I took these pictures this day. Di Yin, for a change, took about the same number of pictures as I. The link goes to the first picture she took this day; the rest of the album is all from this day. If you're in slideshow mode and see pictures from a ferry, you've cycled to the beginning of album (which started two days earlier).
After breakfast, Di Yin and I took the funicular, Fløibanen (Floibanen), to the top of Mount Fløyen (Floyen) and hiked back down. Viewing Bergen from on high again emphasized that it's a pretty city surrounded by many mountains. The top of Mount Floyen is pleasantly forested, with troll statues in glades and also a lake. Due to time, however, we hiked straight down (or at least as straight as we could given the many switchbacks). Near the bottom, we found a patch of small wild raspberries and picked some: super-sweet.
It started to rain as we reached the bottom. We split up and I spent the next hour visiting one church, a museum, then two more churches.
The museum was the Hanseatic Museum. Located in an actual, old Hanseatic house on the waterfront, it shows the life of German traders in Bergen in the middle of the last millennium. The building includes traditional decorations, some original (faded painted patterns on walls, hung paintings), sleeping rooms, and old ledgers. It also displays objects used in preparing fish oil and dried fish, the main products the merchants traded. I learned the German merchants governed themselves and even had their own legal system. I also found out, in the display on old Hanseatic seals, that the seals are so detailed that some people are using the drawings of ships on the seals to learn about old boat design. Despite the length of this paragraph describing the museum, I think I spent only twenty minutes there.
Actually, before I went to the Hanseatic Museum proper, I walked through an outpost of it that served as a common area and dining hall. (Food preparation was prohibited elsewhere due to risk of fire.) The outpost has three common rooms, no signs, and took less than five minutes to see.
I spent the largest part of my day in the Bergen Art Museum. The museum's wide scope ranges from Norwegian art (through various eras), old masters (including many dutch ones), to religious art, photographs, modern mixed media pieces, and contemporary art (by both Norwegian and international artists). It's a surprisingly respectable museum (and big, spread over three buildings) for such a small town. Though not first-class, it nevertheless has no crap. In support of its quality, consider that it has a room of Picassos and Klees (though admittedly not their best work). Also, each exhibit has a detailed handout with lots more information.
The first building I explored, the Lysverket, has a whole wing on J. C. Dahl, who I discovered I kind of like. I learned Dahl exemplifies the Dresden period of Norwegian romantic art, and also like other artists who painted in this style. I also apparently like some painters in the Düsseldorf school, the main school that, when it started, took some of Dresden's fame.
The second building I visited, a mansion-like place complete with furniture, houses the art (and furniture) collected by Rasmus Meyer, a businessman from around 1900. As I explored, I realized that when he collected, he collected, meaning he bought lots from the same artist. Some artists, such as Astrup and Sørensen, I didn't appreciate, but I generally found his tastes agreed well with mine. For instance, he collected Fearnley, Munthe, Erichsen, Gude, Morgenstern, Tidemand, Dahl, and Munch. Indeed, the collection has half-a-dozen rooms of Dahl! (I wonder how many of J. C. Dahl's works aren't in this museum.) It also includes three rooms of Munch, meaning that, though missing some of Munch's famous pieces, this portion of the collection is half the size of the Munch museum.
The third building I stopped by, the Stenersen, holds the contemporary art collection (meh) and a special exhibit on German expressionism (both paintings and drawings) (okay, because I sometimes liked the colors used).
From the museum, I walked quickly to meet Di Yin once again in the fish market for lunch. After lunch, we picked up our luggage and walked to the bus to the airport, arriving one minute before it was to leave. (We did this without knowing the timing--we got lucky.) Once at the airport, we got some tasty gelato (I was looking forward to gelato all day), carried it through security, and enjoyed. On the flight to Copenhagen, Di Yin and I hapened to get seats on the same row with an empty middle seat between us. (Again, this happened by chance--neither of us picked seats. Airplane luck. :> ) As it turned out, the flight was mostly empty, meaning we'd have gotten to sit together even if we weren't assigned to do so.
