Fjords…and Pizza?

Pizza for dinner. Not once, not twice, but four times! It’s the last thing I expected when I recently visited Norway.

Our photography group traveled from Trondheim, to Sunndal, to Andalsnes, to Stryn, and finally to Alesund photographing fall colors in the fjords. As usual, we ate at off hours and in smaller towns. Pizza restaurants were everywhere!

I expected seafood. But as you can see below, Norway leads the world in pizza consumption at 25 pounds per person per year.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/pizza-consumption-by-country

On October 12, we were staying in Andalsnes. Because sunset was relatively early at 6:34 pm, we were back in town in plenty of time for dinner. And what was the closest restaurant to our hotel? A pizza joint, naturally.

And because we wanted to make it easy on the waitstaff, what did we order? Pizza. It’s what’s for dinner in Norway, apparently.

The Shot

The weather made this trip challenging. The winds were Westerly off the Atlantic Ocean bringing in rain and fog. One violent, windy nighttime storm early in our trip brought down most of the fall foliage. In addition, it triggered a landslide that knocked out power to our hotel for several hours.

The trick in those conditions is to keep repeating, “Bad weather makes for good photographs.” Bad weather can sometimes transform mundane into magnificent. But rain grounds drones and camera weatherproofing has its limits.

On October 14, we were near Utigardselva. There were bands of fog and low clouds with just occasional mist. We finished piloting our drones near a mountain waterfall and finished the mile long hike back to our parked cars. Just as we arrived, we glimpsed a peek at the peak. The tip of the mountain we were trying to capture magically appeared.

I grabbed my “big” camera and quickly fired off two shots. Within seconds, the peak vanished in the clouds along with the composition. Without it, the shot just doesn’t work.

The next day we were off to Alesund and our first authentic Norwegian seafood dinner!

Thanks for looking,

Chuck Derus Zenfolio | Chuck Derus