I'm a much more experienced traveler then I used to be. Back in the old days, traveling to Europe felt a little bit like traveling to the moon: it seemed unbelievably foreign, and my sense of the continent made me believe that I had to take every single thing I could every imagine needing, because buying, say toothpaste, there would be SO difficult. This days are long gone. When I get into that kind of an overpacking mode, I remind myself, "they have stores, there." Because so many people in western Europe speak English nowadays, there is rarely a language barrier (this makes me a little wistful, since I like the challenge of foreign travel, and that challenge feels non-existent in many ways now). I'm better at navigating airports and subways and train stations these days. I know that I'll find my way somehow, and that if I get lost, it will be temporary. I'm also better at traveling because of this new thing campaign of mine. Embracing new things has helped me be a bit more adventurous, but it has also helped me to see (sometimes, at least) the new thing behind every travel foible; more accurately, perhaps, it's helped me to see the story that can emerge from my worst travel moments, and that makes it all okay. If it can become a blog entry or a story to be told, I'll endure it. It's not like I have any choice.
So what did I endure this trip when it came to the ins and outs of travel? Well, I already blogged about the ordeal of finding out that the airline we were supposed to fly to Stockholm on went out of business. Besides that, I would say that my long trip home took some endurance. Paul and I got to the Oslo Airport by about 5am on Sunday morning, all set to board our 6:30 Air France flight to Paris. Sadly, Air France had other ideas. The flight was cancelled for mechanical reasons, so Paul and I stood in line for two hours waiting to be reticketed, this time on the same United flight Dwight and Cindy were taking to Newark, NJ. That flight went off without a hitch, but luck was not on our side. When we got to Newark, we learned that our flight to Cincinnati had been cancelled for mechanical reasons, too! The lovely woman at the Delta desk helped us both reschedule on a later flight on United, but this meant that we had to reclaim our luggage and go through security again.
We sat around for a few hours, and started to see other flights being canceled at the gates surrounding us. Bad weather was hitting the Midwest and east coast. At our gate, an agent announced that our flight would be delayed--our plane had just left Pittsburgh bound for Newark. We were frustrated, but what could we do? We found Dwight and Cindy a few gates away in the same predicament waiting for their flight to Louisville. I don't know what time it happened--maybe around 10pm, but our flight was cancelled and there were no more that night. We lined up once more for reticketing. Paul got on a 5:30pm flight the next day, but I was scheduled for the 7:30pm flight. Dwight and Cindy had to wait quite a while, but they finally flew out that night and arrived in Louisville after midnight.
Paul and I found rooms at the airport hotel, and I was so delighted to have a comfy, king-sized bed, that I almost didn't care that I had no clean clothes, no deodorant, no toothbrush. It wasn't until the next that Paul reminded me that the hotel had some toiletries available for travelers in our situation. I was perfectly happy in my enormous American hotel room with its king sized bed, bigger than my entire room in Copenhagen, but check out was a noon, so I had a long day at the airport. I found some relatively comfy spots to blog in at the airport, rode the air train from terminal to terminal for "fun," ate lunch, drank coffee, and blogged some more. And then, eventually, I flew home, thirty six hours after I was originally scheduled to arrive.
I spent a couple hundred dollars more than I needed to because if these delays, but in the end, it was no big deal. Don't get me wrong--I was cranky. But I didn't flip out over the incident. Traveling without anxiety is my version of traveling light. That's a big new thing.
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Thursday, July 19, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Oslo Opera House
It seems to me that the final night of a big trip is important. You need to do something special, but you also need to hunker down and prepare for re-entry into normal life. I think we did both. We had been blessed with unusually good weather in Norway, and our last evening was cool and sunny. In fact, the light was that golden light that you generally see here in the fall. Lovely. Paul and I had a very early flight the next morning--we'd need to catch the bus to the airport at 4am--so I was determined to make it a memorable but early night.
