Bergen To Oslo

WOW! What a difference a route change makes!!! On the way to Bergen we took a "northern" route to hit Flam and Fjaerland. On the way back to Oslo I wanted to go a different way to hopefully see different scenery. Boy, did we! We took a southern route and ended up on mountain tops with sub-freezing temperatures and snow to the horizon and beyond! Norway has more tunnels then any other country we've visited. Some mountainous regions we were going through tunnels every few miles. One of the craziest tunnels we encountered was the one that deposited us in the winter wonderland. It was a "cork-screw" inside the mountain... pretty much a spiral staircase with a right turn that went on forever! I would have to guess that we went around perhaps 6 times - - going in we were in fairly warm weather, but when the tunnel finally dumped us out we were speechless at the sight of the blanket of white covering everything! It was as if we went a great distance to different regions of the world in a matter of minutes. Buildings so deep in snow you could only glimpses small sections of their rooftops. Now I had to take pictures in this environment, but inside the car it was a balmy 72 to 78f degrees (what's that... about 23 to 25c for you metric lovers?), so I'm wearing shorts and a comfortable short sleeved shirt. It wasn't too bad for quick hits, but at one place R wasn't too comfortable with me stopping on the road (there was no place to park on either side), so I had to pull off to the side a fair length from my subject, so I jumped out and ran to the spot. Man, talk about your exposure. My matchstick legs were about to snap... I believe the ONLY time I have ever wished for more hair on my legs. The cheesecloth-like t-shirt I was wearing felt like it MAGNIFIED the cold wind. There's not a single coed in Daytona during Spring Break that I couldn't have trounced in a wet t-shirt contest, without the water! By the time I ran back to the car I was numb in places I've never even considered important let alone areas of vital interest. I don't believe I've ever been so cold while the sun was shining! After driving through this area for quite some time, we began to descend and were soon back in temperate weather and back at our B&B that housed us when we came through Oslo on our way into Norway.