at 11.15am and we do not recommend it to those who feels dizzy because there are some steep stairs!

While we’re going down it starts to rain, but Øyvind goes on and he leads us back safely to his car. It’s too late to take the 11.15am boat so we have to take the next boat at 12.15am. Øyvind decides to drive us to a very beautiful and powerful waterfall! It takes few minutes by car, it is on the same street. While we are staring at the amazing blue natural pool we have a refreshing shower :) from  the waterfall spray!!(

Now Øyvind would like to drive us to the top of another mountain but it’s late again and we have to rush to Holand. When we arrive we are the only two tourists! We say goodbye to our super guide Øyvind, we hope to meet him again here or... in Italy.
After 15 mins the boat leaves us on the other side of the lake. The captain kindly allows us to leave our backpacks in the boat

Here we could rent two bikes but nobody is there. We are alone. Wonderful! Unfortunately it starts to rain, this time harder! Anyway, we decide to take two “special” bikes with no brakes: they are fixed-gear bicycles, sometimes called “fixie”, it means that  the pedals are always moving when the bicycle is in motion and you can brake by resisting the rotation of the cranks and also by riding backwards. We cycle for about 3 kilometres to a quite small red house in front of the glacier. The view of the glacier is great! We have never seen a glacier as big as this before! It has a curious light blue colour even if the sky is dark. The house where we stop is a restaurant and a tourist info too. There are also public toilets.

The 370 km2 Svartisen is the second largest glacier in the country. There are many legends about the origin of the formation of the Svartisen. If you have time and you want to walk on the ice, you need a guide. The Rocksnrivers provides all the equipment you need! We can’t have  a guided tour to the glacier because we have not much time (the climb takes about 4 hours).

After a quick lunch with some bread and fruit, we decide to get close to the glacier by bike even is the weather is getting miserable and miserable: it reminds us that we are in Norway, not in Italy:) We rides along the path around the lake. The site is very beautiful! After a while we can’t ride any longer, so we leave the bikes near a picnic table and we start to climb! We are the only visitors...a very impressive atmosphere! The path is on a wet and very dark rock but there is a handrail made of chains to hold on while climbing but...the path becomes even more slippery and dangerous!

We can’t see the glacier from here, because it is quite far, but we meet a middle age German couple who is going down: they seem in trouble and worried. When they are closer to us, they tell us to go down with them, because the glacier is still too far away and the rain makes the rocks too dangerous to walk! We follow their advice also because it’s late (as usual :) and we have to take the last boat of the day back to Holand at 3pm. We are a bit sad, because we would have liked to walk on the glacier, but we hope we might reach it next time, possibly in the sun :)
We reach our bikes and we cycle very fast! We are drenched and dirty! Especially Benny, who don’t have the fenders on her bike and therefore her back is covered with a strip of mud :(  (Photos 2.12.1 and 2.12.2_The return journey in the rain)

Finally we reach the boat. Benny is a bit embarrassed to enter the boat because she is very dirty. We feel a bit depressed, because we have to wait 7 hours before having a hot shower! The captain of the boat is very funny and he starts laughing when we get into the boat :) We pay for the bikes and the boat 320 NOK altogether.

At Holand, we go to the Tourist Information Centre that is up to the street, 10 mins walk to the lake, because it’s still raining and we have to wait 1 hour for the bus to Ornes! Next to the Centre we find a camper service with public water and we clean our clothes and shoes as best as possible. But it is not a good idea... This will be our slogan from that moment: “it is better to be dirty but dry rather than wet but clean!”. 

The woman at the Information Centre is very kind to us. She offers to phone the ferry to Traena Island to tell them we’ll arrive with the 5:30pm bus (the ferry should leave from Ornes at 17:30 too!). Luckily today the ferry leaves at 5:45pm, so we should be able to take  the coincidence.

