Stay off of the E-6. It’s terrible! I heard this repeatedly from the motorcycle touring community and did my best to avoid this dreaded “main road” down the center of Norway. I took it only when there was no reasonable alternative. In the far north above the Arctic Circle, it’s the only way to hug the coast. And if you want to get into a city the size of Oslo with any efficiency, an expressway is the ticket.

However, I would like to set the record straight. Whoever started this thing about the E-6 has never been on I-95 through New Jersey or I-80/90/94 through northern Indiana heading for Chicago. THOSE roads are a negative road trip experience. E-6 is just slightly annoying with it’s strictly-enforced moderate speed limits and its abundance of German, Dutch and Italian motorhomes going even slower.

Like all Norwegian roads, the E-6 has perfect pavement that looks like someone swept all the dirt and bits of gravel from it during the night. In the north it offers spectacular scenery. In the south it runs through a long valley and often follows the course of a broad river flowing past farm fields and tidy cities like Lillehammer, site of the 1964 Winter Olympics. I was able to camp right on the river at Lillehammer and watch kids play in the water with inflatable toys while their mother, wrapped in a goose down jacket, watched from the 50-degree beach. Major construction widening the road as it enters Oslo was a chore to get through, but roads get built sometime and I happen to have been there at the same time. Some photos of the maligned E-6 are included to prove my point.

Oslo rewarded me with a micro-brewery (!) right where I parked my motorbike to keep it from over-heating. The electric radiator fan had given up the ghost and that made urban traffic and highway back-ups a challenge calling for creativity. A Norwegian version of an American IPA was actually the first reasonable IPA I had sampled in northern Europe. My other reward was a specially curated exhibition of the paintings of Edvard Munch, with examples brought in from around the world. It was great and made the couple of days in Oslo waiting for the ferry to Denmark a pleasure. 

I arrived at the largest ferry boat I had ever seen in the early evening. I remembered the mishap on the Baltic when the ferry “Estonia” sunk after it’s “front door” failed to properly latch. Then I saw thew flag flying from the stern of the ”Stena Saga”— a jolly roger with a skull and cross bones! I immediately called my wife.

Cars, buses, trucks, travel trailers, motor homes but only three motorcycles rolled into the belly of the whale. There were steel bulkheads sperating the lower decks from the “good seats”, and there was no way to even get to the luxury lounges from where I was berthed. 

So, the sun was shining, the art and beer had been satisfying, I had had a last reindeer-meat dinner at a place called Schroeder’s where I was the only traveller, and the 8:30 PM ferry left on time to the sounds of a Norwegian songstress dressed like a naval officer. My bottom-of-the-barrel four-bunk cabin was truly steerage class. It was on the lowest deck of the 12-story ship— below the deck filled with cars and trucks. Fortunately, I was the only one in this tiny cubicle so I had a private room the size of a big suitcase for the entire 24-hour crossing.