Day 8 - The "Magic Roads" Indeed

Today, we had a late start and got to go to the nice Bakeri in town for some almond croissants and cappuccinos (did not open until 10am) to get ready for exploring the so called "magic roads"around this area. Worth the wait.

As we headed out of town and the Jurassic park valley, we had to go through an 11km tunnel and then take a ferry to cross one of the many fjords around here ... a well hidden town and valley.  

And, then the magic started.  At first, we rode along the water seeing your typical waterfalls all over, quaint towns here and there, blue and green and turquoise water, and rivers ... then we started climbing throughs switchbacks and narrowing roads as trees began to disappear and lakes and rock began to dot the landscape.  It is hard to describe the awe that this "magic road" inspired ... at a minimum we can officially confirm that these roads are indeed one of kind (like the dolomites but better : ) ... and traffic was minimal which made the ride even more special.

We then began the incredible and hypnotic descent into the town of Geiranger and the beginning of the Geiranger fjord ... as good as it gets again!  After the high-fives and big smiles at the bottom ... we realized we were exhausted and that our hotel was not in this town as we thought ... we had missed out turn and our hotel was still 1.5 hours of riding away ... back the steep switchbacks we had just ridden coming down.

Richard and Chris/Dana decided to try to reach our hotel and got started for the additional 1.5 hour ride almost immediately ... Andy/Alicia and Rene/Pam decided to have a drink first, relax a bit, enjoy the town, the people, sitting on the deck of a bar overlooking the fjord ... sometime after the first drink ... and with a nice hotel behind us, we decided to try our luck and see if we could just stay here for the night ... everything was booked but apparently we managed to get the last 2 rooms in the whole area!

We checked in, had a nice dinner by the water, and went for a walk around town ... and climbed the steep uphill river walk to our hotel ... very cool.  Ultimately, a long and very fulfilling day.  The universe is at peace and all is good.

Tomorrow, we head to Alesund and rejoin the rest of the group.

Laerdal ... a quaint old Norwegian village

The culture center in Laerdal with its grass roof

Our first ferry of the day

Barely caught it as it was departing

A series of beautiful pictures of Norway

The view from the deck of the lodge where we were sitting having a drink

Having a drink enjoying the glaciers

This is what the Porsche car guys do in this area around May ... drive amazing roads after freshly clearing them of snow 

Our spot for some tea and juice and a great view of the glaciers

A view of the many glaciers we saw on our "magic route"

The Lom Stavkyrkje built around the year 1100 in Lom where we stopped for lunch

Enjoying a drink at the start of the Geiranger fjord ... after realizing we missed our turn about 1.5 hours ago ... oh well : )

Our place for dinner in Geiranger at the water front

A final view of the Geiranger fjord as we climbed the river walk to our hotel

There is an old car museum in our hotel in Geiranger