At 4.15pm we stand on the street waiting for the bus in the rain. The bus arrives at 4.30pm and we stop it by shaking. The ticket to Ornes for both of us is 70 NOK.

At Ornes, we wait 15 mins for the ferry. Benny is frozen because she is completely wet :(
Finally we come on board of our last public transport of the day. We are very tired and as the journey takes 3 hours we can sleep. We change ferry on Onoy Island, but we have to wait for a very short time. The ticket for all the travel is 354 NOK, with student discount (they ask us to show our student identity cards). On board Benny decides to change clothes into dry ones. Manu has a sweet idea: he brings Benny a hot chocolate! She feels better now :) Good night Manu and Benny, the sea is a bit rough and lulls them.

Traena with a population of less than 500 is one the smallest local authorities in the country and one of the oldest fishing stations. The Arctic Circle passes through this archipelago. Traena consists of 418 islands. We’ll stay on the “biggest” one (1.5 km long): the island of Husoy.

We arrive there at 21:35 and a woman is waiting for us. She is the owner of Traena Rorbuferie, where we’ll stay for the following two nights. She drives us to our rorbu. The place is very nice. We have a rorbu on the sea with private bathroom, dining room with kitchenette and a room with a big bunk bed.

There is Wi-Fi too, but it works quite bad. Benny asks the owner for a hair dryer.
We plan with the owner for the next morning. She’ll drive us at 10am to the harbour (about 3 kilometres from the Traena Rorbuferie), because we’ll take a little boat to visit the next island of Sanna, which is the most scenic one (there are not public transport on the island).

After a hot shower and a good dinner, tired but very happy we go to bed.
That’s way we decide to call this day “the adventure day”!

Dag 3

Kystriksveien Blog - Day 3 (22/08/2012)

This morning we meet the owner of the Rorbuferie at 10am. Today we want to take the boat to Sanna at 11am, but the weather is very bad and it is raining.

At the reception we meet the sister of the owner and she is very kind to us. She advices us to have a trip on the island and we’ll try to take the boat at 14pm She offers us her car! Wow! :) She gives us the key of a very pretty church and a map of the island with the 4 roads we can do! It’s amazing!:) After a short explanation on how to drive a car with automatic transmission (in Italy all cars have manual gearbox!), we decide to go first to the supermarket near the harbour. We are a bit hungry and so we buy something for breakfast, but also for lunch and dinner.

After shopping, we decide to go to the church. In 1997 the Petter Dass chapel was built on Husoy by the Traena local authority. This building is an art gallery and a chapel for meditation in memory of Petter Dass. >From the chapel there is a great view over Sanna and the archipelago.

The landscape and the shape of the chapel are very impressive. We learn from the owner’s sister that the name of “Traena” means three tops, that is, when it is very foggy, from the sea you can see only the three tops of the mountains of Sanna’s Island.

After a lot of photos, we come back home to have lunch. Luckily the weather is getting better so we decide to take the boat to Sanna at 2 p.m. The one way ticket to Sanna is 38 NOK with student discount. On the boat we are the only tourists! There are three older men who are coming back home, after shopping in Husoy because in Sanna there is no shops!! The Sanna Island is very cute!) We start walking along the only street of the island and, after a few minutes, we find a cross. Here we have to choose: (we have only 2 hours on the island...) we can visit a huge cave as big as a cathedral if you turn on the left or we can reach the top of the mountain with the military station if you go straight on. As we attended a course of speleology last year in Italy and we explored many caves, we decide to climb! The weather is cloudy, but it doesn’t rain any longer!

After 15 minutes, we arrive in front of a tunnel. We already knew about it, so we have two head orches with us! The tunnel was built to reach the military base and it is almost 700 meters long. The street is paved, but the walls are wet black rocks! Inside everything is dark and at the beginning we are a bit scared :) We reach the exit in 20 mins (Photos 3.9.1 and 3.9.2_Inside the Tunnel and the exit) and just outside we can see a fantastic landscape! Slowly the sun comes from the clouds and like in a dream a big rainbow appears in front of us! We are so happy and enthusiastic that we decide to take a lot of pictures! Wow!