Our short transfer in Copenhagen was surprisingly easy. We even had time to kill. Then, after a completely-full flight to London and some long tube rides, we arrived at the apartment we were renting in London, thus ending our Norway excursion.
Norway: Day 7: More Bergen, then home
Norway: Day 6: Bergen
I took these pictures on our first full day in Bergen. They omit some places we visited; this blog entry is the more complete record of our activities. I built a route map for our walking path, but it's confusing because we criss-crossed ourselves so much. (The sites--well, really, the city proper--are compact.)
Di Yin also took pictures. The link goes to the first picture she took this day. When you a hit a picture with the caption "We took a furnicular [sic] to see a view of all of Bergen" (picture #258), you're done with the pictures for the day. The remaining pictures are from the following day's activities; I'll link to them in the next post.
First thing in the morning, we walked through the Bryggen area of Bergen. It's the area where German merchants settled in the middle of the last millennium. It's pretty, with cozy narrow streets. Quaint. It's composed predominately of wooden buildings (mostly timber-clad houses), which is surprising given Bergen's history of fires.
From Bryggen, we walked across town to University of Bergen's campus. There, we first visited the Bergens Sjøfartsmuseum (Bergen Maritime Museum). We didn't intend to go in, but we paid for the tickets before I realized it wasn't the museum we wanted. The museum traces the history of Norwegian seafaring from 350 to the present day. It was an okay museum, and we ended up spending 45 minutes there. It has many model ships. I liked the small wing of the museum that displayed detailed history about the submarine branch of the Norwegian military. Though I didn't have the patience to stand and read everything, some of the history was neat.
We then went in the museum we came for: the Cultural History wing of the Bergen Museum. Its exhibits cover religion (which, due to its section on stave churches and stained glass, was more interesting than most religious displays), the history of theater in Bergen, the growth of the city, folk art, and more. Many exhibits weren't translated into English, though a few made up for it by offering paper handouts with translations. Overall, it was a decent museum; we spent just about an hour there. I learned that Saint Olaf always carried a battle-axe. (Yes, a person so much a warrior was sainted.) The museum also had exhibits on Egyptians and on American Indians, but we walked quickly through these because there's nothing special to Bergen about them.
I skipped the Natural History Museum, the other half of the Bergen Museum, because natural history museums aren't my thing. Di Yin walked quickly through it.
For lunch, we headed to Bergen's famous fish market. Though it does sell fish (fresh, fried, and cured), it also sells a lot more. In terms of other foods, we noted reindeer sausage, caviar (in both jars and tubes), fruits (mostly berries), and jams. There's also traditional street market stalls, selling things ranging from tourist kitsch (e.g., trolls) to hats, jewelry, and shirts, and even to seal rugs (fuzzy).
After lunch, we visited the Leprosy Museum. Norway was the most leper-dense region of Europe. Located in an old leper hospital, the museum was basically just posters in rooms, with effectively nothing on display. Nevertheless, the informative posters were surprisingly interesting and we ended up spending 45 minutes there. The first part of the museum covered how Danielssen and Hansen, two 19th-century Norwegian physicians, theorized and proved that leprosy was caused by a bacteria (i.e., it wasn't hereditary or social as was previously thought). The second part discussed the life of missionaries as they dealt with leprosy. The museum also showed how ethnographic and social treatises on leprosy / treatments of lepers shifted with the improved knowledge of the disease's cause.
After the museum, we randomly happened on a contemporary art gallery without anyone at the door selling tickets. Inside was an exhibit of architectural (drafting) style of drawings that were then painted between the lines.
