We started out early in order to have a little souvenier shopping, before reaching our plane. On the way to the airport, we found vhal chocolate factory. Yummy… they had a little shop beside the production hall where you could buy choclate packed in 1kg packs. Guess who’s still smiling.

The filght was all right and the transit from Frankfurt Hahn took longer than expected, but therefore the bus stopped right at Offenbach – Home sweet home.

From Risor, we needed to get a bit nearer to the airport of Trop, where we had to be on friday. We decided to try our luck at Larvin, right there, where our journey started 10 days before. We were lucky and managed to find the camping site, where we initially booked a cabin that we couldn’t take, due to the ferry being canceled. It turned out to be a huge camping site, the biggest so far.

Dropping off our luggage and driving back to Stavern, the nearby city. At first it seemed to be THE tourist town, but than we found the nearby fort and discovered a great swimming site, right beside it. Not having any trunks with us, we headed back to Solplassen Og Rakke Camping (at least I believe this was it) and took our chances there. Surpringsinly, the camping site is located at the same bay, as the fort and as we where enjoying the fresh water, a colorline ferry passed by to enter Larvik harbor. Another sign, that our holiday was almost over.

After dinner we went down to the water again and climbed along the shore. A gull was flying by, crying all the time above us. A few steps further, we found the reason: its offstping was sitting on a rock nearby.

Further on the route along the south shore of Norway, we reached Risor, which is called the pearl of Norway. Nice little white town, with and ancient church, a harbor right in the city center where people drop by via boat, do their shopping and drive off again. The girls went shopping as well, where as Koeby and me took took our position at the harbor and tried to get some decent shots of gulls flying by – yeah right, I am obsessed with picturing sea gulls, got me.

At about 5pm we went back to camping and put on our bathing suits just to find out, that the water there was not the best. Anayway, it was quite refreshing. Noodles for dinner with a long round of cards was the end of the day.

Almost! Although the south of norway is still beyond the Arctic circle, the sun hardly sinks. At about midnight there is still a blue shine on the horizion. Off course I had to take pictures.

After a tasty breakfast we went down the southern route and stopped at Lilesand, another beatyfull cute town wich seemed to be older and more naturally grown than Mandal. We parked at the old chappel and strolled through the city, bought some Rekker (shrimps) and drove further to a camping site near Grimstad and got nice cabin, atop a hill with view over the bay.

We spend the rest of the day bathing and liming in the sun. After dinner, we went down to the bay and fed some craps and fishes with the rekker heads. Nice place… worth a visit.

We hit the E38 and followed it until we reached Mandal, where we got a real apartment, with water inside the cab and a sleeping room on the second floor at Sjosanden. Not quite cheap, but still reasonable for the features. The whole camping site felt like being in south France, with its stone pines all over the place and its sandy beach.

From that day on our trip turned into a real holiday – at temperatures at about 25 degree celsius and a merciless sun burning down at us for almost 20 hours a day, we agreed that we wouldn’t put on our heavy boots and climb some mountain under such circumstances. Instead we went to the city center of Mandal, a beautifully small town, with white wooden houses. Softice was inevitable.

That evening, we went down to the beach again…

Puhhh… the bed was once again not made for me. I may sound a little picky here, but I just can’t sleep very well, when I sink into the mattress about 3 inches. Hell, I thought I drown in that thing. So this morning getting up was twice as hard, as we decided to set our alarm clocks earlier than usual.

Today is Preikestolen day. The big plateau, that leaps 605m above the sea, with its steep walls. You can look directly from the top to the sea below. To get there, you need to overcome some 2 hours march on rocky ground, with little climbing passages and off course vise versa to get back to the starting point. Weather was mixed, mostly cloudy and on the way back, we had some rain, turning all stones into little slides. More than one time people fell due to slippery stones.

It is remarkable what kind of people with what kind of footwear tries to reach Preikestolen. A sign right at the parking lot says, that you shouldn’t go with high heels. “Sure thing”, you think and than, while rain keeps pouring down, some Spanish family passes you by, womens dressed in mini-skirts, blouse and high heels or Havaianas pass you by. One can only wonder, if they ever reached the plateau.