Paul was still out wandering Oslo on foot when Dwight and Cindy got back to the hotel. I'd made it back from the Resistance Museum easily, thanks to the fact that the museum was an easy fifteen minute walk from the hotel, and thanks to the map that I consulted at least ten times as I walked. They both wanted to wander over to the remarkable Oslo Opera House, and that sounded like a perfect plan to me. The building opened in 2008 and was designed by the Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta. It looks like a ship moving right out into the fjord, and the best part is that you can walk this marble building's sloping roof from bottom to top!
We had dinner outdoors at the Opera House's restaurant, eating at a table right near the water, then we toured as much of the indoors as we could before moving outside to climb the roof to the top.
There was a TV crew there taping some Norwegian show, complete with a singer, dancer, and a troupe of young unicycle riders. For me, though, the building itself was the best entertainment. There were new angles and shadows at every turn, and a really good photographer would have a blast here. My SD card filled up to maximum capacity inside, though, so I didn't get a chance to capture any of my own mediocre photos outside. Cindy sent me this stunner taken at the top, though.
That photo was taken at about 10pm, by the way, and as you can see, the sun is still shining. Oh, how I miss the midnight sun!
We headed back to the hotel, via the virtually empty Oslo metro. Cindy wondered out loud if the subway was empty because the sun was still shining, and Norwegians face such long dark winters that being underground on a nice summer evening might be unthinkable. I have to admit that it was a pleasant change after all of those jam-packed train cars in London and Paris. Back at the hotel, I started the process of packing, and while I meant to get to bed early, I didn't get there until about 1am. My room was on the fifth floor, and on the street below were several bars and dance clubs, and on a nice summer Saturday night, they were hopping and noisy. Even with ear plugs in, I could still hear the shrieks of laughter and the bass beat of the music. I got up and called the front desk for a 3am wake-up call. I chuckled when the guy at the desk said, in heavily accented English, "That sucks for you."
At 3:15, I awoke to the sound of my alarm. What happened to my wake up call? I took a quick shower and lugged my stuff to the lobby. I asked the desk clerk about the call: "I called you twice," he said, "and then I came up and knocked at your door." He looked pissed, so I thanked him and made some comment about being a heavy sleeper--which I am not. I believe him, but I'm a little stunned that I slept through all of these attempts to wake me. Paul and I went outside to wait for the bus at about 3:45. Let me say that Oslo at that hour is just crazy. The streets were full of young people, still partying, gypsies out panhandling, and a queue of bleary-eyed travelers waiting for the airport bus. There were more people on the street at 4am than there were at 11pm the night before!
I liked Oslo a lot. I frequently find that the last destination on a big trip is one I hate--I'm travel weary and if the last spot is a big city, I feel too tired to deal with it. I thought that would be true in Oslo--I was certainly weary--but it wasn't. I enjoyed my 24 hour tour of this great Scandinavian city. I hope I'll return one day to see more.
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Paul was still out wandering Oslo on foot when Dwight and Cindy got back to the hotel. I'd made it back from the Resistance Museum easily, thanks to the fact that the museum was an easy fifteen minute walk from the hotel, and thanks to the map that I consulted at least ten times as I walked. They both wanted to wander over to the remarkable Oslo Opera House, and that sounded like a perfect plan to me. The building opened in 2008 and was designed by the Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta. It looks like a ship moving right out into the fjord, and the best part is that you can walk this marble building's sloping roof from bottom to top!
We had dinner outdoors at the Opera House's restaurant, eating at a table right near the water, then we toured as much of the indoors as we could before moving outside to climb the roof to the top.
There was a TV crew there taping some Norwegian show, complete with a singer, dancer, and a troupe of young unicycle riders. For me, though, the building itself was the best entertainment. There were new angles and shadows at every turn, and a really good photographer would have a blast here. My SD card filled up to maximum capacity inside, though, so I didn't get a chance to capture any of my own mediocre photos outside. Cindy sent me this stunner taken at the top, though.
