Most passengers consider one excursion offered on Havila‘s voyage up the coast of Norway unskippable: Geirangerfjord & Trollstigen. And that’s undoubtedly true, for most people on many days of the year. The bus tour, after all, takes you through mountain scenery that you won’t see during any other part of your cruise.
However, the Geirangerfjord excursion was not my favorite day of our Havila cruise.
The Geiranger excursion is offered on the first full day of Havila’s journey from Bergen to Kirkenes. It’s long — 8 hours — and you spend most of that time on a bus on a switchback mountain road. Because I get motion sickness, my first inclination was to skip this expensive day trip (it’s $242 per person). However, browsing photos of the gasp-inducing scenery on the trip convinced me to go for it.
What the Gerainger excursion was like
The Geiranger & Trollstigen excursion was scheduled to depart at 2 p.m. Since we were new to the Havila Coastal Voyage, we thought we should be ready and waiting by the Deck 4 doors by at least 1:45 p.m.
This was a mistake.
Turns out, there are hardly any windows in this area of the boat, and views as the ship pulls into Geirangerfjord would have been spectacular. In the subsequent days of our cruise, we learned to head up to outdoor decks while the ship pulled into port, even if we were due to leave on an excursion. That way we could see everything. Even with a small ship, unloading passengers takes time; you’ll never be in danger of missing your excursion if you wait until the ship has docked before heading to the exit.
In Geirangerfjord, the Castor didn’t actually dock. It unloaded passengers from the ship onto a tender. Because we weren’t exiting through the normal gangplank, we had to wait to unload in a stuffy hallway. Everyone had of course put on their layers, imagining we were about to be outside on a drizzly day. As we stood crowded in the hall, most people took off their outer layers.
Once we were on the smaller boat, we finally got an up-close look at the gorgous, UNESCO World Heritage fjord. This 10-minute ride was one of my favorite parts of the entire day. There was a little village right at the end of the fjord — probably housing all the people who work in tourism, at least in summer. There are probably a lot of hotels and rental houses there too. On the steep hillsides beyond that, little houses and farms perched precariously. It was also our first good look at the outside of the Castor, since we had boarded our Havila cruise from inside the Jektevik Terminal in Bergen, the previous day.
We disembarked at Geiranger village, into a tightly packed crowd, as groups from different ships all converged to board their own buses. I momentarily got separated from my group and didn’t know where to go! One of my family members came back and found me, or I’d probably still be in Geiranger, wandering through crowds and begging for scraps of lefse.
The bus journey begins in Geiranger
Just after 3 p.m., we boarded a big white bus with our driver — an older Norwegian gentlement who didn’t speak English — and our young German guide. We were on the English language tour bus. There was another bus for German speakers.
(This arrangement had the side benefit of helping us meet the other English speakers on the cruise. We ended up making friends with a couple of ladies from Wales, a mother and daughter, who sat right in front of us.)
After our bus climbed about 10 minutes up the mountain road, we caught a glimpse down at the ships leaving Gergaingerfjord to continue their cruises. We would meet up with the Castor at a different port, Molde, late that evening.
The bus ride was as hair-raising as I expected, but our driver was incredibly skillful. The road up the mountain was not wide. Our guide explained that there were protocols; for instance, if you see a big bus coming toward you on a narrow curve, you should pull your car over to the left to allow the bigger vehicle to pass on the inside. That maneuver was scary enough, but we also passed cars driven by tourists who apparently didn’t know the rule.
Where’s the view?
As we climbed, we entered the clouds that had been hanging over the fjord. Waterfalls splashed down the rock wall onto the highway. After about 20 minutes, we arrived at our first “viewing” site. Unfortunately, the conditions there were a total white-out. We had to rely on a large photo poster there to tell us that we were apparently standing on a platform extending over a waterway, with beautiful rock formations all around and mountains in the distance.
Back on the bus for more hairpin turns. Our guide did his best to keep things interesting. But he ended up saying things like: “Normally, you would see the Seven Sisters waterfalls here.” Heh.
Fun ferry rides
At 4 p.m., the bus drove onto our first ferry of the day. This was interesting. We were allowed to get off the bus and walk around the ferry. There was a tiny snack bar.
Then, after about 15 minutes, back on the bus. We drove past some rural Norwegian wooden houses with turf rooves, some of which were quite large. Most of the driveways held 4-wheel drive vehicles.
We rode along a river rushing and churning with all the rain. Our guide said he’d never seen it this high (though I later found out that this was his first season working in Norway).
After about an hour, we arrived at another viewing platform. Again, the only view we saw was on a posted photo. Some of the passengers stayed on the bus. But I fastened my raincoat hood and went outside. Apparently at this stop, we were supposed to be awed not just by the view of the river snaking through the valley far below, but also the road we had just traveled, unspooling below. At least, that’s what the poster called “Nasjonale Turistvegar” depicted.
Back on the bus, we passed more farms, including one with a lot of deer antlers mounted on the outside. I would have loved to stop and meet some of the people who lived here! We crossed one-lane bridges, where opposing traffic had to sit and wait for us to cross. Around 5 p.m., we saw our first patches of snow in the mountains above (it was July 3). According to my iPhone, this was near a town called Sylte.
