Romsdal, Day 1 - Oslo to Dombås to Åndalsnes redux

July 24th Last year I spent some time in August in Åndalsnes and had a truly epic mountain hike doing Romsdalseggen.  This year we were going to do another climb, except this time we stayed at a friend's place, on a farm actually.  It was really insanely cool.  The previous day I stayed in Olympiatoppen sports hotel, where athletes go and train.  It was quite nice and I had a nice walk around the lake called Sognsvann after dinner.  Why did I stay in a hotel?  I've had too many hotel points and just had to spend some before they expired in July so the hotel stay cost me nothing.  It was a nice hotel but as usual service was really terrible.  Hospitality is truly awful in Norway for some reason.  I've never had service as bad as anywhere in the world.  Unless you're counting Africa.


The train journey started at 8am, I woke up at 6am.  Pretty much same as last year.  Arrived into Dombas at 12pm and thereafter it was the train to Åndalsnes where arrival was at 1:30pm.  Our friend picked us up at the train station, we shopped for some groceries and then he drove us to his two century old family farm.  Had dinner with his parents at 4pm (no kidding... old people eat that early!), met the wife and kid and then during the night we played poker.

View from the Rauma train.

View from the Rauma train.

Åndalsnes train station.

The troll wall, see the stub sticking out on the left?  That's where we're going to climb to.

Victims claimed by the Troll wall.

Home for the next couple of days!  Pretty cool eh?

At the farm.

Farm surroundings.

The farm.

Tractor at the farm.

The apartment that we stayed in, instead of the cabin above.

Living quarters for the next few days.