Another beautiful day – is summer really here? We head to the Oslo Domkirke, the Cathedral that stands at one end of Karl Johans gate, the main street of Oslo. It is a beautiful church! We stand for ages examining the carved scene behind the altar – 3 scenes, 1 above the other, carved in realistic detail and almost lifesize: below is the Last Supper; in the middle is the Crucifixion; and above, the Resurrection.


The Domkirke

We walk along Karl Johans gate, and stop to admire the Stortinget, Norway’s Parliament. Not separated from the street, but part of it, we are surprised by the surprising lack of apparent security.


The Stortinget and its square
From the Stortinget we continue along Karl Johans gate to the Akershus Slott, the royal palace, which bookends, with the Domkirke, this beautiful street. We are able to walk right up to the palace, and through its grounds – again surprised at the lack of apparent security, and surprised that there is no outdoor space for the Royal Family that is shielded from view.


The Akershus Slott

We walk through the gardens behind the palace, into the beautiful residential and embassy area. Then back through side streets into the centre, simply enjoying the day. After lunch, we head back to the Fortress area, where we climb to the top of the ramparts, and with the view over Oslo below us, we lie on the grass and enjoy a perfect summer afternoon.

We start our 1st morning in Oslo by taking the ferry to the suburb of Bygdøy, full of beautiful homes and museums. As befits a maritime nation, 4 of the 5 museums across the water are concerned with ships – including the Fram and the Kon-Tiki. We are heading to the Viking Ship Museum – where 3 of the Viking boats are on display. These boats were all built around 850 AD and discovered in the mid-1800s, and survived through the ages because they had been used in Viking funeral rituals – and were buried in clay, which preserved them. Much of what is known about Viking ships comes from these 3. We look at them in awe – these boats are beautiful, the carving quite beautiful – and cannot imagine sailing in these open ships, with almost no protection from the elements, across the North Atlantic to Greenland, Iceland and Newfoundland.


Viking Ship

After walking around the neighbourhood, enjoying the sunshine, we take the ferry back to town, and walk through the restored waterfront, full of cafés and restaurants and night clubs. Then we move on to the Akerhus Fortress, situated on a hill overlooking the harbour, some of it dating back to the 1300s. Still an active military site, there are a number of museums inside. I visit one, the Resistance Museum, which documents Norway’s fight against the Nazis, who positioned over 400,000 troops all over the country, because they expected the Allies to commence their counterattack in Norway. I learn why so many pubs around Norway are named “Churchill’s” or “Sir Winston’s” or similar. More chillingly, I learn that the building in which the museum is located was used by the Nazis as a prison for captured resistance fighters, and that the exterior wall was a favoured place for executions.


From left: the Akershus Fortress; view of Oslo from the Fortress

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Bergen to Oslo: 521 kilometres

Ok, I get my big, looming, cloud enshrouded just-as-good-as New Zealand fjords on this trip.

We check out of our hotel quite early (for us) and are on the road by 9:30, foregoing the fast route and taking the scenic road from Bergen to Oslo, through some of the most beautiful scenery in Norway. We highly recommend it!

The clouds are hanging low and grey again with a gentle rain falling as we pull out of Bergen. No one had quite prepared us for the diversity of landscape that we would travel through over the next 9 hours. We start through one of the many tunnels we will go through on our drive to the capital and break into a fjord-filled pine and rock-faced landscape, sheer wet cliffs reaching up to the sky. The road is windy and in many places turns into a one lane road heading in which ever direction the first car or bus to arrive is going. We skirt tranquil fjord lakes being cracked by the occasional waterfall, tumbling bridal veil-like from the tops of the mountains. Many hair-pin turns greet us as we seem to be heading up.



The Fjords

The road continues in this way for about 2 hours until we stop in Bruravik to take the ferry across the fjord to continue on our way to Oslo. Shortly after we get off the ferry, the road turns away from the fjord and follows a river up, and up, and then we enter a tunnel – 8 kilometres long – and in it we rise and rise.

When we exit the tunnel, we are into a completely different landscape than the lush wet greens we left below – we are above the tree line, driving through tundra on the Hardangervidda, the largest mountain plateau in Europe, between 1,100 and 1,300 metres above sea level. We drive along, amazed at how quickly the environment has changed, passing the occasional cottage, tent and campervan. The temperature has fallen as dramatically as the scenery has changed. We are now down to 7° with a wind blowing and large patches of snow still visible. We stop for lunch at a café that appears to be the last outpost on the plateau before we reach the North Pole, and dressed as we are for early spring, we are not dressed appropriately. We have soup and tea for lunch, and marvel again at the cost of living in Norway – C$19 each for a bowl of soup!


Hardangervidda

We continue our lonely drive through the permafrost and tundra and we eventually make it back down into the alpine valley and start to run parallel with the famous Oslo to Bergen train route. It is said to be one of the most beautiful train rides in the world. Judging from what we have driven through so far, we would agree. We pass camp grounds full to the brim with camper vans, tents and trailers, all seeming to be enjoying the “summer” holidays. Norwegians, it appears, love to camp.

At this point in the trip it has taken us just under six hours to travel 300 kilometres and we are just looking forward to the last two hours of easy driving on a relatively larger highway when we approach an abrupt detour sign that points us north and out of our way! Our road is closed! We have no choice but to follow the flow and we head back up into the mountains for about an hour and cross over to the alternate road that will take us into Oslo. The view is, at this point, much less interesting – how many pine trees and beautiful vistas can you take in one day?

