Goodbye Oslo

We flew from Oslo to Frankfort to Denver and then to Kansas City before driving the two hours to our house.  It was a 27 hour travel day. This time around all our travel plans worked smoothly and we arrived home unscathed.  

It was a grand trip all the way around. From Eastern Europe to Norway, from river cruising to ocean cruising. Totally different environments and yet all these countries are connected by their history of war and invasions by Germany.  They have recovered and are still discovering freedom from oppression and what it is like to self govern and live life to its fullest.

Museum, Museum, Museum

The weather was threatening rain later in the day so we decided to go to the outdoor museum first and then the indoor ones later in the day.

The Norwegian Museum of Cultural History is an open-air museum with more than 150 buildings relocated here from all over the country and was established in the late 1800’s.

The center of the grounds is the Stave Church, a medieval building made of pillars planted into the ground and then built above the ground.  The roof is all wood.  There are no seats inside the church and the walls are carved and painted with the stories from the Bible and pictures of Norwegian saints.

All around the grounds are buildings where people lived, worked, slept and farmed.   Storage barns, sheep sheds, cow barns and horse stalls dotted the whole area.  

Next stop was the Fram Museum depicting the voyages of Roald Admunsun and his attempts to reach the North Pole.  They held two of his ships and told the story of his attempts to fly over the pole.  All well done and very interesting.

The third museum was the Kon Tiki and Ra Museum showing the voyages of Thor Heyerdahl from Peru to Tahiti on a raft made of 9 balsa wood logs overlaid with more wood, a small cabin and a sail. They floated on the currents to prove that peoples from South America could have arrived on the Pacific Islands.  Keep in mind this was accomplished in 1947.

A few years later he did the same thing with rafts made from reeds he named RA and floated to the Galápagos Islands to prove that natives from Ecuador had arrived there ages ago.

By this time we are museumed out!  It’s time to pack our bags.

Akershus Castle and Vigeland Sculptures

The Akershus Castle was originally a 1300’s medieval fortress, in the 1600th century under the reign of King Christian IV it was rebuilt and then in the 18th & 19th centuries it fell into disrepair. Today it has been restored for use by the Norwegian government as meeting rooms or dining halls.

The castle tour was through a dungeon, a secret passage, a mausoleum, a church/chapel (still used today, actually held a wedding there that morning), and a couple of Halls that are used for dining (they can seat up to 180 people at one table), dancing, receptions and court rooms.

The walls were hand painted by one person.  It took 2 years. 

Before the castle opened to the public John, Susanna and I strolled through Norway’s Resistance Museum that is housed in a building on the fortress grounds.  Norway was occupied by the German’s for five years beginning in 1940. A highly efficient and well organized resistance group was established early in the war and was supported by the British, where the king and head government officials had escaped.  It was a well done and interesting museum.

After lunch we grabbed an Uber and visited the Vigeland Sculpture Park. Gustav Vigeland was a prolific artist.  The park is filled with over 200 of his original works in granite, bronze and wrought iron.  His masterpiece is the monolith of one piece of granite carved with intertwining bodies.  There were 60 bronze statues lining the main path leading up to the huge water fountain and its surrounding sculptures.  He also created several wrought iron gates depicting men and women.  Quite an amazing place.

Norway by Train

After disembarking from the ship we wondered around Bergen while waiting to catch the train to Oslo.  We were fortunate to find a nice open air market where we hung out for a while.

The train ride was nice with some pretty views of high peaked mountains, valleys, water falls and rivers, glaciers and quaint villages.  Due to signal troubles we were sidelined several time and arrived in Oslo about an hour after our scheduled time.  

We had a very late dinner at a nice Italian restaurant as I was hungry for pasta! 

Urke Valley

We made port in Ålesund on a very foggy morning.  It was only a short stay so we took the opportunity to take a tour of the bridge. Amazing electronics and sophisticated global positioning. All systems are redundant. 

We then moved on down the coast to Urke Valley where a small group of us opted to hike up into the mountains.  It was a hot day, for a change, and we didn’t take enough water but the mountain stream sustained us.  John and I did not make it all the way to the end of the trail but we did enjoy our stay next to the stream waiting for our group to return.  At the end of the trail we had waffles with jam and ice cold water or a beer.  A shuttle boat picked us up to return us to our ship as it couldn’t make it into this fjord since another ship was already there.

All in all it was a beautiful day for our last day of cruising.

A Hole in the Mountain

The ship docked in Brønnøysund (prounced ‘Brawny-sund) and we crossed over to the island of Torgo and up to Torghatten Mountain.  Along the way we learned that Norway has over 10,000 island, most not inhabited, with the largest concentration of them in this area.  The islands and mountains are the result of the continental drift, pushing and pulling, being covered by the sea and then rising above.  The hole in the mountain is the result of all the erosion caused by the sea and wind and ice.

I like the Legend of the Troll Mountains explanation better. My shortened version of the story is that there were two troll kings, one with a disobedient son and one with seven wild daughters.  The son wanted one of the daughters and started to chase the girls.  Finding that he could not catch them, in a rage, he raised his bow and shot an arrow.  But his dad saw what was happening and threw his hat into the air, deflecting the arrow.  The pierced hat fell to the sea just as the sun was rising.  Everyone knows that trolls turn to stone in the sunlight. Thus the hat also turned to stone with a hole where the arrow had run through.  And we have Mount Torghatten.

The hole looks small from the sea.

Shortly after we left Brønnøysund the ship pulled into a small harbor and we proceeded to wave and greet the towns people in this small village.  Evidently this is something that has become a tradition between the ship and the town.

Let’s Go Fishing

Cruising on down the coast we made a short stop in Stokmarknes where we walked through a beautiful museum of Hurtigurten History.  Inside was a fully restored 1956 Hurtigurten ship named MS Finnestarken and a few restored rooms from the ship named DS Finmarken.

Didn’t have time to figure out why a car was parked on the deck. 

Not only did we get to see what a luxury 1956 ship looked like but we learned the history of the Coastal Express ships that connected the whole of Norway’s coast, even during WWII.

It was a short 2 hour stop and then we enjoyed the scenery all along this coastline. Beautiful green mountains, lots of waterfalls, and lovely farm steads all along the way.  And then we entered the Trollfjiord.  Our ship is named after this inlet and is it magnificent with straight, high walls on both sides and so narrow you feel like you could almost reach out and touch the walls.  We spotted several white tailed eagles flying high above.  The captain did a very tight 180° turn at the end of the fjord which had us all in awe of his skill at steering the ship.

And then we were off to Svolvar Island and the town of Lofoten where we went fishing for cod.  We boarded a 1917 wood fishing boat with 5 other passengers, the captain and first mate. The water in the bay was very calm but the sky was clouding up and after about two hours it started raining and the fog closed in on us.  But we caught fish!

I caught one good sized cod and a few smaller fish while John and John only caught small fish.  Susanna caught 19 small fish, a red perch and a small cod.  Some were kept but most were tossed to the seagulls. One man caught at least 5 huge cod.  Wish we knew his secret!

As we cruised back to shore, the 1st mate cleaned the saved fish and boiled the meat in seawater which was then served to us as a snack.  They were so good!!  By the time we landed all on board were sopping wet and ready for a hot shower and a nice toddy.