Day 25: From Bergen to Stavanger and Tau

Towards the oil capital of Norway

The journey from Bergen to Stavanger offered a typical Norwegian landscape with fjords, settlements, farms, some forests, many tunnels and a few bridges. I also had to use two ferries. The weather was ideal for riding a motorcycle!

Under the sea

My destination today was the house of my friend, whom I had met when I lived in Stavanger 35 years ago. He moved to the town of Tau, about 25 km from Stavanger, to the house he had inherited from his parents, which he had helped to build and in which he had grown up.

When I came from Bergen, I had to drive through Stavanger. Stavanger is the center of the Norwegian oil industry and a very modern city that is constantly growing and expanding. The main transit traffic through the city runs through a almost 5 km long underground tunnel. As soon as I left this tunnel, I had to enter another tunnel to get to Tau. This tunnel runs under the sea, is 14.4 km long and for a while was the longest underground tunnel in the world. The interesting thing about this tunnel are some decorations on the walls and a “hall”-shaped section in the middle of the tunnel, whose walls are illuminated with colors that change every few days. This is to break up the monotony of driving in a tunnel for a long time.

My hosts were waiting for me with a delicious dinner.

I had covered 208 km today and the trip counter had climbed to 8 176 km.