Sometimes it feels good to be just a normal tourist, visiting popular attractions, without anything crazy, dangerous or weird. So after visiting the silent and hidden parts of Norway it was time to check the main sights out too. In the last weekend me and my team headed to the Trolltunga, the Preikestolen and the Kjeragbolten.

Our first stop was the beautiful wooden church of Gol, which I visited previously. But unlike back then, now the gate to the church was locked, so unfortunately we couldn't get there. Anyway, we had a look on it from the car later on.

Not long time after, we stopped at a petrol station. There was a supermarket in the neighbour, so I decided to do a little dumpster diving. The container wasn't locked, but we felt even luckier after jumping in: there were hundreds of - few days ago expired - Snickers chocolates in the container. We collected them all, and added some salad as well. (to keep our diet seem less unhealthy)

At this moment we knew that this trip gonna be fun, and however it will end up it was already worth to start. After eating a few of our new chocolates, we sat back the car and headed west. In a few minutes the landscape started to change as the first high peaks appeared. We got on the Hardangervidda plateau, where we had a stop at a beautiful lake. Later we had an other stop at a majestic gorge with several waterfalls. Here we took a short hike, and ate the first blueberries of the year!

After the short breaks we drove down to the sea level, and continued our trip to the south along a fjord. Then we arrived to Tyssedal, and drove up to a parking lot. Here we had to pay 100 Nok for the parking until 4pm, next day. We got a very big suprise, something what noone expected after living almost a year in Scandinavia:

THEY HAD FREE TOILET!!!

After almost all of us enjoyed this unbelievable opportunity to use a real toilet for free, we started to walk to the Trolltunga. The first 4 kilometers were the worst, here we just walked along the road to an upper parking lot. It costed 1 hour, but saved 100 Nok to us. Here we met a guy, who is maintaining the tourist path, and he gave us a few useful and important informations. He adviced us not to give up during the first two kilometers, because - however they will be tough - the remaining 9 is much easier and the view will be breathtaking too. Well, the beginning was difficult, but not as much, as I imagined after reading experiences on the internet and hearing this guy describing the slopes.

During the hike, I had a very funny experience:Two tourists coming from the opposite direction called me on my name and welcomed to see me again. It took me a few seconds, but then I recognized them: once they picked me up during hitchhiking from Gjendesheim to Otta! It's a small country...

When we reached the plateau, we decided to start looking for a campside and settle down. It was already 10pm, when we sat our tents in the front of a very beautiful lake.

In the next morning the first unpleasant suprise caught us: it was so foggy, that we didn't even see the above mentioned lake. We waited 3-4 hours, but the fog didn't disappear, so we decided to continue the hike. We left everything behind and joined to the masses of tourist trying not to get lost in the massive fog. In 1-2 hours we reached the Trolltunga itself. Even with the masses of people and big fog it looked amazing! We queued up for the must-to- have-it tourist picture, and after a short break we started to go down.

After packing the tents and other stuffs, we continued hiking down. The way was long and slippery, some of us got very tired. In the bottom of the hill we waited for them, we even drove the car up to the upper parking place (took 4 hitchhikers in the way). It was almost 7pm, when we were all together in the car again. We were lucky for not getting a fine for parking over the limit.

After eating, drinking, and visiting the beautiful waterfall, called Latefossen, we continued our roadtrip to the south, our next stops were Preikestolen and Kjeragbolten. Unfortunately the way there was longer than any of us expected (also we had to take a ferry once, and we got lost two times) so at 1am we gave up and stopped for sleeping. I was a little bit upset, because we were only 20 kilometers from the Preikestolen and I already knew, that if we don't start that hiking in the morning, then we have no chance to visit the Kjeragbolten too.

My predictions seemed to be true, because we only started to drive at 11am. But when we got to the parking place under the Preikestolen, I calmed down a little bit, because it was written, that it's forbidden to spend the night there. So we couldn't do that anyway. It took 2-3 hours to walk up and down to the Preikestolen, which was a much easier hike, than the one to the Trolltunga. Also it was much better weather, but on the other hand, we had much more tourists too.

Actually this is what made both hikes difficult. Here I tried to ignore them and focus on the landscape (which is actually the reason of having masses of tourists there) and it worked out pretty well to me. The view from the Preikestolen was breathtaking. The vertical cliffs made us think, how can so many tourists safely visit this extremly dangerous place...

After getting back to the car, we met a hungarian couple, who also tried the hike, but gave up. They spent their holiday in Norway by renting a car and driving around the fjords. After a long conversation, I collected half liter of blueberries, and when everybody got back to the car, we continued our trip.

Unfortunately we really had to skip the Kjeragbolten, so I have to came back to this place one day. I was even thinking to separate myself from the group and hitchhike there, climb it, and then hitchhike back to Oslo alone. But then I decided to stay with them: mutual interests, compromises and teamwork. These are the keywords, Daniel! In this way, I could visit Stavanger and Brutfjell with them.

The town center of Stavanger was more beautiful, than I expected. It was actually the most beautiful norwegian town, I have seen so far. We celebrated our hikes with big kebab plates, and we had a short sightseeing tour in the town. Short, because most of us had muscle soreness, and it started to rain too, so we sat back to the car, and decided to drive to Oslo on the highway along the coastline. The GPS, however advised to take small mountain roads, but we didn't trust her anymore.

We got to the highway, and left the hilly part of Norway. I adviced to spend the night somewhere next to the sea, and visit Brutfjell in the next day, so we took some small roads through the hills and got to the little village of Ana-Sira at sunset. Here we setted our tents in the center between some houses and a shop.

It was obviously a private place, but we tried not to bother anyone, so it was fine, they let us spend the night there. We decided, that in the next morning those, who are still full of energy can go to hike the Brutfjell, otherwise we wake up at 7:30 and depart latest at 8 am.

Well, it turned out, that only I wanted to hike. I didn't sleep much, but I think it was worth it. Finally I was able to hike alone, to relax, to listen to the silence, to catch the sunrise and a beautiful view of the North Sea from the top of the hill.

After this, I walked back to our meeting point, and they picked me up. From here we directly drove to Oslo. I'm still here, but tomorrow I start an other journey...

And by the way: what did I learn from trying this kind of tourism? Well, first of all, I have to admit that it's much more comfortable. On the other hand, the more people, the more interests needed to be considered, therefore the less strong my own interest is. If I travel in a team, I need to be able to make compromises, and don't just follow my own head. I learned how to deal with it, but I have to admit, that I'm very happy to start a journey tomorrow alone in my own weird style.

And one more outcome of these amazing 4 days: I'll never buy Snickers in my life again.