Norway is a land of fjords, waterfalls, and tunnels. Beautiful, rugged, and EXPENSIVE. We can eat for a week in Mexico for the cost of one meal here. A beer is $12. I found an excellent reason to cut down on my drinking. But enough whining. We knew that before we came. In Stranger, three giant swords are stuck in the ground to remind people that these people are Vikings at heart. (my interpretation)
A famous hike is to Preikestolen, called the Pulpit. Two hundred seventy thousand people a year do this climb, so we were not lonely.
Pools,
And substantial rock slabs let you know you are not in Kansas.
After 2000 ft and 2.5 miles, you come to the top. I try to keep older adults and children from my photos to maintain the illusion I am cheating on death, but I could not pass up this woman hiking in a skirt and pearls.
No pesky guard rails here.
The lady on the point in my sweet bride used to be afraid of heights.
It makes sense to be cautious when you peer over the edge.
Especially when it is 2000 ft straight down.
After that, we were relaxing lunch on the cliff's edge is nothing.
The view of the fjord is worth the climb.
Southwestern Norway is the land of the fjords. 1000 ft shear drop-offs mean that every stream becomes a spectacular waterfall. Huge waterfalls fall so far that to capture them, and they look tiny. We stopped along the highway to see these twin falls.
Two rivers flow into the head of this gorge.
It is a long drop.
The spray makes a rainbow down the gorge when the sun comes out.
Western Norway has almost no flat land. Houses go up the steep slopes,
as do their fields.
This house found a bit of flat land. Nice.
Many country buildings have a sod-covered roof.
This little fellow is everywhere in Norway.
When your land goes straight up and down and is covered in snow a good part of the year, getting from point A to point B is a problem. Cars would be almost pointless in western Norway without their tunnels. You drive along, and the road dives into a mountain.
Miles-long tunnels take you thousands of feet underground to the next fjord.
When we came upon our first roundabout in the middle of a mountain, with roads going off in different directions, we almost could not believe it.
Norway has over 900 tunnels, totaling over 400 miles underground. The road is steep and treacherous in winter when there isn't a tunnel. I see why they like tunnels.
Stave churches are early Christian churches made of wood and tar, with a few pagan symbols thrown in to cover their bets. Only Norway has stave churches left, and only 28 out of 1000 have survived. The Hopperstad Stave Church is over 800 years old.
The entry is highly carved.
The interior is lit only by candles and small upper windows.
The altar has the Lord's Prayer written in old Norse.
Decorations are made of wood.
They buried their dead under the church floor but had to stop when the smell overwhelmed them. I might have guessed that was coming.
It is light 24 hours a day here, so there are no sunset pictures. It is generally windy, but one day it was so calm that the water made it difficult to tell what was land and sea.
More Norway soon.
A Must Do trip in Norway is "Norway in a Nutshell." It is a train ride to the top of the mountains,
then changing to a train that drops down the other side at up to 18% grade, stopping at a considerable waterfall where everyone gets off the train for a look,
going down the valley past more waterfalls,
 |
| NORWAY |
spending time in the village of Flam at the end of a fjord, where you see a cruise ship seemingly in the mountains,
taking a cruise on a narrow fjord,
then a bus ride home.
In one action-packed day, you see some of the best in Norway.
Leaving the fjords, we drove over the high pass through the Jotunheimen National Park, stopping to view snowfields,
glaciers,
avoiding sheep on the road (note the height of the snow poles)
and fighting off friendly sheep at the view stops.
The U-shaped valleys were formed when Norway was under more than a mile of ice in the last ice age.
In Lillehammer, we visited the site of the 1994 Olympic Winter Games. You don't have to be nuts to go off these ski jumps, but I bet it helps.
Oslo is the capital of Norway. A sculpture park has the life work of one artist.
His work is fascinating, but I doubt you would find it in prudish America.
This is my favorite. That is a world-class Stink Eye the little girl is giving her brother.
The Viking Ship Museum in Oslo has three ships that were buried as part of funerals. The ships were built between 800 AD and 900 AD.
The bones of the people buried in the ships are on display, explaining how they may have died.
Town Hall in Oslo is not the usual dull building of most cities. It is a significant tourist attraction.
The statue above the door lets you know you are not in Kansas.
The first floor's main hall is where the Nobel Prize for Peace is awarded yearly. The walls are covered with fascinating paintings.
This one caught my eye. Not sure why.
This dignified hall is used for significant government functions. The wall is lined with enormous paintings of kings and queens of Norway. Boring enough for Kansas.
Ah, but the end wall of the hall has a large mural of Norwegian families enjoying a day at the beach.
Maybe not fit for Kansas after all.
How about your opera house if your local city hall is not a tourist attraction? Is it a must-see destination, or only a place visited by those who love opera? Do you even know where it is? Oslo's opera house is a must-see destination. It is built like an iceberg emerging from the sea. It is all ramps, meant to be walked upon by the public. A climb to the top gives you a good view of the city.
I would not like Norway's long, cold, dark winters, and $35 for a beer and sandwich is a bit much, but Norway lived up to its reputation as the most beautiful country on earth.
Post a Comment