The Road to Stavanger (via Haugesund)

After a huge breakfast at the hotel in Bergen this morning, we hit the road again. The rain showed up overnight and Bergen isn’t nearly as sweet when it’s all wet. Bergen gets more rain than any other city in Norway, so we were extremely lucky yesterday to have clear skies. We enjoyed the city very much and I’d highly recommend it to anyone visiting Norway – just don’t bring a car. We spent more on parking the car for one night than we usually spend on a hotel in The States. We also had to pay a six dollar a day fee to have the car in the city because we hadn’t taken off our winter snow tires. There was a place, as we were entering the city, all visitors had to pull over and buy something like a parking ticket to keep on the dashboard to show the fee was paid. (Snow tires are allowed in Norway until after Easter and we kept ours on because we didn’t know all the road conditions we’d be encountering.) I guess the locals have to pay their studded tire fee some other way, but the little ticket booth was an interesting way for collecting what amounts to another tax. The studded snow tires do take their toll on the roads here, however. Whenever we walk across a road, it feels like walking on waves as the concrete definitely has grooves from all the wear. And in the tunnels there is always a kind of “fog” in the winter that is the fragments of pavement being chewed up by all the snow tires. (Sometimes it’s incredibly thick “fog.”) So keeping roads in decent shape in Norway is an expensive proposition. It’s easy to understand why all the fees are so high. We crossed dozens of bridges today and most of the tolls were around $15, but they were still cheaper than the ferries, which were around $50. Our money just evaporated. There is no such thing as a “free way” in Norway. Some of the tunnels we went through were over four miles long – all under the sea – which give me the creeps every time.

Kory read about a church that was built in 982AD by Olav Trygvesen (the Viking king that brought Christianity to Norway), and it holds the title as the oldest continuously used church in this country. We went a little out of our way to see it but it didn’t make for any impressive pictures because there was scaffolding wrapped around it for the new layer of plaster being applied. Oh well. And it was closed (on a Sunday, no less.) We did find a church not too far away where we stopped for a picnic lunch, however. A lot of churches here have picnic tables near them so it makes for a nice break.

I must say the scenery heading south is far from impressive. It reminds me somewhat of the Greek Islands – just rocks and a few scrub bushes here and there. The only thing that makes this area attractive is what “man” has done to it. A cute little red boat house sitting right at the edge of the water is nice, as are all the very long, and extremely old rock fences lining the fields. There are not many farms in this area as the rocks are more plentiful than even the most optimistic person could deal with, but in the areas there are farms, they had to put all the rocks somewhere when they were clearing the field, so they make for nice borders. We saw rock cabins, rock boat houses and rock sheds all over the place. I’m sure there is some book somewhere something along the lines of “101 Ways to Cook Chicken”, only it’s “101 Things to do with all the Rocks in Your Yard,” as there were plenty of them. The Bible says something like “if my people will not praise me, the rocks will cry out.” This would be one noisy place if that every happened.

We took the main road south to Stavanger but detoured through Haugesund, just to see what it looked like. It should be LaConner’s sister city (see photo), as it has old buildings along the main drag, a channel, and even a “Rainbow Bridge.” But they are one step ahead in Haugesund as they have a wonderful boardwalk running all along the water front, which makes for a lovely Sunday afternoon stroll (La Conner is working on that idea, I’ve heard). Kory and I got a cup of coffee and sat by on a bench looking at all the old boats and buildings lining the waterway – it’s a very quaint town. Being Sunday, it was a ghost town though as nothing is open but a few restaurants on the waterfront. I liked it just fine that way.

It’s about five hours between Bergen and Stavanger, but we took all day to reach our destination. We arrived in Stavanger at dinner time and drove around a little looking for our hotel. This town is incredibly cute and I can’t wait to explore it. The hotel receptionist said everyone has left town for Easter vacation, so it will be interesting to see what tomorrow is like. The only voices we heard at the restaurant where we ate dinner were the voices of Americans. This town is definitely a vacation destination kind of place. I feel so lucky.