Hiking Preikestolen

by Jul 6, 2014100 Things, Europe, Norway2 comments

Our last trip to Norway was in the winter and was to Tromso way up in the arctic circle with snow, sunsets at 2pm and the northern lights.  We fell in love with the place and had been wanting to go back since and one of the items on our 100 things list gave us the perfect reason to go in spring: 78. Check out the view from Preikestolen cliff in Norway Arriving on Friday night, we had our usual issue with getting off the bus at the right stop.  The announcements were all in Norwegian and it was dark so we couldn’t read any signs but we managed it eventually.  I had planned ahead and had the simple directions on how to get to our hotel printed out but it didn’t save us from spending half an hour getting lost.  Turned out we had taken all the right turns but had walked right past the big red carpet outside our clearly signposted Hotel. At least we got a bit of a tour of the town. Our room turned out great, it even had a fire going which we couldn’t figure out how to turn off.  We did figure out that it was fake after touching the cool glass in front of it. Fireplace in our hotel There was one main reason we were in Stavanger so we got up early the next day to set out for our big day of hiking.  The day started with a ferry ride to Tau from where we caught the bus to the start of the track. Ferry to Tau We got a great day for it with the sun shining without it being too hot.  Walking the actual track was great.  The track is a mix of boulders, wooden tracks, steep bits, gradual bits and the steep uphill bits never tend to go on for too long.  There was also some beautiful spots on the walk to relax by lakes and lookouts. Hiking to preikestolen Hiking to preikestolen Hiking to preikestolen Hiking to preikestolen The real prize of the walk was when we got to the Preacher’s rock at the top, over 600 metres above Lysefjord Fiord below. Sweaty from the hike up Hiking to preikestolen preikestolen At the top
preikestolen

Trying to appear like I’m not terrified of heights!

I read afterwards that the crack through the rock plateau will one day break off.  Geologists are just happy that for now, it breaking off is still a long way away.  I wouldn’t like to be up there when that does happen though! preikestolen After our tiring hike, we spent the rest of our time in Stavanger taking it easy.  We walked around the quiet old town area, ate some good food and finally managed to make some progress on the wedding planning (apparently the best spot for it is relaxing in a cafe with Wifi and nothing else to distract us for a few hours). Stavanger Stavanger
Stavanger

Stavanger Old Town

So after our second trip to Norway we fell even more in love with the country.  It is just as impressive in warm weather as it is in cold and the people, food and landscape are sure to draw us back there again sometime soon!  
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