What started uncomfortable in many ways turned out to be the greatest holiday I ever had. The ride from Hønefoss to Bergen was absolutely breath taking - simply unbelieveable.
I took the E 7 through the Hallingdal, which leads you through fjords and slowly ascends towards the Hallingkarvet. On the way I passed Gol, my first Stave church, it is a reconstruction, the original is in the Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo. The interior is not painted, unlike the original, but there's a great smell of wood instead. The accoustics is neglectable (they tried to undo that with a gothic-chants CD, very funny). It's a very cosy little church, but unfortunately totally secured with alarm and two guys sitting at the gate-house that's on the village-side of the huge fence they built around it. Thank you Varg!

My first pictures were taken on the ride through the Hallingkarvet - that's an almost surrealistic area! First you pass a high-valley that's fully orange, no higher plants there, rather mosses and small naked bushes, a lake in the middle and wild clouds in the mountains far behind the scenery; smell of snow and a strong wind keep you from staying too long outside the car....the atmosphere of the light was undescribeable, much better than in Braveheart's best sequences. This was real!
As time was passing and darkness spread it's tentacles - dawn comes earlier in the North - I hurried to get further. But still I had to stop every 10 miles to have a closer look, no car, nothing crossed my way - I was all alone up there - great, just THE feeling for someone who grew up in the mountains and is forced to live in a 1,6 million city.
And the air was as clean as can be.

Needless to say that all these savage sceneries are perfectly supported by an accurate music, what's better than experiencing such a landscape with Mardraum or Eld from Enslaved or the Welkins-masterpiece from Emperor, Satyricon's Shadowthrone or even Ulver's William Blake's Theme - or simply some symphonies from Wagner....in the end it feels like flying....

After Steinbergdalen (what a great name) I thought it can't be too long anymore....what an illusion! Now it only just began!
The road became narrower after every curve, it went downhill in hairpin bends - a hard job with a heavy long hearse, I often was in the middle of the road (there wasn't much 'left' and 'right' anyway - rocks reaching into the road and anyone crossing my way would have driven into me - but nothing happened.
After that came Aurland - another incredible landscape, naked crippeled trees, all white on the windy side and black-red-grey on the other side, thus the complete valley changed it's colour as I travelled through: At the "entrance" it was bonish white from the eroded and worn down woods and as I had my last look back in the end it was all completely black, no trees remarkable.The whole phenomenon being situated on a dead-flaming ground along with the breaking dawn made it look really scary, just my thing!

Not enough - between Flam and Stalheim (good bandname by the way...) I went through at least 30 tunnels!! But tunnels - not like the usual european tunnels, no - they looked as if the driller-crew had just taken a little noon-break. The ground was totally uneven, rocks still reached into the road, no light (who needs that...) all going up and down and narrow curves all over, like madness - sometimes I really had to drive with 15 km (!) That was an adventurous ride through that area! No good is listening to Motörhead in such situations - it makes you drive much too fast...Sometimes I came out of one tunnel - 25 meters of free space - but what a space! Waterfalls dashing down from one side, and a black fjord-gorge with silver water opening to the other side, this country is kissed by the Gods, one can see it everywhere. Of course I stopped there, too, but as it was a singletrack road (..!..) I didn't want to risk anything as down here the cars were more frequent - so unfortunately no photos from that spot.

Once - after a neverending curve inside a dark tunnel I finally saw the daylight again - but it looked as if I was driving right into the grey sky! Approaching nearer I saw what happened - even worse - I was at the very top of one side of the cliffs of a fjord (.....) and I had to go straight down there to the water-level, that must have been more than 1000 meters below (.....it looked absolutely scary, I can stand extreme heights, but combined with the twilight, this thrilling view to the far away green-grey water down there, the rude steep road AND the hearse it was breath taking.....).
Heff, how happy I was when I arrived in the village without burning brakes.

The dawn was very slow down there (or maybe I just drove too fast), so I reached Voss by dim light (great atmospheric light there as the darkness came) and so I could drive into Bergen still on that day.
On that very first day I found out why one shouldn't drive at night in Norway - there's no streetlight, the road changes constantly and the weather is absolutely tricky - so if you don't know the way by heart better stay for the night and continue by daylight.....

That hell-ride must have provoqued more adrenaline than all youngsters could take over the border in XTC, speed or other nonsense....