Norway has long lived in my head in the form of photographs with huge mountains, waterfalls and roads that seemed to have been specially laid between the fjords for the sake of beauty. Everything looked so perfect in the pictures that I even suspected a bit of a catch: well, the country can't really be so beautiful, and even in everyday life, without five filters and a special photographer from a helicopter. In the end, I decided to check everything out myself and went on a road trip, where the main plan was to see the fjords, and the backup plan was at least not to get lost on the way. I decided to start the trip from Bergen. The city greeted me with colorful houses, narrow streets, mountains all around, and rain, which the locals seem to perceive about as calmly as we do with ordinary clouds. I came hoping for beautiful sunny photos, but Norway quickly explained to me the local rules: if the sun is out now, it's better to take pictures right away, because in ten minutes everything can change. Bergen Embankment After Bergen, I picked up the car and drove on, towards the fjords, for which the whole trip was conceived. The further away I got from the city, the fewer houses there were and the more mountains, water, tunnels and waterfalls appeared around, and sometimes all this appeared so unexpectedly that I wanted to stop the car literally after every turn. I realized very quickly that in Norway, even an ordinary road can steal half an hour of your time, simply because there's a view nearby that makes it impossible to just say, "Well, we'll see later."

One of the main points of my route was Sognefjord. I had seen it in photographs many times before the trip, but it turned out to be a completely different feeling in person, because no camera captures this scale. I hope that the emotions I have received will inspire me for more than one year. Sognefjord You stand next to the water, look at the huge rocks and suddenly realize how small you are against the background of all this construction, which nature obviously assembled without any haste. What's the buzz here? I even thought for a moment how much it would cost to move to Norway. How happy the locals are, they can go out into nature at any time. On the way, as I expected, I stopped several times at waterfalls, which in any other country could well become the main local attraction. In Norway, you get used to it quickly: you drive calmly, you notice the sound of water, which, by the way, does not annoy at all, you turn to the side of the road – and there is already a waterfall in front of you. At first, I took pictures of each one in a row, and then I realized that my phone would soon run out of memory altogether, so I had to choose, although it was almost physically painful to delete at least one picture. And I realized that on my next trip I should take a camera or buy a phone with as much memory as possible.

The next stop was Flom, and I especially remembered not so much the town itself as the road to it. Here I finally realized that in Norway, a route is not just a way to get from one place to another, but a separate part of the journey that constantly tries to attract attention to itself. Tunnels give way to streamers, water appears around the bend, then mountains, then a small wooden house that looks like it was specially erected in the most beautiful place in the country. Flom Harbor At some point, I stopped rushing and just started stopping where I really wanted to. I could get out of the car, make coffee, stand by the water for a while and drive on again, completely not worrying that I was behind schedule. Moreover, the less I tried to control everything, the more enjoyable the trip became, because sometimes the best moment of the trip is not a planned attraction, but an accidental stop that you did not intend to make at all. In Flom, I allowed myself to slow down a bit. After several hours on the road, it was especially pleasant to just take a walk, look at the water, sit somewhere with a coffee and feel that you were not running through the list of attractions. However, after a while I looked at my watch again and remembered that I still have the next point on the route, which means it's too early to relax completely.