It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. - Ernest Hemingway
Do you know the difference between a flat route and a flat route? Or better said: when a Norwegian says that it is flat, or when a Dutch person says it is flat? With the Dutch flat is flat. Really flat. As flat as a new sheet of paper, or a pancake. And once there are some small hills in the route, it is called light sloping (glooiend in Dutch). By now we know when a Norwegian say a route is flat, it generally means that the route can be quite hilly still. “No”, the Norwegian then say, “you don’t need to climb, it is as flat as a pancake”. I think to myself that in the Norwegian pancakes are a lot of clumps of not well stirred dough.
The route after Bergen remained incredible beautiful. And the weather as well. Only on our eleventh day of cycling we got our first rain. Three days in a row, it was very cloudy and it drizzled somewhat, but on the third day the sun was beating the rain and after that we only had sunny and warm weather. And everywhere we hear “You’re lucky with the weather! Normally it rains far more often”. And we did prepare for bad that: a cycle holiday in the cold and windy rain. But maybe the extra clothing will come in handy the coming week since the forecast says it will rain.
In Selje we visited the pilgrim centre. We got a warm welcome from Tonje and her colleague Sven. I had contact with Tonje before by e-mail and she had some cycling tips of which we made good use gratefully. Near Selje lies the island Selja where we got a tour of the monastery ruins. Selja was the first place of pilgrimage in Norway. There is an impressive story behind it, which I will probably write about on a later date. Once back in Selje, we got a tour by Sven of the buildings of the pilgrim centre and the church of Selje.
Also for the continuation of the route, Tonje had some tips. At first I had some reservations about it, because the planned (official) cycling route was shorter, and the route of Tonje went along a Jagged coastline. Jagged in the sense that there are large bays around which we’ll need to cycle. At closer inspection it appeared that her proposal was flat (well, ‘Norwegian flat’, but also some parts ‘Dutch flat’) and in our planned route, there were whole mountains to go over. In the interest of time it wouldn’t matter, and the costal route aught to be much prettier than the inside route along busy roads. The decision was made quickly and really wonderful and lovely to cycle over near-flat and quiet roads.
In addition to a North Cape and a South Cape, Norway also has a Western Cape. This Vestkapp is located on the tip of a peninsula near Selja and to reach it, we would have to cycle about 70 kilometres extra. And we hadn't factored that in. For a moment we doubted: it is an extra day. Yet we could not resist the temptation of this special place and cycled towards the Vestkapp yesterday afternoon. However, there were quite a few altitude meters to make and when we passed a campsite at 6:30 pm we decided to stop. We only had 6 km to go, but that was 6 km only uphill with an inclination of 9% on average. It was enough for today. After dinner, around 9:30 PM, we looked at the high mountain. The sun was shining and there were only a few clouds. We looked at each other. Go anyway? And off we went! Six long kilometres that took us almost an hour. But it was totally worth it!
Underway to Ålesund we visited two Nøkkelsteder. These ‘key places’ are places where you as a pilgrim can get a stamp for your pilgrims passport. The first was the Kystmuseum on the island of Herøy and the second the Borkund kirke in Ålesund. Another 450 km to the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, the sign says.
By this time we lost count on how many ferries we had. Most are free for cyclists and pedestrians. Some ferries go every hour and some go only a couple of times per day. There are some days we make little cycling progress, but that’s alright. The route is wonderful and for now we’ll keep hopping over the islands and following the jagged coastlines.
And look how wonderful our office is today! Yes, ‘our’, since Remy is working too. As contributor to OpenStreetMap he just added a new bridge to the map. And he translates the newsletter.
By the way, the quote at the beginning was not yet finished: … Thus, you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of the country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.