Next, we returned to Bryggen--Bergen is a small, walkable town--for the Bryggen Museum. Bryggen, which literally means "the wharf", is the part of Bergen where the Hanseatic League merchants lived. The museum covered life in Bryggen and the occupations of the market-people. The buildings are rightly called tenements. The small permanent exhibit wasn't exciting; most text was only in Norwegian (but the museum staff handily lent us an English guide to the exhibition). There was, in contrast, an awesome temporary exhibit showcasing the game of cultural heritage Monopoly. (See the pictures.) Another temporary exhibit covered fashion and accessories from the middle ages. We spent 45 minutes in the museum, which I'd call decent overall.
Before dusk, we explored Bergenhus Fortress. The main part--the part mentioned in all guidebooks--felt more like an estate, not a fortress, though it did have walls. (It was the king's residence during the Middle Ages when Bergen was Norway's capital.) Sverresborg, the upper part of the complex (technically a different fortress), was much more defensible, more fortress-like. It's the oldest part of the complex yet is often omitted from guidebooks, which is surprising because it's the part with views.
Over the course of the day, we assembled food for dinner, which we ate in our hotel room. From the fish market, we tried whale, which was meaty (because it's a mammal?), and some smoked fish, eventually buying smoked herring. The herring, along with leftover shrimp and nectarines (both from lunch), and tasty bread and other smoked fishes (that we stole from the great buffet in Flam the previous day), made a fine Norwegian meal.
Norway: Day 5: Flåm (Flam), then to Bergen
I took these pictures today; Di Yin took many more. The link goes to the first picture that she took this day in the album; the rest of the album is all from this day. If you're in slideshow mode and see a picture of a train station, you've cycled to the beginning of album (which was taken on the previous day).
We woke up in our hotel in Flam, looked outside, and decided the view was still amazing. We ate breakfast on our balcony, ran some errands, then left to take a hike.
The route we chose combined two hikes listed by the tourist office into one. First, we hiked along the river and up the local waterfall, Brekkefossen. Then we walked to a nice housing estate, Lunden, and hiked on the other side of the river back to Flam. The houses by Flam look very clean, freshly painted, and well kept up in general.
Although the waterfall wasn't particularly impressive, the hike was well worth it simply for the views. Di Yin kept saying "wow" and "Norway is awesome." Indeed. I believe the view of the fjord from the waterfall is awesome in the full meaning of the word. Di Yin said Flam and this area was like Yosemite only more awesome and with a smaller tourist town. The views were so good that, as someone we met on the slopes observed, if I looked at a picture (such as this one), not seeing the scene with my own eyes, I would think it was a created backdrop. Nothing could naturally be so beautiful.
Once back in Flam, we had a good buffet lunch on the harbor at Furukroa. I'll remember it especially for the many different (delicious) ways it presented salmon. I was also amused to notice the hostess didn't speak Norwegian. How unusual.
After lunch, we stopped by the tiny Flam Railway Museum. I learned that all but two of the line's twenty tunnels were excavated by hand. No wonder it took twenty years to complete. I also learned the project's sponsors paid per metre of track, with no deduction for expenses/equipment. It's a different financing system than we use in the states, and certainly an incentive to make the most efficient use of labor and capital as possible.
Picking up our baggage, we boarded a high speed ferry to Bergen. Although my album (already linked above) contains pictures from this journey and our first night in Bergen, Di Yin has a different album that contains her pictures. The link goes to the first picture in the album. When you a hit a picture with the caption "we went exploring the next morning" (picture #100), you're done with the pictures for the day. The remaining pictures are from the following days' activities; I'll link to them in the later posts.
The ferry took us out the short, narrow Aurlandsfjord and into the wider Sognefjord, where we spent the bulk of the trip, before dodging islands in the narrow sounds near Bergen. Whereas the fjords passed through steep, sweeping, forested terrain, the islands, especially the smaller ones, had a different character: rugged, low-rising, and often windswept. Incidentally, the larger islands we passed at the very end of the trip were more green.
