We were up early as the hotel had an included breakfast, and then we were off. Our goal for the day with Ringebu, which is a skiing town, which hosted the 1994 Olympic downhill skiing.
The roads started off pretty easy, but as we got further north we started to encounter a lot more snow, we were mostly on the main roads, so it wasn't too bad.
We had a quick stop in Lillehammer, a small town that was the host of the 1994 Winter Olympics. It is named after the Hamar farm (meaning stone or rocky hill). Since there was already a nearby town of Hamar, the town was called little Hamar, which morphed to Lillehammer. The town is mentioned in the old Norse sagas as Litlikaupangr ("Little Trading Place").
The coat of arms of Lillehammer is a Birkebeinar, a member of a rebellious group of Norwegians who supported a pretender to the Norwegian throne in 1174. The Birkebeinar is skiing, representing the story of the Birkebeinars who carried future King Haakon from to Rena from Lillehammer on skiis.
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| Some scooters and bikes being preserved for summer... |
Our next stop was the Ringebu Stave Church. The church was built in a traditional stave church design in 1220 and expanded in 1630 and restored in 1921.
As we were going to leave we caught a phenomenon called Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSCs), in which the clouds form a rainbow/pearlescent glow:
We we still a little early for our accommodation, so we decided to do some shopping for breakfast and dinner before we checked in. But, being Sunday, all of the shops in Ringebu were closed, so we instead headed out to a nearby ski resort, which involved a bit of mountain driving.
Our accommodation for the night was a mountain cabin in Ringebu:
The next morning we were off to Trondheim and some winter driving:
We were staying in an apartment just outside the center of Trondheim, which was spacious and comfortable, there was just one problem... When we had booked the place I was sure that the advert listed a washing machine and dryer. We had already been travelling 4 days and now had 6 days at this place then 3 days in a cabin, we needed to wash our clothes. But there was a gap in the bathroom where the washing machine had been in the picture. Feeling I was going crazy, I checked back at the advert and there was no washing machine listed and the picture with the washer had gone. It turns out that the owner had moved house and taken the washer and dryer with him. He had updated the ad to remove it from the listing, but we had booked before the change. He offered to take our clothes to his place to wash them, but that didn't sound too good, so we ended up heading into Trondheim to a laundromat to wash everything:
With everything washed, we returned home for dinner and a movie before bed.
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