Day 6 – Fjord & Food Day in Norway ! – the heart as it is

We originally had no car rentals at all for Norway but ended up opting for a 1 day car rental this day. Our car rental in Norway was probably the most expensive of all our countries, and our usually reliable Hertz had terrible reviews in Bergen, so we decided to go with a more highly rated locally run business. There was a bus that ran from our AirBnB area to right in front of the car rental company, so that was very convenient. We had the chance to drive a fully electric car for the first time !

Our plan was just to go to one nearby fjord, Nærøyfjord, by Gudvangen, which was a little over 2 hours away from Bergen. The drive up was also absolutely stunning. The hills were so lush and there were so many beautiful bodies of water. The rest stops were also right by incredible places:

This particular machine at our first rest stop was also very unique as I had never seen anything like it before. You could purchase a frozen meal, and then this black compartment area had a microwave that you could use to warm up the meal:

I ended up getting these chocolate pretzels at the vending machine next to that microwave one:

After that rest stop, we arrived at the fjord ! The parking area itself was already really amazing, as you could see 3 big waterfalls cascading from a giant mountain right in front of it:

We had bought some sandwiches and wraps from the local grocery store yesterday to have lunch at the fjord. Here were all my photos right where the fjord was:

We also tried looking for a short hiking trail where we could get a little bit higher to see more of the fjord. Unfortunately, I think because of recent rains the trail was blocked by so many fallen trees, making it impossible to reach the end of it. We still got to see the 3 parking lot waterfalls from a slightly higher view though, and the trail itself that we got to hike on was also nice:

After spending a little around 2 hours here, we started our drive back to the city. We had passed by this other rest stop with a huge waterfall which we later learned was called Tvindefossen (also pictured here are smaller waterfalls from the river it flows into):

Here are other remaining photos from the drive that day:

We thankfully returned the rental car much earlier than we had planned, and hoped to take the same bus back to our AirBnB but realized there were delays across all public transport as we had to walk 12 minutes in the rain to another bus stop, and then wait 10+ minutes for a tram to arrive (they usually come every 5 minutes).

When we finally arrived back in the city, we wanted to find a place that served Norwegian food and ended up with Pingvinen/Frk Schmidt. My husband and his brother ordered a meatball dish and I ordered this dish that was like mashed potatoes mixed with cod. We also tried reindeer together for the first time. I’m glad I tried it but I also probably will not go out of my way to try it again (maybe I would in a jerky form though):

I also finally started to take the beginnings of my city shots (mostly just featuring flowers) on my DSLR this day too after returning from the fjord :

And this was a shot I took on my phone around 11:30 pm ! Yes, the sun would set but its sunlight would not fully disappear on this side of the earth. It would stay at this level of “darkness” until about 4 am ish I think, and then become really bright again: