The next day we backtracked a bit to get to the road we were supposed to take and even further back to the place where we saw a gorgeous waterfall.   It had been dusk when we passed it yesterday, but we went to get a better view this morning.  It looked better in person than on photographs.

Then we headed straight to Stavanger.  We were going there to hike up to the Preacher’s Pulpit but first we wanted to visit the famous sculpture of 3 swords which we had seen featured on so many postcards.  We didn’t know where it was so we swung by the center of town assuming it would be there somewhere.  We had to go into a paying lot and when we got out Hendrik was able to pick up a random wireless signal and start googling on his phone while my mission was to go to the tourist office and ask.  There were a lot of people there, unusually since tourist season was over and all and I had to wait for a long time with a number in hand.  After some time when I felt it had to be my turn, Hendrik called saying he had located the swords.  It was in some sort of park by the side of the road near a lake.  I was quite disappointed thinking the three swords were some sort of ancient stone structure made by Vikings in a mysterious way, when in reality they were a new sculpture made out of metal complete with graffiti.  Anyway we could check it off our list, take a fun picture and move on to something more worthwhile.

Sverd i Fjell - the three swords

That more worthwhile thing would be the Preacher’s Pulpit or Preikestolen a perfectly square cliff edge hanging over Lysefjorden.  It is probably so popular because the hike is not too hard as other hikes in Norway, but it is steep at times.  The worst part is the bits over big boulders where I had to think where to put each foot for each step .  They are large and my legs are short so the big steps I had to make were tiring.  Where the path split we took the green route up since we thought it was easier since it is a bit flatter and lower than the red one, thought the red one seemed to be the more popular option probably because people thought it was more direct.  I’m glad we took the green and it was very pretty as well since it took us around the top of the mountain and the view slowly opened up for us.  We were luck to have a sunny day and the view was spectacular.

View from Preikestolen

Unfortunately, the sun also made it impossible to take spectacular pictures of people on the cliff since it made everyone look like a silhouette.  After taking silhouette pictures of each other and another group of travelers we took some more snaps of the view.  Then Hendrik went up on the red trail first to take a few pics of me on the Preacher’s Pulpit from above. I then joined him for a quick picnic of chips, crackers, preservative laden cheese and cookies.  It was harder to hike down the boulders than up them.  The entire trip took 5 hours, but it was well worth it.

Me on Preikestolen

Since I wanted to do the Kjerag hike to the boulder wedged between two cliffs the next day, we had planned on taking the tourist ferry down along the fjord from Lauvvik to Lysebotn.  Since it was now autumn in Norway at least, it was out of season and not running, which was a shame since it was a nice day and would have been pleasant and I’m sure other tourists would have gone too since Preikestolen was quite crowded.  There was another ferry that went there but you had to book ahead of time and their office was closed and it left a 6:15am which was too early anyway.   We slept in a farmhouse that night.  When we passed by we saw a symbol of a bed and went to ask for one.   The owner was not expecting guests at all but was getting the place ready for a big group the next day.  She hesitated to let us stay in lieu of the preparations but she agreed, which was good since it seemed to be the only place for miles.  It was a nice place with a huge living room and dorm style bedroom but we were the only guests so we only had to share the bathroom with each other.