After at least half an hour, we decide to come back to the boat. We are just outside the tunnel entrance, when we hear an eagle! We look up and we see two big eagles with their nest on the top of the mountain! They are very close and they fly just over our heads! What a big emotion!!!:)

We take the return boat at 4.35pm. The trip is a bit longer because we should reach an other island before getting to Husoy. On board we start speaking with the captain who is very friendly. He teaches and explains us a lot of things about Traena fishing habits and the famous Traena Festival which takes place every year, in July. During the festival there are concerts inside the cave of Sanna and it is very impressive! He tells us that winter here is not so cold as we can imagine and it doesn’t snow a lot because of the Gulf Stream.

We arrive at 5:20pm and a bit tired we drive back home.
Tomorrow we have to take the ferry to Sandejossen at 6:30 in the morning. So the owner let us use her car again to reach the harbour. Thanks for all! She is very friendly and helpful with us:)
After a shower and a homemade dinner with hamburger carbonada, fruits and some biscuits we decide to go to bed. The alarm will ring early tomorrow!

Dag 4

Kystriksveien Blog - Day 4 (23/08/2012)
Good morning!!! It’s 5.15am.....zzzzz!  Wake up! You have to take the boat at 6.30am!:(
We are a bit sad to have to leave Traena Island, but we prepare everything and we drive to the little harbour. The ferry arrives at  6.30am... sharp, we are early and we are frozen because it is  windy this morning. The two tickets to Sandnessjøen are 242 NOK for students.
 
We arrive at Sandnessjøen at 9.10am. Sandnessjøen is the administrative centre of the municipality of Alstahaug in Nordland county. It is located on the island of Alsta. Hurtigruten stops here too. The most important shopping and business street starts from the harbour.

Unfortunately, when we arrive, the weather is cloudy and  windy! We decide to have a walk along the “famous” street of the  shopping but shops open at 10am and nobody is there!

We find the Tourist Information Centre and we decide to leave it ours heavy backpacks. The woman is very kind and she allows us to leave  our luggage. We can’t understand very well her English, but we ask her if it is possible to leave Sandnessjøen before 2.10pm (when the bus to Brønnøysund leaves), because we would like to visit the Petter Dass Museum which is in Alstahaug, about 20 km south of Sandnessjøen, just off Rv17.
She tells us there is only one possibility: we should take the bus at 1pm and we’ll arrive in Alstahaug at 1.35pm. We’ll take the bus to Brønnøysund from there at 2.46pm.

We follow the advice because Benny would like to see the new building even if just for one hour!
In the meanwhile the woman at the Tourist Office tells us to visit the Torolv Viking Museum, even if it is closed from July. We reach the museum in 30 mins and from here we can also see  the legendary mountains “The Seven Sisters”! (Next time we’ll want to climb all seven tops!:)

After some pictures of the ancient building covered with grass, we decide to go to the supermarket REMA1000, because we are hungry and shivering!
At 12am we come back to the Tourist Office to take our backpacks and we spend 20 mins following the sculpture trail which is in the town center,there are eight sculptures ,each of them have different stories. We get on the 1.00pm bus as planned.

Alstahaug is very nice. There are mountains, sheep and the sea! Once more, we are the only tourists! The Petter Dass Museum is a place of contrast: it consists of a yard surrounded by historical buildings and a new building, designed by Snøhetta Architects.

The parson poet Petter Dass (1647-1707) lived and worked at Alstahaug from 1689 until his death. He is considered one of the most important poets of the Norwegian realm of his time.
The church is one of seven Northern Norwegian medieval churches that have been preserved.
Unfortunately we don’t have time to visit the museum inside, but if you will visit Sandnessjøen, we advise you to go to Alstahaug!! (We like it much more than Sandnessjøen!)