I was excited that the sun came out as we left dock, but the boat moved quickly and we were soon under overcast skies again. Indeed, the boat traveled so fast that it was difficult to stand on the side because the wind pressure was so great. In Di Yin's pictures, you can look at my hair to see how windy it was. Though we spent some of the journey outside on the boat's side squatting under the height of the railing--it blocked some of the wind--, we spent more of it outside in the back of the boat where the boat's bulk protected us from the wind. (The views from inside didn't look as good, so we only spent time there after having gotten our fill.) During the last segment of the trip, the boat had to seriously slow down at times because the passages were narrow, sometimes not more than two boat widths.
Once in the pretty town of Bergen, we trotted to our hotel, had a small snack for dinner (given our lunch, we weren't hungry), and called it a night. (Recall that I already summarized my impressions of Bergen.)
Norway: Day 4: Oslo, then to Flåm (Flam)
I took a huge number of pictures and movies this day. They're more detailed than this entry, and also provide the atmosphere--the color if you will--that this entry lacks.
After breakfast, I took a fast metro to Vigeland Park, a park designed by and filled with sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. (Oslo is so compact, even places I think of as far from the city center are only a ten minute metro ride away.) The whole park is stunning, and it reminded me of Gaudi's similarly-impressive Parc Guell I saw in Barcelona. Clearly, Vigeland made it his life's work. (Indeed, I think the reason he's not well-known outside of Norway is is because Oslo recognized his talents and gave him a lifetime appointment, hence obviating the need for him to market himself to the rest of the world.) It was a beautiful day to see and photograph the sculptures, not cloudy like the previous day. Everything looks better against a blue sky. I took a ton of pictures, and you may imagine from the sheer number that I took pictures of everything, but really I skipped photographing the vast majority of pieces.
After exploring the park to my satisfaction, I took the metro across town to the Munch Museum (Munch-museet). If your impression of Munch's paintings is that they're depressing or disturbing, you're generally right. Although he painted a few other pieces, most are depressing, with titles such as The Drowned Boy, The Hearse, The Operation, and The Death, and that's just one room room of the museum. As for disturbing, take, for example, the painting that includes sperm, skeletons, and embryos. In addition to paintings (of which many were portraits), it appears Munch did lithography and prints too. The museum took me an hour,and I went very slowly with an audio guide. I realized, by the way, why I don't seem to like audio guides in Oslo: the narrator speaks too slowly. I also realized that I'm mostly indifferent to Munch's work.
I returned to downtown Oslo to eat at Kaffistova, the same Norwegian cafeteria where I ate two days prior. I grabbed a light lunch because I knew I'd be having dinner at a reasonable time.
From lunch, I walked to the Akershus Fortress & Castle, and paid to enter the castle portion. It's not that exciting unless you like period furniture and tapestries. I took the audio tour because it was free and found it good quality for a change: vaguely interesting and read at a reasonable speed. By far the best part was the supplementary ghost stories (based on legends/real events). I only wish I'd planned my time better so I could've listened to all of them. Instead, I had to return to my hotel to meet Di Yin.
Once I met Di Yin, we returned to the fortress, walked around its grounds, then headed to the train station and managed to (yes, I was scared) catch our train. Now is as good a time as any to link to Di Yin's pictures from Oslo, which cover her week there. I wasn't with her for most of them except for a period in the middle and a longer segment near the end (which corresponds to this day's Oslo adventures).
The train we took, part of the famous Oslo-Bergen line, brought us from Oslo into the Hardangervidda, Norway's "highland plateau." We then transferred to a small train, the Flåmsbana (Flamsbana), that descended along a river to a tiny town, Flåm (Flam), at the edge of a fjord (Aurlandsfjord, a branch of the Sognefjord). When I say descend, I mean it: we lost nearly a kilometer in altitude over the course of a twenty kilometer journey. Much of the altitude was lost while in one of the rail line's twenty tunnels, many corkscrew-shaped within mountains. On the way down, the train stopped by a platform next to a waterfall so we could get out and photograph it.
The five-hour journey was pretty spectacular, especially the last segment, and not as monotonous as one might think: the landscape varied as we changed altitude. Early in the trip, we discovered that the children's playroom in the train had picture windows, and we hung out there sightseeing instead of staying in our seats. Once in Flam, we walked to our hotel, a building on the dock, and found its location no less impressive than the sights we saw from the train.
