My parents were able to come visit my for my Easter break! They obviously wanted to see around Trondheim and get a feel for where I’m living, but we also planned a trip Ålesund and Geirangerfjord. The first couple days they were here we wandered around Trondhiem and I brought them to my university NTNU and my apartment. After that we left for a road trip around Norway. In the Google map below I added our route as well as a few of the major places we visited.

The first day of the trip we decided to take the inland route to our cabin. It’s a bit longer than going along the coast, but it goes through some incredible mountain ranges. The morning we were supposed to leave it snowed almost 6 inches overnight! Luckily the worst of it was just around my apartment. Trondheim central and just outside of the city barely had any snow. One of the pictures actually shows the line where the snow ended. We were going down the highway when we saw a very definite line where the snow ended. For a while we were driving where there was a lot of snow on one side of the highway and none on the other. The highlight of the trip for me was the area near Trollveggen or The Troll Wall. This whole section of road had huge rocky cliffs on either side. Somehow they were able to fit not only a road, but a few villages and farms in the narrow canyon. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. Our cabin was very nice. We were lucky enough to get upgraded to a cabin that had beds for 8 people since it was the off season. The drive took around 5 hours.

Ålesund

The next day we visited Ålesund. Ålesund is a small city split between several islands that look like the exposed tops of undersea mountains. In typical Norwegian fashion they have massive tunnels connecting the islands that make up the city with one tunnel that is just over 2 miles long. We spent the morning wandering around downtown wandering around the water front area. In the afternoon we climbed up Aksla. It is very close to the center of town with a very steep trail up the hill. At the top there is a really cool overlook of the city. Afterwards we went to another big mountain on the other side of town, Sukkertoppen. It was cloudy and a bit windy all day, but by the time we got to the top of Sukkertoppen it was was really windy. There were a few times we had to stop climbing and just wait for a big gust of wind to pass so we didn’t lose our balance. It was a nice climb though with a great view of the area.

Geiranger

As we drove to Geiranger the hills we were driving on kept getting bigger and bigger. Geiranger is difficult to get to during the winter and several roads do not reopen until May. The final descent down the mountain to Geiranger is series of switch backs with farms somehow squeezed onto the hillside between each step. When we stopped at the lookout at the top it was dizzying how high up you are. It was hard to get a feel for it until we looked at the tiny town, houses, and cars way down below. Unfortunately Geiranger is really only open during the summer and we were about two weeks too early. There was only one shop open in the town and almost nobody there. It was also nice though because having to pass tour busses and tons of cars on the switchbacks could get pretty scary.

Back to Trondheim

On our trip back to Trondheim we took a coastal route and went on The Atlantic Road. The Atlantic Road is a series of bridges that bounces between a series of tiny islands along the coast. It was perfectly sunny (finally) for our drive back so we stopped many times on the way back to wander around. The next day was the last full day my parents had in Norway. We once again wandered around Trondheim since the weather was a lot nicer than earlier in the week. I rode back to the airport hotel with my parents and went to a great pizza restaurant with them before saying goodbye. They were leaving early in the morning so I wouldn’t be able to spend any time with them on their last day here. I had a really great time while they were here and I’m really glad they were able to visit! It went by too fast!

The gallery below should be in chronological order and I tried to describe things well so hopefully it is not too hard to match up with the map and text!