I came to Sweden on a small gravel road. There was only one lane and crossing with a car would have been tight. But no other vehicke was on this way. Unobserved, I drove to the next Scandinavian country. Since my navigation system could not calculate the route to Karlstad, I took the next village on the way there as destination. It was Arvika. When I arrived there, I decided to look for a campsite. I found one on the other side of town about six kilometers away. So I drove through the town Arvika, it looked very pretty and quiet. On the way to the campsite I decided to visit the town the next day. I booked for two nights and set up my tent. The campsite was located directly on Lake Glafsfjorden.
The next day I took the bus to Arvika. The night before, I researched a little about the city on the internet. On the tourist info website, it was recommended to visit the Fordon Vehicle Museum. I sauntered through the village, looking around the center, taking some pictures and enjoyed the good weather. Of course, the Fordon Museum was also visited. They had a special exhibition with rally cars and some really nice and interesting vehicles. For example, there was a 1915 Detroit Electric Brougham with an 80 volt electric motor. So they already existed then, the electric cars. So if you ever visit Arvika, I can recommend this museum. As I continued to stroll through the village, I decided to stay a few days longer. There was not much going on there and at 8pm all the pubs were closed. But I liked it there somehow and I needed a little break. In the last two weeks I had driven from Lofoten to Arvika. All the way more or less along the Norwegian coast. I was a little exhausted and a few days without motorcycling did well. I took a hut at the campsite for the rest of the days, updated my homepage, visited the cinema and enjoyed having a fridge. I met Thorsten and Heinz. Thorsten was also traveling by bike in Scandinavia and since there was a small barbecue at my cabin, we decided to grill in the evening. Heinz was traveling by car and canoe. We decided to make a barbecue all togheter the next evening.
The next day everyone went his own way. I wanted to visit the house of Michel. The little boy who was brought to life by Astrid Lindgren and always made trouble. As a punishment, he was always locked in the garden hut, where he spent time carving figures. I knew that I would not be able to get there in one day, so I drove as far as I could and landed in Jönköping. During my evening walk through the village, unlike Arvika, there was a lot going on. There were noisy restaurants and live music on the lake shore, a semester opening party took place at the university campus, the streets were full of people. I also found out that there is a match museum. So I decided to stay one more day and visit Jönköping and the museum during the day. During the day there was more going on. There was an obstacle course for children. Children of an estimated 3-9 ran around the course and the parents of the very small ran with them. The streets were full of students and tourists, the shops were open even though it was Sunday. The visit of the match museum was also interesting. The museum is located where once was one of the largest match factories in the world. The history of the factory and the match is a story full of suffering and progress. You could fold and fill a pack of matches yourself, as many children and women did do before the machines took over.
In Arvika I had contacted Lau. I met him and his girlfriend Nanna in Rovaniemi, Finland. They were travelling with his old orange Morris from Denmark to a vintage car meeting. Since Denmark was the next country on my way, I hoped to meet both there. Since I had enough of ferries since Norway, I drove over the Oresund Bridge to Denmark. An impressive structure. Left, right and under one was the sea. The bridge ends in a tunnel that runs under the sea to get out in Copenhagen. So what you have in Norway a lot, bridges and underwater tunnels, united in one building. The drive through Copenhagen was a bit tedious, it was hot and the traffic was slow. Lau recommended me to drive up the coast to Helsingor and then to Rågeleje where there is a nice campsite. He lived there nearby. I could have spent the night at his place but would have had to get up at five because he had to go to Copenhagen early in the morning to go to university. But since I do not have to get up early, if I do not have to, I decided to camp. After setting up my tent in Rågeleje I drove to Lau. He was working on a car with his roommate, Nanna was not there, she was traveling south with friends, an trip she had been planning for some time. Lau and I went shopping together and cooked spaghetti with minced meat, beans and tomato sauce. We ate together with his roommate. A simple dish and good talks. After lunch, Lau recommended a few sights in Denmark.
The next day I drove to Gilleleje, took a short walk along the harbor and continued to Roskilde, the old capital of Denmark. There I looked at the Viking ships and drove on the Storebælt Bridge direction Odensee. Like the Oresund Bridge, this one was very impressive and worth a crossing when in Denmark. Unfortunately, Denmark does not have much to offer in terms of landscape. The land is relatively flat and you can see mostly cereal or pasture fields. So I took the highway to Aalborg. When I looked at the tourist map of the city, I found what I had not found on the internet, the "singing trees". Now I knew why I did not find them anymore. Somehow I had in mind that these are in Aarhus. Nevertheless, the trees were not visited immediately. After the first night in Aalborg I made a trip to the sanded church. Today, only the church tower is left. Afterwards I went to Grenen, where the North Sea and Baltic Sea meet and is the northernmost point of Denmark. You can see well how the two seas meet and the waves collide. The next destination on this day was even more impressive, the Rabjerg Mile. It is a dune that cuts through the northern tip of the country. When you stand on the dune, it looks like a small desert. After that I went back to Aalborg. I changed and went into town and of course to the "singing trees". The trees were donated by musicians and under each tree stands a small pillar with its name and the day of the donation. The columns are also provided with a green button, if you press it, some known pieces of each donor are played. Therefore also "singing trees".