After a quick tour we take the bus to Brønnøysund (tickets with student reduction are 256 NOK).
To get there we take also two ferries and we pass near “The Red Island”! (During the travel you aren’t allowed to stay in the bus ). We arrive at Brønnøysund at 5.10pm. The bus stops behind the Tourist Office and two mins walk from our Hotel, the Corner Motell. We enter the pub just under the Hotel to check-in. The hotel entrance is on the side. Our room is on the first floor, and it’s simple but clean and with private bathroom! Benny is happy because there is a hair dryer too!:)

In the mainstreet, just under the hotel, there is the Brønnøysund Messe. Before having dinner we decide to have a look inside but there is nothing special. So we decide to have dinner in the pub under the hotel, the Kred Pub. It has a rich menu of hamburgers of all sizes, from normal (100g) to huge! It is very nice and there is a billiard table too! We order two hamburgers with cheese, bacon and potatoes and a coke! They are great! Especially the potatoes “in their skins”!:P  It is quite expensive because we pay 265 NOK, but it worths it!:)

Dag 5

Kystriksveien Blog - Day 5 (24/08/2012)
Good morning! Today we wake up at 8am and we have breakfast in the common room of the hotel. The breakfast is only for us!:) We are alone! There is only a big man in the corner. A woman prepares breakfast, but she doesn’t speak English very well. We have coffee, orange juice, bread with jam, cheese, salami, yogurt! There are also fish and eggs, but we can’t eat them early in the morning!:)

After breakfast we take our backpacks and we give the room’s keys to the woman who has prepared our breakfast.
Today we want to ride to Torghatten Mountain! It is on Torget island and it is very strange because of its gap! The mountain (258 m) is approximately 15 km from Brønnøysund.

So the problem now is where we can find two bikes! We ask the Tourist Information Centre and luckily they rent bikes! The woman at the reception leads us to a nice red house, behind the main entrance, which is full of bikes!! She chooses two bikes for us and we choose two suitable helmets! Manu’s bike has also a spacious bag on the back! Ah, luckily we can leave our backpacks here! So now we have bikes and helmets, we are ready to reach Torghatten! The bikes work well even if the gears of Manu’s make a strange noise:)

A few kilometres out of the town there is a high bridge! From the top there is a splendid view of Brønnøysund and Torghatten! Unfortunately it begins to rain:( We continue riding, but we are wet! Along the road we find a small house and we decide to have a break until it stops raining!
10 mins later clouds go away and we can ride again!:) The street is very scenic: we ride near some forest, sheep and cows!

As usually we are alone, no men, no cars, no bikes!:) Great! There is almost no slope on the street, so it is quite easy to ride. There are some cycle lanes near the street too. It takes us one hour and half to reach the path!!! (but we have stopped more than once because of the rain and to take pictures:)

It’s sunny now!!:) We leave bikes and helmets near a picnic table at the beginning of the path and we start to climb. The path is easy and in the forest. We like it very much! We reach the top in 30 mins! The gap is enormous!!!!!!! We are amazed!

We read on the guide the gap is 160 m long, 25-35 m high and 12-15 m wide! There are two theories of how the gap has occurred, one imaginative and one scientific. The scientific one is that water and frost have formed the tunnel. At the time the land lay 120 metres lower than it does today, the sea carved out the gap in weak streaks of the granite!
It looks like a big cave, but the difference is that the gap passes under and through the mountain and standing from one side you can see the other!
“Unfortunately” here we are not alone...other tourists arrive!
Inside the gap there is a small wood stair. We cross the gap and we take a lot of pictures of the landscape! It is amazing!:) 
It is 12am and it’s time to go. We have to take the bus from Brønnøysund to Namsos at 2.05pm. We eat an excellent smoked salmon with bread and we ride back very fast because the road goes downhill and we scare all the sheep!:)

We arrive at 1pm! Good!:) We leave the bikes back and we take the bus to Namsos.
We take one ferry (62 NOK) and two buses (262 NOK). We arrive at Namos at 6.15pm.
Namsos is situated on the north side of the Namsen  fjord, at the mouth of the Namsen. The town with a good harbour is one of most important business centre in Central Norway. Namsos is not characterised by old style architecture because both in 1872 and 1897 there were two devastating fires and in 1940 the town centre was totally destroyed by German bombers! The city is now divided in two residential districts: in the west, the manual workers and in the east, the white collar workers.

