Monday 14 October

Breakfast was not as wonderful as some reviews I read at time of booking, but adequate if not a bit ‘measured’.  There was a nice scrambled egg, and some hard boiled halves.  The fish roe paste, fresh tomatoes and cucumber.  Norwegian brown cheese with walnuts and grapes make a good combination that I have developed a liking for. It did not have a wide variety of continental meats, and had a cheaper grade of salmon cuts than I would have expected.  Cereals and fruit limited to apples… and small cheap croissants and boring cake. Coffee and juice self serve machine and average.

Reception sorted our room, and with some encouragement offered us a one night cheaper rate down from 2,200 nok, to 1,400 nok and a waiver of 400 nok cleaning fee on the apartment. Our apartment is semi Robruer style in a converted ex. fishermans accommodation. The bathroom was as impractical as the hotel room, the kitchen very basic, and the bedroom ridiculously small. With no exaggeration, we both had to shuffle sideways to get down the side of the bed to hop in. On the plus side, the bed is super comfortable and the water view out of the apartment to the little harbour is very nice.  

The weather was mostly cloudy with some drizzle however not too much wind, so we planned to go as far south as Ao and visit the jewel in the crown village of Reine.  We saw some lovely reflections in the water as we drove around fjords, lowland water areas, saw multiple waterfalls cascading down the sheer rocks, and passed through a few tunnels under the big mountains.

We stopped at Ramberg for a cuppa and nice Kannelsnurrer (twisted cinnamon bun) that was still a bit warm and quite delicious, and paused at two other particularly pretty spots

Flagstadveien and Skagsanden beach where there were some keen surfers.  We were delighted at one point when there was enough light to illuminate the water to a lovely pale aqua green.

When we got to Reine the weather was dark and bleak with rain and wind.  We checked the weather app and it indicated a clear break coming through, before more rain. We waited it out in the car park whilst sipping comforting hot chocolate from our ‘Thermousse’ and nibbling parmesan flavoured Swedish potato chips.  When our break came, we went for a quick walk taking in the spectacular craggy mountains, picturesque red, mustard, and white houses reflecting the autumn foliage colour.

It occurred to me that the house colours reflected the autumn colours perfectly. Autumn must be the most colourful time of year here, and iI wondered if it was deliberate to choose the colours to reflect the nature around them? Even the roofs are painted rock grey.

As the weather had packed in again and light was quickly fading, we abandoned going to Ao, and headed back home.  Despite the sparse fine breaks, the days travel had some amazing scenery with me commenting ‘this is nuts’ as the grandeur of the sheer snowy topped mountains almost overwhelmed us at every corner or tunnel exit. We can only imagine what it may look like under a sunny sky displaying the green and blue waters and clearly displaying the layers of snow capped mountains on the horizon.

Self catering tonight and armed with supplies we chose local lamb loin chops, boiled potatoes and fresh green beans, finished with a creamy sun dried tomato, capsicum and spring onion sauce.  I tried a pre made Bacalao which uses the dried cod produced here.  It was nice, very tomato and chunky onion and garlic with a bit of warmth, but lacked finesse. 

We read that the lamb which roams free here eating the sea side and mountain grasses has a very good flavour. Autumn they come down from the hills for winter.  It was tasty and had a stronger more pronounced less sweet flavour than our southern hemisphere lamb.  The texture was not quite as tender either – it was perhaps more like hogget than lamb. We saw a lot of semi dried salted lamb in the supermarket, so they must cure that like the cod fish.

I live in hope of the weather forecast being wrong and that we get some good weather for our next few days sight seeing.