That photo was taken at about 10pm, by the way, and as you can see, the sun is still shining. Oh, how I miss the midnight sun!
We headed back to the hotel, via the virtually empty Oslo metro. Cindy wondered out loud if the subway was empty because the sun was still shining, and Norwegians face such long dark winters that being underground on a nice summer evening might be unthinkable. I have to admit that it was a pleasant change after all of those jam-packed train cars in London and Paris. Back at the hotel, I started the process of packing, and while I meant to get to bed early, I didn't get there until about 1am. My room was on the fifth floor, and on the street below were several bars and dance clubs, and on a nice summer Saturday night, they were hopping and noisy. Even with ear plugs in, I could still hear the shrieks of laughter and the bass beat of the music. I got up and called the front desk for a 3am wake-up call. I chuckled when the guy at the desk said, in heavily accented English, "That sucks for you."
At 3:15, I awoke to the sound of my alarm. What happened to my wake up call? I took a quick shower and lugged my stuff to the lobby. I asked the desk clerk about the call: "I called you twice," he said, "and then I came up and knocked at your door." He looked pissed, so I thanked him and made some comment about being a heavy sleeper--which I am not. I believe him, but I'm a little stunned that I slept through all of these attempts to wake me. Paul and I went outside to wait for the bus at about 3:45. Let me say that Oslo at that hour is just crazy. The streets were full of young people, still partying, gypsies out panhandling, and a queue of bleary-eyed travelers waiting for the airport bus. There were more people on the street at 4am than there were at 11pm the night before!
I liked Oslo a lot. I frequently find that the last destination on a big trip is one I hate--I'm travel weary and if the last spot is a big city, I feel too tired to deal with it. I thought that would be true in Oslo--I was certainly weary--but it wasn't. I enjoyed my 24 hour tour of this great Scandinavian city. I hope I'll return one day to see more.
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Twenty Four Hours in Oslo
Getting to know a city in a day is impossible, but that's what we tried to do in Oslo. We got to our hotel after the fjord tour quite late, so we had only one day before we left for the US to see what we could see. Paul decided to spend his day seeing Oslo on foot. Dwight, Cindy, and I opted to travel by metro. The Vigeland Park was our first stop. Vigeland is the biggest sculpture park in the world--or, more accurately, the biggest by a single artist. Over 200 sculptures by Norwegian sculptor, Gustav Vigeland, grace the park, and they are wonderful. The sculptures of men, women, and children, some in bronze and some in stone, span two sides of a bridge and surround a fountain and a large, sculpted obelisk. Here's a photo of one of the most famous sculptures on the bridge, "Sinnataggen," or "The Angry Boy." He's having quite a little temper tantrum, isn't he?
I really loved the area around the obelisk, or Monolith, as it's called.
I think we all enjoyed the park and the sculptures, and I think Cindy could have spent the entire day there. When you only have one day in Oslo, though, you keep moving...after a little rest.
Our next stop was the Viking Ship Museum, where we saw three ships: The Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune. The three ships are incredibly well preserved; they were found in burial mounds in the Oslo fjord. Apparently, wealthy people would be buried in these ships to expedite their journey to the sweet hereafter. The burial ships would be filled with all kinds of things--intricately carved wagons, animals, and even servants, for instance.
By the time we finished with the Viking Ship Museum, it was after three. Dwight and Cindy wanted to go to the Munch Museum, and so did I, but I also wanted to go to the a Norwegian Resistance Museum, and we were very close to that. Given the state of my knees and hip, I chose the closest destination, so we went our separate ways. I've documented my sketchy navigating skills abundantly in this blog, so you can understand that I was a little apprehensive about separating, but new things must be achieved! Navigating solo in Oslo was definitely a new thing. Plus, there were some gorgeous sea views as I walked.
