Photos

These photos show the mountains, fjords, and glaciers in the central part of the country. I also did some riding along the southern coast, and while that was nice too, it really didn't compare.

	Starting from Oslo, my first day of biking didn't go so well. As far as I can tell, there is no way to actually leave the city by bike. Every road either prohibited bikes or was simply far too dangerous. After spending most of the day trying different routes, I finally gave up and headed for the train station and boarded the next available train, which happened to take me to Koningberg. At Koningberg, I found a bike shop and asked (just for grins) if there really was a way to bike out of Oslo and they didn't know of any way to do it. Abandoned rail line turned into a rail-bike tourist attraction, seen on the way to Rogenberg.
	I met a German cyclist who must have been in his 70's. He had been bike touring regularly in Norway for over a decade and spent an evening showing on the map places worth visiting. I really wish I had written it all down! One of the things he mentioned was the famous Oslo-Flam railway. This has to be one of the steepest rail lines in the world. The train enters the side of the mountain, spirals around and around inside the mountain and emerges at the bottom. The dirt construction road that was used to build the railway still exists and is used by skiers and mountain bikers. They take the train up to the top and ride down to the fjord below. It was a wild ride, though I had to take it a bit slow in parts because I had skinny roadbike tires. This photo was taken close to the train stop, where a train-full of mountain bikers got off.
	After an initial steep rocky part, the road becomes very easy to ride on.
	Sometimes it is good to stop the bike and turn around for a look, otherwise I would never have noticed that waterfall behind the hill.
	Reached the edge of the fjord and this really nice campsite.
	While there is a road around the fjord, it goes through a tunnel prohibiting bikes. I thought about doing it anyway, but instead waited until the following morning for the ferry. This shot was taken from the ferry, which carried a full load of bikes.
	At one time a small farming village occupied this valley, until it was demolished by that glacier off in the distance.
	A close-up of the glacier. Here, the road dead-ends, but one can take a boat over and hike out onto the glacier.
	At this point, I needed to loop back to Lillihammer (and Oslo). As I started off biking that day, I had no clue what was in store. For quite a while, the road kept going up and up. The map did indicate some hill climbing, but not how much. It was one of those twisty roads where, as you go around the bend, you think you are nearing the top but in fact you find out there is still quite a bit more climbing. This went on for a while until I was now above the tree-line and snow could be seen in the distance. A tourist sign on the side of road proclaimed that this was the highest roadway in Europe. And so I kept climbing...
	The top of the pass is more of a plateau with rolling hills. It was quite a different world up there.
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