Norway

[David Ashcroft]

Hi Simo, we’re still heading north ! Starting from Rotterdam we took the ferry from Hirtshals to Kristiansand and visited Preikestolen, Bergen and the main fjords. All local ferries are “turn up and go” (typically 150NOK each time), longer fjord ferries are bookable on line. We’ve used Gudvangen to Kauperanger and Hellesylt to Geiranger both booked the day before and are to be recommended. The Trollstigen is fabulous. The Visitnorway website is a good place to start, from here you can buy excellent detailed maps of the entire coast line complete with guide book. We also bought “Camping in Norway” from the same site which has so far proven to be most useful. There’s also an app called Camper contact which shows places to park overnight for free, this has also been useful. Roads are excellent, fuel is a similar price to the uk but food and alcohol is expensive - 500 NOK for two portions of fish and chips in Bergen- that’s about £50 ! There’s a multi-storey car park near the railway station in Bergen that easily accommodates Californias- although nerve wracking!
We pre-registered our Cali on the Euro Parking Collection website to cover the toll roads.
We’ll definitely get as far north as the Arctic circle, hopefully the Lofoten islands too.
Haven't yet met anyone who doesn’t speak English. Best advice is to get over here, the people are friendly and the country is spectacular. Enjoy.

Update:
We went up road 17 from Trondheim up to Bodo. If I did it again I would cut out the southern part and join around Mo I Rana (although the Torghatten is worth a visit and Torghatten camping is excellent). All ferries are turn up and go but they do slow you down if timings are out. From Bodo we took the E-6, to Bognes from where we got the ferry to Lødingen on the Lofoten islands.
Nusfjord is recommended by all the travel guides, I would head for Henningsvær instead which is much better.
Once off the islands we spent time in Narvik which is certainly not a tourist town but you can take a spectacular train ride from there to Riksgränsen just over the Swedish border. Well worth the trip.
After using road 17 on our northerly journey we’ve used the E-6, coming south. What a magnificent road this is, well made with stunning scenery. The Arctic Circle center is worth a visit but it’s not much more than a gift shop.
So, over 4 weeks we’ve travelled from Rotterdam to Narvik and back. Lots of driving and would have preferred to take longer but we’ve cruised on fjords, climbed preikestolen, seen the northern lights 3 times and met lovely, friendly people. We’ve even stayed on closed campsites for free with the owner’s permission. A wonderful country !

 

[Amarillo]

Update:
We went up road 17 from Trondheim up to Bodo. If I did it again I would cut out the southern part and join around Mo I Rana (although the Torghatten is worth a visit and Torghatten camping is excellent). All ferries are turn up and go but they do slow you down if timings are out. From Bodo we took the E-6, to Bognes from where we got the ferry to Lødingen on the Lofoten islands.
Nusfjord is recommended by all the travel guides, I would head for Henningsvær instead which is much better.
Once off the islands we spent time in Narvik which is certainly not a tourist town but you can take a spectacular train ride from there to Riksgränsen just over the Swedish border. Well worth the trip.
After using road 17 on our northerly journey we’ve used the E-6, coming south. What a magnificent road this is, well made with stunning scenery. The Arctic Circle center is worth a visit but it’s not much more than a gift shop.
So, over 4 weeks we’ve travelled from Rotterdam to Narvik and back. Lots of driving and would have preferred to take longer but we’ve cruised on fjords, climbed preikestolen, seen the northern lights 3 times and met lovely, friendly people. We’ve even stayed on closed campsites for free with the owner’s permission. A wonderful country !

We took 11 weeks to complete *The Baltic Loop*: from Calais, through Belgium, Netherlands, Germany to Denmark. North through Sweden, into Norway avoiding Oslo to Bergen, then more or less tracking the coast to Bodo. Ferry to Å then north east to Nordkapp, northern coast road then into Finland. South to Helsinki, ferry to Tallinn, through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Luxembourg, France to Calais.

The seemingly endless forests of Finland were a bit boring, but other than that a wonderfully varied and interesting trip.

 

[clarinetbcn]

Thanks, yes preferably sites off the camp grounds. Have tried Skogtun camping on sorta which is nice, but like to find our own spots

I have found the park4night app to be a lifesaver for wild camping in Scotland, and it seems to give information about Norway when I use the search function.