I continued along the North Sea and made a stop at Thorup Strand Havn. There, the ships are pulled by winds on the beach, since there is no actual port. It looks like the ships are stranded, which looks funny at first. My way led me further south along the coast. When I was near Thorsminde, the view of the sea was prevented by a long dune, but there was hardly any wind which made the ride more pleasant. The last night in Denmark I spent about 60 kilometers north of Esbjerg. There was the last attraction I wanted to see, "The Man by the Sea". A sculpture by Svend Wiig Hansen consists of four sitting people staring at the sea. It was built to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Esbjerg and is known among its inhabitants as "the four white people". After this last stop we continued, back to Germany where I already had an appointment for motorcycle maintenance. I left Scandinavia on a day like the one when I arrived in Helsinki, sunny and warm.
I arrived in Norway on July 30, 2019. The sun was shining and the temperature was pleasant. Unfortunately, this did not last long, after half an hour clouds came up again and it was cooler. In between, it rained a bit and the further north I drove, the more wind came up. I drove on a slight incline, enjoying the breathtaking scenery as much as I could, and suddenly found myself in front of the tunnel that leads to the island of Magerøya. The board said "Norkapptunnelen 6870 m" and "212 m.u.h". An almost seven-kilometer-long tunnel that leads under the sea. This was my first time underwater, I had a little queasy feeling at the first crossing. Imagine driving 200 meters below sea level and a tunnel, escape routes are only one way or the other. And in depth, the tunnel can probably be flooded fairly quickly if there are cracks in the wall. But everything went well, out of the tunnel it went with crosswinds on, I passed Honningsvåg to Kirkeporten. From there it was only 15 kilometers to Nordkapp. I checked in at BaseCamp NorthCape. It barely winded there, which was really nice.
I drove south again, because there was no way to go further north, again through the Nordkapptunnelen on the Norwegian mainland. My next destination was the northern point of the Struve Arch in Hammerfest. The Struve Arch was built from 1816 to 1852 to measure the curvature of the earth. It starts in Hammerfest (Norway) and leads to Stara Nekrassivkaa (Ukraine). I discovered its existence during my research for my journey. I searched for things and places that are worth seeing on my way and found it on the website of the UNESCO World Heritage Site the Struve Arch. The destination for this day was Alta. When I had pitched the tent two Germans arrived by motorcycle, Michael and Wolfgang, and we started talking. They were on the way to Nordkapp and had all kinds of camping food in their bags. Michael said "Come on, look in the bag and pick something out. Here, you can take that too". It was like Christmas. Guys, you remember my disappointment for the Santa Claus village in Rovaniemi? Santa Claus exists, he is German and his name is Michael. xD
On the Lofoten I stayed a few days in Ballstad in a hostel that was cheaper than a campsite. I worked on my website, drove around a bit and visited the Viking Museum. The weather was good. When I was walking around and taking photos next to Å, I heard a girl saying to her mother, "Maman, il y a un homme qui fait de photo", "Mom, there is a man taking photos". As I approached, the girl came a couple steps in my direction and said "bonjour, tu veux un poisson?", "hello, you want a fish?". She could say to her father, who was just fishing, that he should catch a fish for me. That was so cute of her. I would have accepted the offer gladly, but unfortunately I had no possibility to take the fish with the motorcycle. In the meantime Robert had received the parts for the motorcycle and was back on the road. He had lost a week and his vacation was coming to an end. So he did not visit the Lofoten and "overtook" me again on the way south. In Saltstraumen, I looked at the tidal vortex, a truly impressive natural phenomenon. I had seen such whirls in Norway in the last few days, but not in this size. Huge amounts of water flow into the fjord at low and high tide and out again. Already at the sight one knows "I do not want to jump in now", the power, which has this current, can be felt from the shore.
ent my last cash on food. The next day the sun was shining, perfect weather for the Trollstigen. I drove up to the pass, stopped at the lookout above and looked at the u-turns from above. The sight was impressive. The ride down was great, just little traffic and I could enjoy the good weather. I drove to Lom, where I visited my first stave church. At the beginning of 1990 one of these churches was set on fire. The band Burzum printed a picture of the remains on their album "Aske".
The last days in Norway were marked by a lot of driving. I had planned to travel from Bergen via Stavanger to Sweden in four days. It urged me to the next country, but without rushing. In Stavanger I stopped by the swords in the mountain. A memorial reminiscent of the Battle of the Hafrsfjord of 870. The swords are embedded in the stone so that they are no longer used and encourage people to live in peace.