The site itself is impressive. 600m above the sea and right a the branch of Lysefjorden, you get a nice view. Sadly it was very cloudy and started to rain, when we were there. Anyway, a nice spot, worth the visit.

Although quite tired we only took a short stop at our apartment, to change the wet cloth, we went to an old mill in Tau, where every Sunday, is a an exhibition of local artists, along with tasty waffles, coffee and cake.

We started out early and spend the whole day in the car. The weather was perfect and several ferries and winding roads later, we reached the little city of Tau. We chartered a house… yes, no cabin this time, as we found no free one. Koeby called one camping site after breakfast, but no chance. All cabines gone. We were lucky we found that appartment, although the price is double as much as we payed for the cabines.

But we got seperate bedrooms, a porch, a real kitchen and a real bath with water, direct out of the faucet. Pure luxury!

When we arrived at half past four, we took a little walk to the nearby harbor. Back at our new castle, Nadine made some mexicane food and we chilled thorugh the evening, and played cards.

Bergen. The weather was bad for most of the day fulfilling the prognoses that Bergen has 260 days of rain during a year. Bahh! Guess we were lucky as we had times where it was not raining and in the evening the sun came out for the rest of the day. Lucky us!

The fishmarket was nice. All kinds of sea dwellers and tourists. Brygge, the ancient city center that was completely burned down and rebuild had many souvenir shops and much more tourists from all countries of the world – at least it appeared to be so. I discovered some great street art – see for yourself .

After a massive city tour we came to rest in a cute little cafe called Vagen feevare where I had access to the internet. Happy to upload my notes to my blog I had to find out that they were gone. Shitty windows trashed my file while saving it to my SD card on my eee. Next holiday I will put Tiger on it. So I used the free inet access to skype my friends at home. Flip told me that he has added me to his blogroll which gives me a hugh boost googlewise. Thanks for that, man. Now that I have rewritten all my report it is half past 11 already and the sky is as blue as if it is just about 6 in the evening. Let’s see if the others are up for another round of cards.

The first bed that meet my requirements, but sleeping with an open window and a small river right beside the house made us visit the toilet pretty often. At 4 a clock we reached Bergen, after traveling by two fairies and passing another spectacular waterfall. The road was narrow and with lots of serpentines, so it took more time than we expected for 60km.

At around 4pm we reached Nesttuns Grimme Camping and got a cabin right away. Although weather was not that good, we took the track on the other roadside of the camping site and went up winding path along an ancient railway. On our descend we found a tunnel and with a vivid memory of “Stand by me” on our minds, we stepped in it and took some pictures. Turned out that it was not that long.

In the opposite direction from our camping ground was nothing special, but a nice place where some big rocks reached into the fjord. The rest of the evening we spent playing cards, completely forgetting about the time and as it never gets really dark during the summer month we went to bed very late…or early.

Completely crushed! Sofas are not made for sleeping, I can tell you. Maybe the wine had something to do with it…. nahhh, not really. I got up at 5.pm and took my camerabag and started a little exploration along the fjord. A reindeer family that saw me coming, ran back into the deeper woods.

Breakfast and we hit the road towards Bergen. Along the route E134 we passed snowfields of Kaldvassrusta, twin waterfalls and and found a cabin at Hildal camping, at the beginning of the Sorfjorden which is the “fruitbasket” of Nowegen. Because of its north/south alignment the temperatures are mild which bestow the region alot of excotic fruits.

A little chat with the concierge at Hildal camping revealed that we can’t get near the big waterfall on the opposite site, but there is another one right behind the camping site. We took both trips and she was right. We only got a little bit closer to the big one, and the path leading there was a little adventure. Climbing rocks, passing sheeps and lofty, old bridges. In the end, other spot was much nicer. A bridge spanning right over the big spot. I climbed directly near it, hence crawling over slippery stones with a 15m something drop and tons of water. Nadine was not amused, but the pictures will be good.