Norway - looking for plain list of "what to see"

[bluesman]

Colleagues, I am about to take short tour to Norway. Since I have limited time I am looking for what to see/where to go in 7-8 days I will be in Norway. We'll be riding 2-up with wife, who is one of those "crazy photographers" taking lot of photos of views and landscapes and towns etc.
So I am trying to figure out what to do if daily trips are in range of say 400 km.
I will be arriving at Kristiansand and I can only assume that I should take road 9 up from there and will not go further than Trondheim eventually.
Any advice on where to go, even plain list of names of recommended places will do. Please help....I got just 2 weeks to start date and i am still lost and my maps are far from detailed enough as I found.

[bluesman]

ah, yes, forgot to mention - I will be riding on Suzuki DR800 so if some gravel or bumpy road is on the route - I do not mind...

[bmw.bec]

Hi Bluesman

Although I am not a big fan of Lonely Planet guides, I do find them useful when i have a short amount of time. The Norway book is great.

Becky

[Neil]

How short is short? You got enough time to get to Nordkapp?

400km a day sounds ambitious to me, took me 8 hours to do 320km on 1 day, and that wasn't that far up.... I assure you, you want to evaluate speed on that terrain.

Loelva .. go and see the Glacier (follow the road east into the valley for about 12km), turn around... and then head for...

Geiranger is a BIG hotspot... huge accent/decent, amazing bendies. (wrap up warm).. then head to..

Veblungsnes another favourite dramatic vista.

OR... go and see the Stave Churches off of the Sognefjord, can be pricey to get in but you don't have to pay to walk around the outside.


Anyone else?

[bluesman]

thanks guys! Really great information...
as about 400 a day - oops, that was coming from me as former sportbike guy (yes, I still ride it on good roads) who largerly ignored speed limits - it is all in the past. I totally forgot I will be travelling slowly this time, I know that speed offences in Norway may have horrible consequences and fully laden DR800 is not a rocket by far so I will stick to speed limits e.g. 400 a day is ambitious indeed. I will have 7 to 8 days in Norway, so I thought to stick to Western part and fjords only - is that doable? My wife will be with me, she hates idea of rushing to Nordkapp just to "get T-shirt" and asked me to let her see at least part of country but see it good. I will do "big Norway trip" some other time on my own.

[Neil]

I reckon you could get up to at least Geiranger and back in 8 days. Not sure if it's lack of confidence being alone or just because I was riding a heavy bike, but some of those national highways in Norway I struggled to get to 90km/h with those blind bends and pot-holes and change of surface.

I spoke to some guys who did some amazing distances in a day while in Norway. I however, was riding as safe as I felt I could go, and stopping as often as I felt necessary.

Good luck and have a safe journey. I'm sure wherever you get to, it'll be amazing. It's such a beautiful country.

[bluesman]

Originally Posted by bmw.bec

Hi Bluesman

Although I am not a big fan of Lonely Planet guides, I do find them useful when i have a short amount of time. The Norway book is great.

Becky

Thank you! May I ask you - do LonelyPlanet guide to Norway contain actual roadmaps and if so - do you happen to know what scale those maps? I want to order Lonely Planet guide, but if has no maps with better scale than one I have (1: 1 500 000, yep, I know useless) I will need to search for maps too in Belgium it is quite task to find map of Norway as I found

[Flyingdoctor]

From Kristiansand I've used the 41, which is a nice ride. Once you get to the E134 go west to Amot and then north on the 37 to Rjukan. This is where the heavy water plant was in WWII that the allies blew up. If thats your thing you can do the tour.

Other nice roads are the 55 and the 13 going north or south and of course the trollstigen, the 63 to Andalsnes.

[M1tch]

Hi. i went to the arctic circle back in late may/early june. rode from stavanger to the circle via lysebotn, voss, alesund, trondheim, bronnesund on road 17. then to the circle. roads were pretty rough for my 600 fazer, but it coped. mileage was about 200 miles a day, with one of 350 when i rode back down from the circle to trondheim, and that took 10 hours. even the E6 was quite rough, and on the way up ferries and photo taking took up a lot of time. i had amazing weather, hot and sunny for almost every day.


Geiranger was good taking the ferry on a 40 minute trip down the fjord. Trollstigen road is spectacular and a decent campsite at Andalsnes. from lyseboten to Vos some of the E9 and E143 were boring, nothing to see but trees, the best roads were minor roads just south of trondheim such as the 65 and 660 between orkanger and andalsnes , or 57 just south of forde. not much traffic and great scenery. not fast roads, but no heavy traffic.

most campsite were about 100 kroner a night, and good quality. plenty of them to choose from

had a great time and will go back, but need to save up lol!! its expensive, but worth the trip. very friendly people and plenty of them speak good english.

[indu]

Some useful info here, I hope. If not, let me know.

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/cou...n-a-shoestring