When you say Norway, the first things that comes to your mind are Vikings, fjords and beautiful nature. So beautiful that you would climb the highest mountains just for the view. The price doesn’t matter, it’s the experience.

And so when I decided that the price doesn’t matter, but does the experience, I gifted us with a weekend trip to Stavanger, with the only goal – to climb the Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock) .

Being a family of three, bringing grandmother as well, I had to do some detailed research and careful planning.

First of all, how should we get to the foothill? By car or shuttle bus from the city of Stavanger? How long is the hike? When should we start? What to bring? Toilets? Are there trash bins? Where are we supposed to drop dirty diapers? How much water to bring? What kind of snacks? What to dress? How to survive the 40 minute ride back and forth with a one year old? So many questions, so little did we know…that with good preparation, few nervous breakdowns and a help of the granny, all should work fine.

Even with a shuttle bus service running few times a day between Stavanger and the Preikestolen base camp, we decided to rent a car from someone living in Stavanger. There’s an app called Get around that you can use to rent a personal owned car from someone that does not use it for a time requested. The woman that rented us a car was kind enough to pick us up at the airport and to drop us later on our way home. We got used child seat for a cheap price directly in Stavanger that we later just left behind us in the apartment. It’s going to be of use for someone else.

Before coming to Stavanger, I ordered a big child carrier and practiced short weekend hikes just to see how M will adjust to the carrier or will he be able to take a nap, because naps are crucial when you have a kid. Both your naps and his 🙂

Anyway, we took a 40 minutes car ride after breakfast through the currently world’s longest and deepest subsea road tunnel (14.4 kilometres (8.9 mi) and arrived around 9am to the parking lot, that was slowly starting to be full. The temperature was early morning chilly but it got hotter as we were climbing up, so starting early hike in the summer it’s actually good idea. Some people were just coming back from the hill as they did a night hike. Very impressive.

We did toilet brake as there are no toilets along the way, and the open nature and million people on the hike does not give you privacy, buckled the little one in his carrier, and started the climb.

There’s a whole trail on the google maps that I explored before the actual trip, with just one thing not counting on – the ascent. I lost my breath before we even started. But I managed. We all did.

It took us around 4 hours, with a small brake on the top, for the 8 kilometers long trail. M quickly fell asleep and slept half of the way, which gave me the inner peace while doing the heavy ascent. Part of the trail is just stairs made of rocks, and with a burden of around 15 kg on your back, it’s not the easiest task. But the ‘’stupid idea’’ was mine and mine only and I could not leave it to Debeli to carry M. He was in charge of the photos 🙂

We packed some snacks for the little one and some sandwiches for us, a bit of fruit and some water, as there are no toilets until coming back down to the parking lot so just enough to keep us hydrated.

On the way back in the car, we kept the M awake by giving him some lunch pouches, while we were looking forward to the baked chicken and potatoes that granny made.

The path of the trail was busy that day and it was getting busier as we were going down, but already around noon, there were dozens of people on the top.

The flat 25×25 meters surface and the 604 meters high cliff above the Lysefjord were the star point of the Tom Cruises Mission: Impossible – Fallout movie, but looking down from the top off the cliff I can’t imagine how and WHY he did all of the stunts alone.

Looking down form the top was crazy to remember that just yesterday we were looking up to the top from the cruise boat.

The beautiful sunny day in the end granted us with the most beautiful views of the Lysefjord that no camera can capture, that no photo can do its justice, you just have to come here and see it for yourself.