I took pictures (linked above) from our journey; Di Yin took many more. The link goes to the first picture she took from the journey. A picture of me in front of a breakfast/dinner table (picture #95) ends the set for the day. The remaining pictures are from the next day's activities; I'll link to them in the following post.
Norway: Day 3: Oslo: Bygdøy (Bygdoy)
I spent this day across the water from Oslo, exploring the suburban hamlet of Bygdøy (Bygdoy) and its many museums. I took many pictures
After an early start, I caught the first ferry (8:45am) to Bygdøy.
Once in Bygdøy, I walked first to the museum which opened earliest, the Vikingskipshuset (Viking Ship Museum). It's a simple little museum of three ships and the objects found on board. The Viking ships are the best-preserved ones ever found. I spent thirty minutes here, and probably wouldn't spent the entrance fee had I known what my interest level was. I did learn one interesting fact: there's no evidence that Vikings cooked on the ships--they probably only ate dried foods.
Next up was the Norsk Folkemuseum (Norwegian Cultural History / Folk Museum). This complex, in addition to a few traditional museum buildings, had a large estate with many wooden buildings in various designs (storehouses, farmhouses, bakeries, barns, kilns, guesthouses) from various eras, most open so people could look inside and see how they appeared at the time (objects, decoration, architecture). In addition to the buildings, there was an indoor museum which had:
- an exhibit on Norwegian folk art and how it evolved over the last 500 years
- a large exhibit on traditional Norwegian folk dress for all occasions
- an exhibit on the Norwegian clergy
- an exhibit on Norwegian church art
- an exhibit on the Sami, Scandinavia's native people, their way of life, and much about their relationship to reindeer
- a special exhibit on the 1980s covering fashion, film, furniture, food, politics, music, etc., all with a Norwegian tilt. (Did you know Chernobyl fallout rained in Norway?)
- a small exhibit on old toys (dolls, blocks, etc.)
The Frammuseet (Fram Museum) came next. It's a museum mainly to show and allow touring of the famous arctic ship, the Fram. I didn't find the ship interesting, but the museum wasn't an entire waste of time. I enjoyed reading the museum's many documents from the explorer Roald Amundsen's trip sailing the northwest passage and trip reaching the south pole first. The documents come from Amundsen's lectures, and he can tell a good story, and, importantly, has a story to tell. I also enjoyed reading the brief history of Fridtjof Nansen's life; he's a previous winner of the peace prize. I spent an hour in total in the museum.
Finally, I went to the Kon-Tiki Museum, which covers the experiments (mostly ship-faring) of Thor Heyerdahl. I completed this interesting, though small, museum in thirty minutes. For details on the museum's contents, see the picture captions.
I skipped the maritime museum because I'd seen enough boats for one day, instead grabbing the ferry back to Oslo proper. Once there, I decided to use the opportunity (it was open late) to visit the National Museum of Architecture. Its main current exhibit was principally devoted to Snøhetta, an international Oslo-based architecture firm. One large room showed models of some designs as they progressed; another presented detailed information about some of their major projects (such as the Oslo opera house and the new World Trade Center buildings). In the back of one room were several large multi-touch screens with software that helps you design a building. I began designing a cafe, choosing its outline, roof slope/appearance, and more, before I accidentally leaned on the part of the screen with the reset button. In all, I spent thirty minutes in the museum.
The day's last museum was the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, also open late. I only managed to see its strange exhibit, Indian Highway, presented in a mixture of media by multiple artists, before it closed. I had thirty minutes in the museum.