The bus driver is very helpful and he drives us just under our hotel. (Private bus this time too!:) We buy some food for dinner and we eat it in our room.
The hotel is The Borstad, the room is very nice, clean and the bathroom is new! There are small bath soaps, three different types of towels and the hair dryer too!:) The owner asks us what time we want to have breakfast tomorrow and we feel at home!:) 

Dag 6

Kystriksveien Blog - Day 6 (25/08/2012)
This morning we have breakfast at 8.30am. The owner is waiting for us and is very kind! She offers us boiled eggs:) The common room is very nice, there are two long wood tables and only a small one. We are the only guests so we sit in the small one:) Breakfast here is fantastic!! Especially the homemade strawberry jam Benny is very fond of!:) We can also have cappuccino and hot chocolate:P 

After this energetic breakfast we go to the harbour, because our ferry to the fishing village of Sor-Gjaeslingan leaves at 09.30am. (The return tickets are 750 NOK)
We learn that at one time Sor-Gjaeslingan was the largest fishing centre south of Lofoten. In periods when the Lofoten fishing failed, the settlement could be invaded by as many as 5000 fishermen. 1200 fishing boats and 150 trading vessels could be moored in the harbour at a time. The boats were so close that it was possible to walk on them to move on the islands. The house offered accommodation for the in-coming fishermen. But not everyone returned home from their fishing expeditions. There are tales of terrible storms. In 1970s there was a general move away from the settlement.

We arrive at 10.30am and the small island is desert:) There are few houses and they are empty too. There are about ten tourists here including us! Where are all the fishermen?? We walk along the only narrow street of the island and we reach the end of the island. Along the path we find a lot of heads and crab claws!!! Maybe on this island gulls have their breakfast:) The sky today has a very strange colour and there are massive clouds!:o While we come back we meet three children near a small house who tell us something, but we don’t speak Norwegian so we just tell them hello! They are playing with a saw!!!!:o Then we visit the only open house, the butik, and we like the old furniture inside. 

The boat leaves at 12.10am but at 1pm it stops in another village for one hour.
We are in Statland, less than 30 kilometres from Namsos and today there is the Molo Market here! We have to pay 40 NOK to enter, but they give us a funny sticker to stick on! There are a lot of people and many stalls with food, drinks and craft objects. 

We taste two small rolls with black salami and cheese and Benny a small glass of orange juice Manu a coffee one! They are great! There is music and jugglers too. Try to guess? We are the only tourists among Norwegian! :) It is a very good experience and we feel a bit Norwegian too!
We would like to taste the local soup, but when we ask for the ingredients (leeks and cinnamon), we decide to taste another typical dish: a slice of bread with mayonnaise and shrimps with curry!  It tastes good!:P 

At 2.10pm the ferry leaves again and we arrive back in Namsos at 2.40pm as fixed.
In Namsos we would like to climb on the mountain in the centre of the town (Klompen), but the weather is bad so we decided to have shopping in the only “big” shopping centre of Namsos.
We come back to our hotel and we have dinner there. Tomorrow we have to reach Trondheim, but we hope it will be sunny so we could visit Namsos town centre!

Dag 7

Kystriksveien Blog - Day 7 (26/08/2012)
Today it is sunny. We have to take the bus to Steinkjer at 11.30am so after breakfast we decide to have a quick tour in the town centre. Nobody here. The streets are empty and we have the impression to be in a ghost city..