At this point in the Geiranger & Trollstigen excursion, we were low enough below the clowds to enjoy some gorgeous scenery. Many waterfalls, snow-dappled mountains. My dad in particular really loved the views.
The Troll’s Road
As the Geiranger & Trollstigen excursion wore on, I fortunately avoided getting too car sick. I was wearing a Scopolamine patch for that., and I sat near the front.
At 5:30 p.m., we arrived at Trollstigen Pass, where there was again little visibility. We went inside to browse the souvenir shop. It was raining pretty hard at this point. We asked our guide if the weather was often like this, and he informed us that the month of June had been clear and beautiful nearly every day. Ah well! We knew this before we signed up: The weather in coastal Norway is a crap shoot. They get lots of rain.
From here, we were on Trollstigen, or “The Troll’s Road,” and it had the best (visible) scenery of the trip. We enjoyed more spectacular waterfalls and some views of the crazy snaking road ahead. At 6 p.m., we pulled over at a roadside viewing area, the first stop where we could see the mountains across the valley from us. At one point, I counted six skinny waterfalls veining down a rock mountain face.
Trollveggan — the Troll wall
Soon after, we arrived in an area called Andalsnes, which is apparently the destination of The Troll’s Road. We pased a touristy looking resort or campground, with a grass roof and a statue of a troll holding a soft-serve cone. Our guide told us we’d be stopping at a restaurant for coffee and cake, and to watch a movie about people jumping off the cliff wall. At this point, it was 6 p.m., and I don’t think anyone felt like coffee and cake. We had all had enough of the bus by now, and would have been happy to get back on the Castor and eat our dinner. But of course we couldn’t board the Castor until it arrived in Molde.
We pulled into the Trollveggan Vistor Center, a modern glass structure that would have had a spectacular view of the surrounding cliffs on a clear day. We learned that Trollveggan, or the “troll wall,” is the highest vertical rock wall in Europe. The restaurant was reserved just for us, and the Norwegian apple cake tasted very good. We browsed another gift shop and watched part of the film about how people used to flock here to jump off the cliff, until it was banned due to the many deaths. I wandered around outside, where it was no longer raining heavily. This stop was less than an hour, yet if felt too long.
At 7, we were on the road again, and of course the sky was not getting any darker as the hour got later, because of the midnight sun. We took one more ferry, which had an interesting-looking but sadly out-of-commission frozen yogurt machine. At 8:30, we arrived at the restaurant in Molde, where we would stay almost until it was time to reboard the Castor.
Dinner in Molde
This restaurant was cute and kitchy. The walls were covered with fishing poles, old fashioned skis, a deer head, etc. We at at communal tables with big bottles of soda set out, and beer and wine was also available at no extra charge. The dinner itself was a Norwegian sampler, mostly served cold: deli meats, smoked salmon, a salad, a wedge of cheese and — this surprised me — scrambled eggs. None of it tasted bad, but as a meal it didn’t really compare to the hot, savory meals served on the Havila cruise.
We finished eating around 9:15 p.m. Outside, I checked out thatch-roofed buildings — some even had trees growing from the tops — and the pretty pastoral setting.
Sometime after 10 p.m. — it didn’t feel that late since it was still light out — the bus took us from there to the Molde port, and unceremoniously dropped us off at the dock in the rain.
“Sorry, but we have to leave you here to wait for your ship,” the guide told us. At first we laughed, thinking he was joking. But a moment later, the bus indeed pulled away and left us there alone. But at least we weren’t standing in the dark.
After waiting a short while, we saw the Castor’s silhouette in the distance. Before 11 p.m., we were watching the crew throw the ropes to dock workers and unfold the walkway. We had only been passengers on this ship for a little more than 24 hours, but getting back on the Castor already felt like coming home.
Would I recommend the Geiranger & Trollstigen excursion?
I think if it would have been a clear day, my answer would have been an unreserved yes. The scenery we saw was spectacular, but according to the posters, what we would have seen from the viewing platforms without fog would have been practially life changing.
However.
The journey from the village of Geiranger to the town of Molde was about eight hours. That’s a long time to spend on a bus. I personally would have loved the option of an outing that drove to a trailhead and allowed us to hike to a scenic viewpoint, even in the rain. Of course, that would not have worked for our whole party — my Dad has limited mobility. And it wouldn’t be right for a large portion of the older-skewing demographic of Havila Voyages.
The biggest downside: this excursion caused us to miss dinner on the ship. The dinner we ate in Molde was not as good as any of the meals served on Havila Castor.
If I were to take the northbound journey again, I might wait until I boarded to book the Geiranger excursion. That way, I could check the weather forecast before making my final decision. Of course, it’s a pretty popular trip; it might sell out. But I would not sit through a mostly-foggy 8-hour drive again.
Pro tip: If you do this excursion, wearing layers is so important. The bus was overheated for my taste, so I was grateful that I had worn short sleeves under my fleece and raincoat.