Finally, I took a bus to the vicinity of Grünerløkka (Grunerlokka), a more happening (lots of alcohol) part of town. While on the short ride, I saw another cafe-lined street (more densely packed than Karl Johans Gates) and a big shopping mall. From where the bus let me off, I detoured to see Oslo's oldest church (built 1150), which I didn't deem worthy of photographing (though the green graveyard tempted me). En route, I saw some everyday apartment buildings and an average park, complete with less-well-off people. Once in Grünerløkka, I found a row of restaurants and bars facing Olaf Ryes Plass (a park), half of which were tapas places. I took this as a sign and picked one. Indeed, as I realized later, the preponderance of the restaurants in this part of town are Spanish.
I walked around Grünerløkka, picking up a ice cream on the way. The ice cream (gelato?) was lighter and more enjoyable than regular ice cream. Then, a quick bus ride home concluded this 13.5 hour day.
Norway: Day 2: Downtown Oslo
I slept poorly due to a combination of skipping dinner and eating a snack I was likely allergic to. I felt sick and had a headache the whole night. However, once I got a sizable breakfast in me (at my hotel), I felt a ton better. My hotel's breakfast buffet was mostly sliced breads, sliced meats and cheeses (like the pre-sliced kind you find in supermarkets), and jams/jellies I didn't recognize.
Feeling better, I ventured out to explore Oslo. As I did so, I took pictures. During the day I recorded my walking route on a paper map, a route which I later posted online.It was a beautiful morning which changed to intermittent drizzle the rest of the day. The drizzle wasn't so bad--I walked around in it without an umbrella.
Norwegian Parliament
In the morning, I took a tour of the Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament building. At one point, the tour guide asked various people when their countries' constitutions were drafted. The other Americans on the tour didn't know, saying 1776. (Sad.) I knew it was the late 1780s, though didn't recall the exact year. Most other people knew the answers for their countries. Norway, by the way, is a constitutional parliamentary monarchy.
Also on the tour, I learned that when the potato famine came, Norway survived because they had an ample supply of herring. Nevertheless, one quarter of the country (one million people) immigrated to the U.S. at this time.
The tour guide explained the government was eliminating the two separate houses of parliament and combining them into one, an event I don't think I've heard of occurring anywhere before.
Finally, he explained how the seating in the legislative chambers intentionally mixes up the parties, claiming that doing so helps legislators to get along and government to function, pointing out that governments that don't do so tend to have strong, visible conflicts. *cough* *cough*
National Gallery
Soon after the tour, I explored the National Gallery. It mostly included 19th and 20th century paintings by Norwegian artists, along with a few sculptures. There were also a few famous non-Norwegian artists represented, covering some contemporary styles too (cubist, abstract), including Picasso, Gauguin, Manet, Cezanne, Monet, and Degas. I generally liked the museum, considering it a decent museum for a major non-international city. I particularly liked the stunning Norwegian landscapes, in various sizes, such as those by Hans Gude and J. C. Dahl. The museum took about an hour to explore. The audio guide wasn't bad, but not particularly interesting to me.
Though photography wasn't allowed, I want to mention some pieces I particularly liked. (Sorry, I can't find pictures of these paintings online.)
- A room of paintings by Munch, all in odd colors.
- Knud Baade's Cloud Studies / Skystudier.
- Asta Nørregaard's (Norregaard's) Marthine Cappelen, which looks real.
- Harold Sohlberg's Winter Night in the Mountains, with its stunning vivid blue.
- Thorvald Erichsen's luminous Winter Sun, View from Breiseth Hotel at Lillehammer.
- Hans Andersen Brendekilde's The Forester and his Children. I like the carpet of leaves.
Next on my agenda was the Historical Museum. Covering archeology (i.e., things dug up from various ages), medieval artifacts (mostly religious), Egypt (seen enough of that), coins (oddly, this room had no English), the arts (Africa, Asia, ...), and more, it didn't have as much as I expected/hoped for about Norway. Thus, I spent a bit less than an hour there. It's not that the exhibits were bad, though they were poorly documented (i.e., they didn't tell me why I should care about what was on display). The exhibit on pilgrims, in contrast, both Christians and others, was great--the museum people can do it right. It's just that most of the time they didn't.