In order to get to the Resistance Museum, Norges Hjemmefrontmuseum, I had to go onto the grounds of the Akershus Fortress. It took me a while to figure that out, so I wandered the grounds for a bit, searching for signs to lead me to the museum, and I was surprised to find fifty or so zombies playing on the grounds. That's right: zombies! Gray-skinned, blood covered men and women--even a couple of brides--frolicked on the grass, playing some kind of zombie games. Back in Paris, as I stood in line for a tour of the Catacombs with Eric and a few students, I'd listened to the kids have a long, weird, serious conversation about zombies. A couple of months ago, a student asked me if he could write his research paper on zombies. Clearly, zombies are more interesting than I realized, so I stopped for awhile to watch them. It didn't take too long before they creeped me out, and then I had to leave. I moved from one creepy story to another. The museum took me quite a while to find, but it was worth the effort. Norway was occupied by the Nazis for five years, and the story is a fascinating one, filled with tragedy and suspense. I arrived about 40 minutes before the museum closed, though, so I had to race through parts of it. Honestly, I learned more about the occupation than the resistance. Truth be told, I'm drawn to sad stories, so maybe the occupation was the part I was meant to see.
I know I missed a lot in Oslo: it's a city that deserves more than 24 hours. I'll write about my evening in a separate entry, but I must say that I think we made good use of the day. Still, Oslo is a city I'd be happy to return to some day.
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I really loved the area around the obelisk, or Monolith, as it's called.
I think we all enjoyed the park and the sculptures, and I think Cindy could have spent the entire day there. When you only have one day in Oslo, though, you keep moving...after a little rest.
Our next stop was the Viking Ship Museum, where we saw three ships: The Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune. The three ships are incredibly well preserved; they were found in burial mounds in the Oslo fjord. Apparently, wealthy people would be buried in these ships to expedite their journey to the sweet hereafter. The burial ships would be filled with all kinds of things--intricately carved wagons, animals, and even servants, for instance.
By the time we finished with the Viking Ship Museum, it was after three. Dwight and Cindy wanted to go to the Munch Museum, and so did I, but I also wanted to go to the a Norwegian Resistance Museum, and we were very close to that. Given the state of my knees and hip, I chose the closest destination, so we went our separate ways. I've documented my sketchy navigating skills abundantly in this blog, so you can understand that I was a little apprehensive about separating, but new things must be achieved! Navigating solo in Oslo was definitely a new thing. Plus, there were some gorgeous sea views as I walked.
In order to get to the Resistance Museum, Norges Hjemmefrontmuseum, I had to go onto the grounds of the Akershus Fortress. It took me a while to figure that out, so I wandered the grounds for a bit, searching for signs to lead me to the museum, and I was surprised to find fifty or so zombies playing on the grounds. That's right: zombies! Gray-skinned, blood covered men and women--even a couple of brides--frolicked on the grass, playing some kind of zombie games. Back in Paris, as I stood in line for a tour of the Catacombs with Eric and a few students, I'd listened to the kids have a long, weird, serious conversation about zombies. A couple of months ago, a student asked me if he could write his research paper on zombies. Clearly, zombies are more interesting than I realized, so I stopped for awhile to watch them. It didn't take too long before they creeped me out, and then I had to leave. I moved from one creepy story to another. The museum took me quite a while to find, but it was worth the effort. Norway was occupied by the Nazis for five years, and the story is a fascinating one, filled with tragedy and suspense. I arrived about 40 minutes before the museum closed, though, so I had to race through parts of it. Honestly, I learned more about the occupation than the resistance. Truth be told, I'm drawn to sad stories, so maybe the occupation was the part I was meant to see.
I know I missed a lot in Oslo: it's a city that deserves more than 24 hours. I'll write about my evening in a separate entry, but I must say that I think we made good use of the day. Still, Oslo is a city I'd be happy to return to some day.
