The first tent trip

Now I can proudly say that Greta (and the rest of us, too) survived the tent trip in the forest. We were near a lake in the Kongsberg area, the weather yesterday was good, and we enjoyed grilling dinner outside and walking.



Family picture - a rare occasion.

Greta is proud to sleep for the first time in the tent.

But is is still too early, so we paint and draw outside until the evening.

And go for a walk around the lake.


Good night, everybody. Yes, a lot of light, since it is the shortest night of the year.

So when she is finally asleep, there is still pretty much light outside.

It took a while for me to fall asleep, the baby would not stop moving, but when I was tired enough and the rain outside started making the nice forest noise, I finally got to sleep.
This girl woke up around her usual time, and since it was still raining outside, she had a good time writing some Russian letters in her book, while we were trying to get our last minutes of sleep.

We had our breakfast also inside the tent, and after a few minutes outside in the rain, packed and went back to the car and home.

Looks like a happy child to me, after an adventurous night in the forest!

Have a good start of the week!

My weekend

While Greta and Santiago are in Spain, I decided to went for a hike in the mountain. I felt I needed to connect with nature. The original plan was to go to the top of Hallingskarvet, but the road there was closed. So I needed an alternative plan, and went to another top - with a view to Hardangervidda. You are supposed to see Gaustatoppen from there on a good day (but it was not one of those days).
Driving in the mountain:

The start of the hike. Looking north to Hallingskarvet.

This was my route to Ustetind

It was not much more than 3 km to walk.

The nature is always beautiful everywhere in Norway. There it still looked like spring, while here in Kongsberg it is summer.

Finally at the top. Looking north to Hallingskarvet, again.

But then the clouds came in no time and covered everything. This is looking south to Hardangervidda. The visibility soon was no more than 20 meters ahead, so I went down, while it was snowing a bit.

The way down was much easier for a pregnant lady like me. And the weather got better too.

I had a great walk in the mountain and a beautiful drive home. Did you have a good weekend?

Norway in a nutshell

Today a received a lot more pictures from our last trip in Norway (which I called "the fjords and the mountains") All this pictures are taken by Víctor Méndez, enjoy!

In the heart of Norway

As I have been saying in one of the previous posts, we have guests from Spain and were going to show them a little bit of Norway - the fjords and the fjells (sorry, mountains, I mean)
So we went first to Sognefjord and then to Jotunheimen. Incredible experience, the last one. I want back there as soon as possible.
Pictures:
By the road to the fjord, we stopped and saw several stave churches, this one is in Uvdal (which actually can not be called stave church because it has some non-wooden parts :-))

 Strange pictures of Greta running in the cemetery :-)

 Somewhere in the middle of the mountain

 There was a problem in one of the tunnels 20 km to Aurland, so we had to wait a couple of hours. The funny thing is that when I said I was going to check on internet what happens with the tunnel, my Spanish friend said surprised: "If you manage to find out on internet what is happening, I love this country, I will move here!". I found out :-)

After we got out of the tunnels, we started having a typical fjord landscape :-)

 Gudvangen camping was a good place to stay at.

And the day after we took a tourist boat in Nærøyfjord and Sognefjord.

 That was all for our trip to the fjords. After that we drove to Gjenden lake in Jotunheimen. We stayed the first night in Gjendesheim tourist-cabin. I have never had a better view from a toilet before :-)

 The day after we took a boat from Gjendesheim to Memurubu, the water in the lake has a magic green color :-)

 And from Memurubu we start our wonderful trip to Gjendebu, approx. 13 km in the mountain :-) Fun! Here it starts, this river goes into the lake and contains sand particles that make the lake this nice color.

 The first part is pretty hard to climb, but the rest is very nice.

 The spectacular view starts right there, here you see Gjenden and the Memurubu cabin.

 And getting to the first top - the valley of Memuru.

 More of the lake:

 This is kind of what you see when you are in the middle of the route - mountains all around you :-)

 And flowers, and snow, and cold lakes :-))

 The path we took is Bukkelægeret - very steep way down, but fortunately not so complicated. Here is the last part of the lake with Gjendebu cabin there, so you make the idea of the steep path ahead of us.

 A short stop half-way down for sunbathing :-)

 

Once you are down, your 3-year old says she wants to walk by herself and jump in the water puddles:

 Yes, we did it! Arriving to Gjendebu!

 It was a great trip, I am looking forward to go back there and try the Besseggen path, which is supposed to be longer, more difficult, more fun and just MORE of Jotunheimen. Love the place!
That night we had dinner and slept at Gjendebu and took the boat back to Gjendesheim today morning.

And on our way back home today we accidentally stopped on a farm where Greta fed the bunny :-)

And we are having nice spanish paella for dinner :-)

I hope you are having a great summer, as much as I do!