Rewind - Day 3 Juvet Landscape Hotel and Olav's trail

Our first night at Juvet, we arrived after dark. We checked in while guests were finding seats around a long family-style table for dinner. There were no parking spots available so I was told to park next to a black car with a big "AVIS" decal on the door. The very tall Norwegian who checked us in, walked us through the main room of, what I'm going to call the big house, and out the back door, down a set of stairs. He said, "these are your keys. This is a torch," meaning flashlight, "and that is your room." He pointed the torch down a gravel path, shining the light on three birch trees. "Your room is behind those three trees. You can pull your car up to this spot and empty your luggage, but you will have to walk it the rest of the way."

When we got to the three trees on our narrow path to the front door, we saw that one of the trees was right in the middle of the path and the only way to the door was the climb over the roots and around the trees. 

I reparked, settled into the room and went to blog in the big house. Krista joined me on an adjacent couch to read a book. It was darkly lit with a red fabric chandelier (I'm sure there's a better description for that, but I have no design training/knowledge/skill).  There was a fire going and a few tall candles around the room. The room felt like a mix between a farm house, bordello and intimate restaurant. 

Krista went back to the room for some sleep after a long day and I stayed to finish the blog until dinner was done and everyone retreated to their rooms. It was 10:30pm local time. I was looking forward to an amazing night's sleep and an incredible morning where the Juvet grounds would be revealed by the sun. 

At 3:30am Krista and I woke up. There was no falling back to sleep with this kind of jet lag. After an hour or so, we decided to grab our comforters and sit in the Eames chairs positioned in front of a floor to ceiling window. 

Sunrise wasn't until 7:06am.

The thing about the Juvet Landscape Hotel, from my understanding, is that the buildings/rooms were built to have minimal impact on the land. No one dug into the Earth to create a foundation. The rooms are built on super strong steal pipes/beams, leaving a very small footprint. The walls are dark wood, two walls are entirely windows (floor to ceiling, as I mentioned). The lighting is intentional (and lousy for actually seeing anything). The goal is to draw your attention to nature. 

Our room

Interesting side note, the bathroom, which was pained canary yellow, was one room. That doesn't explain it. Let's say you pull open the frosted glass door, "Whoa! Yellow" you say. Then you see a sink on your right, toilet in front of you, tall narrow window in the far left corner. "Wait, where is the shower?" When you turn to leave the bathroom you see next to the door a shower head. I did not take a picture of it, which I regret, but I'll see if I can find something later to show you. It is at this moment, you realize there is no wall or curtain to separate the shower from the sink or the toilet, the yellow walls are waterproof, the towels, toilet paper and hairdryer are all on the far left of the bathroom on a shelf under the sink...out of reach of the water from the shower head. Very clever. Very interesting.

Right, back to jet lag.

At 3:30, when we first woke up, it was pitch black. We could hear a river running outside through the vents on either side of the bed. Vents to let in fresh air and the sounds of nature.

For about an hour, we tried to go back to sleep. We got hungry and each had a banana. Krista tried watching a show on her tablet. Around 5 or 5:30, we could see light out of the window 5 feet from the foot of the bed. This is when we wrapped ourselves in the comforters and got comfy in front of the other window, deciding to watch the day wake up. 

As light began to illuminate our view, trees first took shape out of the blackness. Once fully defined, they became black themselves while light shone through their leaves and around their trunks. Krista said, "I wonder how much light it will take to see color. For the trees to turn from black to green." 

We sat as still as the trees. There was no wind. No leaves moved. No birds. No branches swayed. It looked like a two dimensional pencil drawing.

A river appeared. White and apparently still though we could hear it rushing. After a time, we could stare above the river itself and see it's movement. If you looked right at it, you couldn't.

At 6:30am we saw first movement. One bird passing by.
At 6:37am the trees changed from black to green.
Shortly after, the autumn colors showed themselves. Orange and red in the distance. The river started looking a little blue. We could see moss and make out ferns.
The sun wasn't due to rise for another 30 minutes.
At 6:46am the sun warmed the trees a little and leaves started to fall.
At 6:54am the colors deepened.
At 6:58am the first bird song of the day.

Because we were in a valley, there was no grand reveal of sun at sunrise. We stirred and woke like the nature around us.

After breakfast, we were told of a hike in the area that should take an hour. It started at the end of the driveway and went in a loop. Olav's trail. 

-- Reality here -- I am in the Oslo airport waiting to board a flight to Reykjavik and am running out of time and wi-fi to dive into Olav's trail. I will quickly summarize. 

• STUNNING
• At times tricky to navigate
• It took 2 hours
• No camera on Earth can capture how beautiful, unique and amazing it was
• Standouts: vegetation and fungus, hills/mountains, fog/clouds, mud, rocks, fresh air...just everything.