More Oslo
I grabbed lunch, then walked fast to the Royal Palace, intending to take a guided tour, but decided not to wait in the slow-moving line in the drizzle. On the way to the palace, I passed the royal marching band its two horse-mounted escorts.
Stenersen Museum
I then explored the Stenersen Museum. It had three exhibits: one experimental one on women and violence, which I didn't get, and two photography ones. One documented people with AIDS from all over the world, and the other was realistic photography by Bjørn (Bjorn) Opsahl that, though I didn't like, I respected. All together, it wasn't possible to rationalize the museum's cost given how many museums in Oslo are free.
City Hall
See the comments accompanying the pictures.
National Museum of Contemporary Art
The day's last museum was the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Museet for Samtidskunst). Aside from a special exhibit by experimental artist Matias Faldbakken in which every piece seemed incomplete / not even set up, the museum was okay. I spent fourty minutes there, some of which I spent watching a neat video, 12 Studies on Shit, covering sewage, fertilizer, waste in space, ...
Throughout
In between and after these museums, I saw other sights in Oslo. See the pictures.
Afterward
In the evening, I met Di Yin and we walked around a bit, mainly through the waterfront area Aker Brygge, where I found dinner. See the pictures and my evening route.
Norway: Day 1: Oslo: Arrival
After working for a while, I took the tube to my hotel, picked up my luggage, made my way to the airport, and flew to Oslo. It was an unexciting journey except for the customs official who seemed surprised, perhaps due to my appearance, with this answer I gave: "No, I'm not visiting family."
As I landed at night, I took an express train to the city center, checked into my hotel, and planned the next day's adventures.
Norway Overview
I toured parts of Norway from Tuesday, July 22nd, through Monday, July 27th. Di Yin was my excuse for the trip: she attended a graduate student summer school in Oslo that week, so I went there to explore a bit on my own and then explore with her over the weekend.
My itinerary brought me to Oslo and Bergen, Norway's two largest cities, and along rail and boat lines through Norway's inner wilderness and fjords. Norway's a sizable, long, narrow country; one week is nowhere near enough to see most of it. In fact, the distance from Oslo to the Norway's northern tip is roughly the distance from Oslo to Rome. I only visited a small part of Norway, but at least I know I visited the highlights because my route mirrored the famous Norway in a Nutshell tour. I'm not going to bother listing all sites I missed because there are so many, whether near a city that I visited (such as the fortress Fredrikstad near Oslo) or far from cities (such as Jostedalen Glacier National Park and the hikes one can take on the Nigardsbreen arm of the glacier).
The highlights of my trip were Vigeland Park, a large sculpture garden in Oslo, and the views along the fjords, especially looking down at the valleys and water from high up. Stunning! When I arrived in Norway, the train from the airport to Oslo introduced me to Norway's sloping grass fields, trees, and greenery. Later I'd see this greenery fade at higher elevations and, elsewhere, come back in more dense, forested forms. Regardless of location, the country is full of unspoiled nature. Perhaps this why water from the tap tastes good?
Neither Oslo nor Bergen feel like large cities. In both, the part of downtown tourists visit is compact; one can walk across it in ten minutes. Making them feel further less like a city, neither has tall buildings: most buildings are five or so stories. Also, both downtowns are pleasant to stroll, with sculptures or fountains in the small plazas scattered around. They're both on water. They both have large nature parks not far from downtown. I liked walking in both, though their size did make me feel like I'd seen everything each city had to offer in a surprisingly short time.
Both cities have culture as expressed, for instance, in their large number of museums (an unexpectedly large number given their official sizes, made even more surprising by their small feel).
Regarding Oslo in particular, its city center is bracketed by two large parks, elegantly designed and, this time of year, covered in a thick bed of grass. Art deco is the most common architectural style. A good chunk of the museums are run by the government and therefore free. Finally, accordions are the musical instrument of choice of Oslo's street musicians.
