Thursday, September 18, 2008

Renting a car in Norway, 09-06-08.

That´s right! Serge and I rented a car!
As we were walking back to the hostel last night, we decided to go ahead and find out about renting a car. We went to the car rental place and the price was affordable split between two people, so we decided to rent one. The man working let us take the car only a few minutes after we walked in. It is a strange thing to rent a car in Norway. Neither Serge or myself had to show any sort of ID at all and he only took Serge´s mailing address and stamped his credit card. No signing papers, or any sort of thing. It was awesome!
The drive was fantastic. Today is easily the best day of my trip thus far. The scenery was the most spectacular I have ever seen and I felt like I was either on top of the world or on a different planet. The water glowed in its pureness and the mountain heights gleamed in the sun. There are stories about the trolls living in Norway, in the hills, forests and mountains. After today, it is easy to understand why a person could believe in such a thing. There is something really magical about Norway. 
We started our drive by going up Trollstigen Road (Norway´s most dramatic mountain road!). As the road winds up the mountain, there are spectacular views of waterfalls and the valley below. My favorite part was the top of the road. It feels like the top of the world and no other place I have ever been. After driving up the road, we continued to the other side of the mountains where we put the car on a ferry and found our way to Geirangerfjord, one of the best and most visited fjords in Norway. I found the top of Trollstigen better... so we continued on until we found ourselves next to a toll road winding up. We decided to take the mystery road and see where we ended up. We could not have guessed we would end up on top of the world, again (only this time for real). 
It was an incredible day, filled with such vivid colors and landscapes. I will have to let my photos attempt to describe it better.
Definitely the best day yet.

1 comment:

Ms Gloria S said...

speaking of scandinavian folklore, i totally understand what you mean when you say the landscape is enough to make you believe in trolls, fairies, and the like. when grace and i were in iceland, it almost felt silly to NOT be looking for them!