Last summer with the van?

This summer, our plan was just to go to a couple festivals - Molde Jazz and Fres Festival. One was a huge success and the other a bit disappointing.

For Xmas last year, our kids got us tickets to Molde Jazz. This is where AM and I became a couple. Since it now was 30 years ago, the kids wanted to celebrate it a bit. Back then, Molde Jazz was an exciting festival with lots of new acts and really feeling the pulse on what was new. It's no longer like that, but we'll get back to that. The summer started off with our annual trip to Sandefjord with friends and on the way back from there, we went to Stavanger to help Vera move to Oslo.

Vennesla timber run & Stavanger

Driving to Stavanger is quite boring when you've done it a few times and this year we'd been there twice already. To change it up, I found that the beautiful library in Vennesla was on the way there. AM had mentioned this many years ago and now we got to see it. In the tiny Vennesla village, there's also a quite unique sight to see - a Timber run that you can walk up as a hike. We spent the night and was ready early morning for the 4.2km hike each way up Steinsfoss Tømmerrenne - and it was pouring rain. We came prepared though, so off we went.

Given that a timber run must have a careful climb for it to work as intended, this really isn't a tough hike at all. It is extremely scenic, taking you over long bridges and through tunnels. Along the way, you can stop for waffles at Paulen Farm (we skipped that) and take a detour to see the derelict Kringsjå Power station (we did). With the Setesdal steam train passing by as you walk, this was a really nice hike despite the somewhat sad weather. Highly recommended and a unique attraction at no cost. You can also take the train one way and walk the other, but that would require booking tickets a few days in advance.

Molde Jazz

When our kids got us the tickets, we instantly had a look at the program. Not much was tempting and Molde Jazz now has a terrible system of either buying one monster-ticket for the whole event, or you get single tickets for each concert. This makes it much less likely that you'll pop into a random concert and discover something new. To us, that's an important part of the fun at any festival.

On the way up, we wanted to do some hiking, so we stopped by Åndalsnes to do the hike across Romsdalseggen. The typical way to do this is to take a bus to the other side of the mountain and cross it from there. We instead did the lazy route and took the gondola up and then set off the hike in beautiful sunshine and a temperature of 30 degrees celcius in the shade…

Quite a hike and we were completely exhausted when we came back down to the restaurant at the top. I can't remember drinking that much water in one go ever? Absolutely lovely hike! Since the van has no air conditioning, we made sure to spend the nights in the mountains as much as possible this summer. Nice and cold and even some entertainment for breakfast!

For the festival day itself we had planned to sleep over at the camping where we became a couple 30 years ago. That proved impossible as the camp was completley overcrowded, so instead we just stayed at the parking lot outside the iconic Seilet Hotel. Having a stealthy camper is really valuable when it's pretty much impossible to find official ways to stay in a town!

Off we went to enjoy the festival and the first concert! Jason Moran is a true professional and we thoroughly enjoyed it! We spent the evening swimming in the fjord, walking around, enjoying food and the mood in general.

We had a terrible night due to the heat and lack of AC, but it sort of worked. Another fine day in the town, more swimming in the Molde fjord and a brilliant concert in the evening with Best Western Swing & friends. It's also quite clear that it's the same people selecting artists today as it was 30 years ago, since it's very much a distinct style of Jazz being promoted. There is little in terms of modern jazz artists that I enjoy like Alfa Mist or Product May Contain. There's lots of dissonant and non-melodic old artists - the kind that are extremely versed in their instruments that love showing off ("flinkis-musikere" in Norwegian). The non-jazz artists invited like 06 Boys, Marstein & Emma Steinbakken seem kind of a desperate attempt at getting hold of a new generation of Jazz fans? To me it seems misunderstood that kids enjoying pop acts would also enjoy atonal jazz targeting skilled musicians in their 60's. It would have been much better to invite more jazzy new Norwegian acts like Pumpegris & Veslemøy Narvesen? Uld was a good booking though!

Since we could not get a normal day pass, we had to find a few concerts close in time that we'd like to see. Overall, we had a nice 5-day trip. Molde is a lovely city, but removing the single-day tickets really kills the festival vibe. I don't think we'll go back unless they fix that. Fortunately, we had another festival to look forward to!

Walters birthday & Fres Festival

With kids grown up and away, they won't get the traditional birthday celebration they're used to. With Walter working in Trondheim most of the summer, we figured that we could head up and surprise him a bit? We were after all headed to Sogndal afterwards, so a small trip to Trondheim wouldn't be too much of a detour.

Yet again - the temperatures were scorching and with no AC, we had to plan where to sleep. We stuck to the mountains, but that gave us a fantastic surprise! Guess what beach we're on in the picture below?

This is at the third largest lake in Norway called Femunden! Despite it looking like a seaside spot, this is inland with lovely and long beaches with white sand and 22C in the water. We really wasn't prepared for that! Inland there's of course mosquitoes and such, but it wasn't bad at all thanks to a mild and warm breeze. We took the slower route along Fylkesvei 30 rather than the speedy RV3 and on the way up, we actually saw more reindeer than during our Northern trip the year before?

We spent a couple lovely days with Walter as well as one quite horrible night. We payed to stay at Scandic Lerkendal - just to have Airconditioning since it was so hot. The staff literally lied to us claiming that they really had airconditioning when we arrived. Turns out they have ventilation since it's not really required to have AC most years in Trondheim?  Being a modern hotel, it's also hard to ventilate properly so it was absolutely horrendous. These weeks literally killed their Google ratings and we should have stayed in our car - for free - at the same temperature. Live and learn.

Then we headed to Fres Festival. The steep Sognefjellet mountainside almost killed our break pads, but what a view? So why go to a tiny festival at the end of a fjord where the road ends? One of our favorite artists played there - Darling West. We've never seen them live and when we saw the program for Fresn, we just had to go. It was literally the best collection of Norwegian pop & rock in 2025? We caught Darling West, Ary, Skatebård, Electric Eye, No 4, Sondre Lerche, Todd Terje, Hedda Mae as well as my long time favorites Casiokids. Their song “Fot i Hose” has been AM's ringtone when I call her since they published the tune in 2010 and what a show they put on! All the kids in the festival got to wear the stage costumes for the final. Such a blast! Charlie Skien is another artist that I've listende extensively to in 2025 and it was great to see Brenn in a better state than at Audunbakken 2021. They're now incredibly professional and tight!

Fres Festival (Fresn) is a really small event at a tiny village consisting of a church, a store and a couple businesses. Apart from that, there is rasberry farms all over so we had plenty of fresh berries while there. The car park near the festival was full when we arrived late on Thursday, so we stayed by the local sports facility. This gave the nice side-effect of not beeing too close to the festival camp as well as the opportunity to grab a shower.

The vibe at the festival is quite different in that most attendees are somewhat local. At most I think it was 5-600 there and with one exception (AM's cousin), we didn't meet any familiar faces. That meant that we more or less had to meet nice ppl to chat and hang with. We enjoyed the local food, swam in the fjord and just enjoyed the overall vibe. A very nice crowd & place overall!

On the way home we stopped by Borgund Stavkirke & a couple other sights, enjoying the trip & nice weather. We do want a working AC in our next van though! Speaking of that - the title is that this is our last summer with the van? We've decided to sell it off, but more about that in a later post.