We walk to the famous Rock City Centre about the local rock music from Namsos!
Outside the Rock City Centre there is a typical rock band bus! Manu likes it:)
Inside we can only visit a small part of the centre which is free and it is always open. Here we read about the famous Namsos rock band: The Prudence! (The bus outside was their!)
 
At about 11am we come back to the hotel to take our backpacks. We walk near the main church of Namsos and we see a few inhabitants with traditional clothes,they are going to the church.
The church of Namsos has been built four times in the same place in the town centre. 

At 11.30am we take the bus and on board we are alone... no, there is also a boy with us!! How strange??:) Tickets with student discounts are 124 NOK. We arrive at Steinkjer at 12.55. The bus stops in front of the railway station. It’s perfect because now we have to take the train to Trondheim. We buy tickets from the automatic machine (302 NOK with student discount). The train leaves at 1.28pm and we arrive at 3.32pm.
A useful tip: on board of Norwegian train you can use free internet wifi!:)

We stay here one night. Tomorrow we have to take the fly to Bergen and then from there the two buses to Haugesund Airport... yes tomorrow we will be back in Italy and we are very sad!!!:(
The P-Hotel is just outside the railway station. The room is big and new. After a hot shower we decide to have a trip in the town centre.
Trondheim is very nice and cute! We like it very much! Maybe the nicest city we have visited in Norway. Trondheim has 180 000 inhabitants  and it’s a university’s city! That’s way there are a lot of young people here and many restaurants and shops. It looks like a lively city!:)
 
We go to the bryggen and we find a pub where we decide to eat! It’s the “Den Gode Nabo” and it’s all wood made and it’s under an old house. If you don’t see it, go down the stairs and open the door!:) Inside it’s very characteristic, there are a lot of hanging things and there is a bit dark inside but the atmosphere is great! There are other people who are eating. We choose a table in front of a window and it’s fantastic: the sun rays are hitting us. Manu orders a hamburger with french chips and Benny the hot dish of the day which is smoked salmon with vegetables and boiled potatoes! (315 NOK...ah!!!) The dishes are delicious!!!!:)
 
After the good dinner we want to see the famous Cathedral of Nidaros. It is very beautiful and we read that Nidaros was the old name of Trondheim.   Now it is getting freezing because it’s windy! So we come back to the hotel and we take some pictures of the nice harbour. 
Thanks to Norway, its inhabitants, nature and animals we have had a cool and amusing summer holiday! Norway will be always in our heart and we are planning a future journey in this “fairy tale” country!:)

Eating in Norway

Even if you have just stepped in Norway from a few minutes, if you have already got hungry, probably you have already tasted it: eating is very expensive here!

If you are young and you do not have (want) to spend much money, forget restaurants and pubs (yes, unfortunately they are expensive too) for a while and focus on supermarkets!In our opinion, the most common and convenient discounts (rabatt) n Norway are: REMA 1000, Bunnpris, Joker and Coops. Opening hours are written in large letters beside the banner of stores (between brackets are Saturday (Lørdag) times) and vary considerably from place to place: from 7-23 to 10-18.

Because you are young and you have little money, you will travel mostly by bus and on foot and you will sleep most of the time in cheap hostels. Only some hostels have a common kitchen and some do not even have a microwave oven. So you will need much cold and ready food, you will need a lot of sandwiches!

In Norway there are very few bakeries, but supermarkets have a wide choice of bread (brød) and many of them have also special self-service machines for cutting it into slices!

Since salmon (laks) is the king of Norwegian freshwaters, you will find it smoked (røkt) at a very good price in convenient vacuum packs perfect for 2/3 tasty sandwiches!Always regarding sandwiches a very good and slow cost sliced cheese (ost) is the popular Norvegia.
To drink ... water (vann)! But you do not have to spend on this, because water is drinkable (drikking) everywhere in Norway.