Bergen, though smaller, felt livelier than Oslo. It's also prettier than Oslo, with pastel buildings rising up the many hills in the city. Indeed, Bergen, a port city built among hills, is geographically like San Francisco or Seattle. Also, Bergen has history; the city dates back to the first half of the last millennium and the German (Hanseatic League) traders that made Bergen a base. As such, many of its buildings (often wooden) come from this time or were built in a similar style, a contrast to Oslo's buildings more recent (last century and a half) style. Also, Bergen's longer history means its buildings have a slightly greater variety of architectural styles than Oslo's.
I know the above paragraph makes Bergen sound a lot more enjoyable than Oslo. It's not -- they're both comfortable, likable, walkable cities. They're much more similar than they are different. Re-read the earlier paragraph about their commonalities.
The first thing a visitor to Norway notices is its cost. Everything (entrance fees, transit tickets, food, etc.) are about twice what I'm used to in the bay area. (Norway is a wealthy country due to its abundance of oil and fish.)
Language was not an issue or even something worth thinking about. Everyone spoke English. The language I heard most often besides Norwegian and English was Spanish; I guess that's the most common source for tourists this time of year.
Regarding food, seafood is common. This time of year that means salmon and shrimp. The fish comes in many forms--cooked, smoked, cured--and generally they are all good and fresh. (The Norwegians know how to prepare their fish.) Also this time of year, Norway's a great source for fresh, quality berries of all types; we ran into them everywhere.
From what I read in guidebooks, Norway is something of a mother state, and not just in terms of the social safety net. It's also firm (firmer than the U.S.) in areas such as driving rules: mandating seat belts and child seats throughout the vehicle, strictly enforcing speeding limits, and having stringent limits on blood-alcohol content for drivers. However, this philosophy didn't seem to have much impact on my experience in Norway. The only effect this may have had was, when booking hotel rooms, I noticed most hotel rooms only had single/twin beds. If you booked a queen bed for a couple, you'd generally find two singles pushed together. Perhaps this is a sign of propriety or a sign people are used to sleeping alone? On the other hand, I think this smaller-bed phenomenon might simply be more common in Europe, so I'm reluctant to read too much into it.
In contrast to these strict rules, Norway has one interesting law that reflects a philosophy that you can do whatever you want as long as you don't get in the way of anyone else: in Norway, you can camp anywhere for short periods, regardless of who owns the property, as long as the land isn't cultivated or fenced and as long as you aren't too close to a building. Pretty cool. :)
Incidentally, I feel obligated to compliment one particular guidebook. As many people know, when I travel I often bring along a couple of guidebooks, mostly to get independent viewpoints and also to make sure I don't miss anything. This time one of the guidebooks I brought was the Insight Guide to Norway. Of all the guidebooks I've read on all the trips I've done, this had a history and culture section heads above the others. Not only was the section very extensive, it was written in a interesting and, most importantly, lively fashion as it ranged over topics from the evolution of language and the evolution of the transportation system to Norwegian history and governance. Also, the guide provided insights into the culture; for instance, in the sports and nature section, it observed that the most popular sports are individual ones, not team ones as in most other countries. For these reasons, as I didn't finish the book during my trip (the majority of the book was devoted to these topics, not individual destinations), I felt compelled to continue reading the book for months after the trip, a strong testimony to the enthralling nature of the writing. This writer is simply better than other guidebook writers I've read. (One caveat, however: the book wasn't useful as a sightseeing guide; e.g., it often lacked details about particular places, listing only name and address, not what's interesting about the place.) I believe people who don't travel to Norway may nevertheless find reading this guidebook enjoyable.
Neat linguistic facts:
- The Nordic Language Convention gives "citizens of the Nordic countries have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs."
- The Nordic languages are, to some degree, mutually intelligible.
- According to wikipedia, "The Norwegian language has been jokingly said to be 'Danish spoken in Swedish' due to the Norwegian and Danish vocabularies being so closely related while the language's phonology and prosody is more similar to Swedish."
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