Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Norway - A road trip - Part I

We just came back from holidays in Norway, a road trip which started in Romaniemi (Finland), went to the Lofoten Islands and ended back in Romaniemi. The trip was great, with some fantastic moments but also with some down moments. This is, more or less, the story :)

Background 

We were two families with kids. One family was of three members, two adults and a baby girl of 16 months of age; the other family was of four members, two adults, a girl of 4 years and a boy of 2 years old. Both ladies were happily  pregnant.We rented two campers from the company Touring Cars which has branches all over the Scandinavian countries. The reason to take the campers on Romaniemi (Finland) instead of directly on Norway was the price difference. In Norway the high season includes already the first two weeks of June, whereas in Finland only the two last weeks of June are considered high season. Therefore the rental price was around 95€ per day instead of 270€ per day.The campers were Hymer-Ford, of the "capuchine" type, they were not identical but very similar. The main difference was that one was having a permanent bed on the back of the camper whereas the other one was having a living space which could be transformed into a bed. On the middle of the camper there is the main table, which can also be transformed into a bed and then on the front roof, there is the other bed. So, every camper was having three beds, which was more than enough for our needs.The family with the two kids got the camper with the living space on the back site. This configuration reduces the storage space accessible from the outside of the camper, but once the living space in transformed into a bed, gives a lot of space for storage just below the bed. The distance from the bed to the floor of the camper is not so high and a little one falling from there to the ground will suffer only a minor scratch (real case). As the two kids were sharing this bed and the parents were using the upper one, the table in the middle was always open as table, so no modification of the camper was needed on a daily basis.The family with the baby girl got the camper with the permanent bed on the back side. The distance from this bed to the floor of the camper is higher than on the other model, maybe more than one meter (4 feet, even), and there was a indication that the bed was not suitable for a baby between 0 and 6 years, the same applies to the bed on top of the driving seats. So, the whole family shared the bed on the back so that the baby was not able to fall down to the ground. So, in this case the camper was probably oversized for us but still not a big problem.

Route

This here is a image capture of a google map with the relevant points on the trip. As stated, we arrived to Rovaniemi by plane, took the campers and cross into Sweden following the road to Pello (Finland) toward Narvik (Norway). Short of Narwik we went north into the Lofoten. At the Lofoten we visit some places that are not in this picture, but the main path is accurate. In Andenes we stop to take a boat to see the whales (more on that later) and cross towards Senja with the ferry (more on ferries later).
At the end we travel 2108 km at an average speed of 62 km/h, which I think it is quite good.

Practicalities

The Scandinavian countries share a lot of features, such as an amazing landscape, but also differ in a lot of small things which can make you live not so easy.
Currency: Finland is in the Euro-zone and therefore uses Euro as currency. Norway and Sweden on the other hand still have their own national currencies. All the three countries take credit cards and even debit cards, but not everywhere. For example, in Norway, on Henningsvær, we were almost not able to buy dried codfish as the factory was not able to accept cards and we were having not enough cash and the absence of a cash machine (we were told that the closest one was in Svolvær, which was a few kilometres out of our way having passing that city already the previous day).
Gas bottles: the camper uses gas for heating, cooking and for the fridge if you are not plug to the electricity network in a camping area. Our one was equipped with two bottles of around 15 litres each. It is possible to buy gas bottles on any petrol station. However, the connection piece on the top of the bottle differs in each Scandinavian country, so our Finish camper required Finish gas bottles. I was a bit worried that we were going to run out of gas in the middle of Norway, but at the end, we arrived to Rovaniemi without having emptied even one of the two.
Mosquitoes: They say Finland is the country of the thousand lakes, better say the country of the million of mosquitoes. They manage to get inside of the camper even with all windows closed. We were only on Finland upon arrival and prior to our departure, so in total not more than two-three days, but it was enough for us to get devoured by the mosquitoes. Norway, having not so many lakes, but more running water and specially salt water fjords is basically mosquitoes free.
Reindeer: As with the mosquitoes, they are absent from Norway, at least from the Lofoten area, but plenty on the border area between Sweden and Finland. You will find them on the side of the road, walking, crossing or just looking to you. They are look tamed and quiet, but we did try to approach them, just took some pictures from the camper. Other drivers can flash you the lights to indicate you that you are going to find some reindeer on the road ahead of you.
Camper drivers: According to the guy in the rental agency, it is a common custom between the drivers of campers to greet each other on the road. I tried to do every time, but I will say that only three quarters answered, although I also have to say that I was not always the first one to initiate the greeting.
Road: The E10 which we followed is quite narrow. It has two lanes, one in each direction but there is no space on you right further than the lane. Once the lane finished there is a more or less abrupt drop in the terrain. You should picture the road as slightly elevated over the surrounding terrain, so if you drive out of the lane you will fall with the camper maybe a good meter in some places. The main road, E10, is pretty well maintained, however some irregularities and holes are to be expected, as well as the required maintenance works, which in one case, when we were driving towards Å i Lofoten were quite annoying as they were quite extensive and intensive.


I also wanted to talk a bit about the camping places and the places we visited and the activities and so on, but I will do in other posts, otherwise this post will be enormous and I will never finish and publish it.