We coast into Oslo at about 6:30, check in to our hotel and make our way, somewhat wearily, around the downtown of Olso, focusing our attention for tonight anyway on the main street, Karl Johans gate.

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Our overnight is uneventful, our cabin a snug cocoon from the chilly Norwegian Sea air. We have a quiet morning; breakfast is our standard Scandinavian buffet of cereal, porridge, bread, coffee and orange juice – we still haven’t become accustomed to the cheese and cold cuts that seem to be the main event for the Scandinavians. We bundle up and spend an hour walking the ship, taking photos and enjoying the occasional, wayward sun – no rain today. Then we settle into the Panorama Room (they kick everyone out of their cabin at noon), and read till we dock mid-afternoon. We have the occasional promenade on deck, especially when the sun chooses to show its face - and it does for some extended periods of time.



From the ship

We spend the rest of the afternoon exploring Bergen, which is another very appealing city. It is about 270,000 people, but the downtown feels like it belongs to a very sophisticated city, full of beautiful squares with fountains and sculptures – possibly because this is the biggest tourist town in Norway. Bergen was one of the most important cities in the Hanseatic League, because of its beautiful harbour. Today it is this harbour that draws the ships here, and the town is full – we hear more English on the streets than we have heard since we left Toronto 4 weeks ago today.


In Bryggen

We walk over to Bryggen, the oldest part of town, lining one side of the harbour. Despite its appearance – we wonder how the walls stay up, they are so badly tilted – it is a very posh little area: we discover that behind the façade of falling-down ness, are legal and accounting firms. Then we find a street being rehabilitated, and realize that these buildings have been very carefully renovated, to preserve the topsy-turvy exterior in front of new, fully-modernized interiors.

Hurtigruten is the coastal ferry steamer that plies the small ports up and down Norway’s Atlantic coast. Running for over 100 years, the ferries are now a big tourist business – in addition to freight and mail, they carry passengers and cars. The return trip from Bergen to the Russian border on the Barents Sea takes 12 days. There are now 11 ships making the journey, so that all summer long there is a departure at the same time every day. We are joining on day 11, and will go south to Bergen, a journey of 29 hours.

The weather is less than we would have wished – cold, with intermittent showers. Not a day for sitting on the deck, but some of the hardier voyagers do, until driven inside by a heavy rainstorm.

The fjords, as we head out of Trøndheim, are lined with gently rising slopes – the voice over the intercom system tells us that we will pass some of the best agricultural land in Norway on our journey south. We remark that it cannot be easy being a farmer on this land. We pass numerous small islands with 1 house and some outbuildings on them – we assume the people who live in these homes must be fishermen, although we see neither boats nor evidence of boat-mooring facilities; but they cannot be farmers, because these islands are rocky outcroppings.


Heading out

Our fellow passengers seem to be mostly Scandinavian with a smattering of Germans and French to keep things interesting. It is a laid-back crowd. Lots of retirees with many books to keep them occupied on the 12 day journey up and back. We seem to be in the minority as far as age group but we share this with a couple of families with small children. People seem to spend their days either reading and watching the scenery go by from the panorama room on top of the ship or wrapped in blankets on the occasional sunny side of the ship. The optimal word here is relaxed.

We settle quickly into this universally adopted mindset and wander the ship, snapping photos of the grey-blue fjords with tremendous billowing clouds caught on their high, rocky points. The ship is quite comfortable and we easily find our way around. The vistas remain the same, rolling monochromatic fjords on a cold, black sea. I am a bit disappointed with the scope and size of the fjords – they do not compare with those we have seen in New Zealand but being here is what this experience is about.

We stop in the occasional town, multicoloured houses set on high, steep, wind-exposed cliffs. What Norwegians do in February is beyond us. All the while we have a strange feeling of familiarity about these vistas. We could be visiting the outposts of Newfoundland with their rocky shores and bright fishing shacks.

We settle quickly into this universally adopted mindset and wander the ship, snapping photos of the grey-blue fjords with tremendous billowing clouds caught on their high, rocky points. The ship is quite comfortable and we easily find our way around. The vistas remain the same, rolling monochromatic fjords on a cold, black sea. I am a bit disappointed with the scope and size of the fjords – they do not compare with those we have seen in New Zealand but being here is what this experience is about.

We stop in the occasional town, multicoloured houses set on high, steep, wind-exposed cliffs. What Norwegians do in February is beyond us. All the while we have a strange feeling of familiarity about these vistas. We could be visiting the outposts of Newfoundland with their rocky shores and bright fishing shacks.



Along the fiords; and finally sunset just after midnight

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Dorotea to Trøndheim: 438 kilometres

The road gently rises until we are in the mountains, and driving through ski areas – including Ånn, the site of the 2007 world downhill skiing championships. The border between Sweden and Norway is barely marked. More obvious is one immediate change – in Norway, the barns and other farm buildings (but not the farmhouses) have grass roofs.

We arrive in Trøndheim and find a hotel for the night (with a bonus – a wireless network, and have good internet for the first time in over 2 weeks).

We head out for a walk to explore town, and to find a place for dinner. Trøndheim is a pretty town, a former capital of Norway during the Middle Ages, the home of St. Olav, the king who brought Christianity to Norway. It’s waterfront is dotted with cafés and bars overlooking the wharfs and waterways.

We have dinner in one of the few restaurants that is open on a Sunday, and discover that Norway is more expensive than Sweden was. Over dinner we talk about how Scandinavia was a hot travel destination 25 years ago, but how almost all of the tourists we have seen as we have travelled around have been Scandinavian or Dutch.

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