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Monday, July 16, 2012
Norway in a Nutshell
I hate it when my students begin their papers with dictionary definitions: "according to Webster's Dictionary, love is...," but that's exactly where I'm headed. According to some random online dictionary, a fjord is "a long, narrow arm of the sea bordered by steep cliffs: usually formed by glacial erosion." I'm giving you that definition because until recently, I wasn't entirely sure what a fjord was. Thanks to a tour called Norway in a Nutshell, though, I found out.
We set out early by train, got on a bus, transferred to a boat, got back on a train, caught another train, and then finished things off with a final bus. In the midst of all of that transportation, we saw some stunningly beautiful scenery: waterfalls that poured down high cliffs and looked like gleaming silver ribbons; white water rivers that churned and whirled and leapt out of their banks; placid lakes flanked by tall cliffs, and, at the highest elevations, lots and lots of snow. The scenery was so lovely and so abundant that it was overwhelming. At some point, the "that's gorgeous" part of your brain just shuts down, and all of those waterfalls and craggy cliffs stop registering for a while. My students use the word "awesome" all the time to describe things that aren't literally awesome. The fjords are. Here's an assortment of photos from my nutshell extravaganza.
Norway--maybe all of Scandinavia--is troll territory. You find them in every single souvenir shop. On one of the last trains of the tour, I heard a Norwegian man and his young son explain to a Chinese woman who spoke broken English that they had spent the day troll hunting. The Chinese woman was fascinated, and she had clearly never heard the word troll. the man explained that trolls lived deep in the forest and were very hard to find--that you were lucky to even get a quick glimpse of one of these hairy, knob-nosed creatures. He was being very serious, obviously trying to preserve the idea that trolls are real for his young son, but the Chinese woman was clearly believing everything he said, too. She was fascinated and looked a little horrified as she asked her very serious questions. I have to say, the whole exchange was pretty entertaining for this eavesdropping tourist.
The last leg of our Norway in a Nutshell tour was a bus that we boarded someplace about an hour outside of Oslo. We'd been touring for about eleven hours by that point, and we were exhausted and cranky. We got on the bus and drove for maybe two minutes when the people at the front started calling out to the driver in Norwegian. He'd left the luggage port wide open, so he had to stop to close it. We drove about two blocks on, and the driver started to say a few words about the area over the PA system while he was simultaneously trying to turn the corner. That's when it happened. He hit a guy on a motorcycle. We were in the back of the bus, so we couldn't really see what happened. All I know is that the driver got off the bus for a bit, then came back on to say that we'd be delayed because the police and an ambulance were coming. I was able to get a glimpse of the injured man, and he was definitely hurt, but not in a way that seemed horribly serious (for as much as the untrained naked eye can determine such a thing, that is). That was a relief to me. We didn't have to wait for long, and before we knew it, we were moving again--and moving really fast, too. Not long after we got started again, the driver braked really hard and fast, and we could see another motorcyclist turning the corner ahead of us. He'd clearly almost hit him, too. I find that I think a lot in newspaper headlines in moments that frighten me. Here's what I was thinking then: "Drunken Norway in a Nutshell Bus Driver Kills Tourists in Crash." Happily, I lived to tell.
We got to Oslo ahead of schedule--probably because the crazy driver was speeding. Before we started the tour, my friend Dwight had referred to it as the Norway with a Nut-Job tour, and the last leg lived up to that name. The scenery was breathtaking, and whether we wanted it or not, there was even a little drama thrown in for effect.
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We set out early by train, got on a bus, transferred to a boat, got back on a train, caught another train, and then finished things off with a final bus. In the midst of all of that transportation, we saw some stunningly beautiful scenery: waterfalls that poured down high cliffs and looked like gleaming silver ribbons; white water rivers that churned and whirled and leapt out of their banks; placid lakes flanked by tall cliffs, and, at the highest elevations, lots and lots of snow. The scenery was so lovely and so abundant that it was overwhelming. At some point, the "that's gorgeous" part of your brain just shuts down, and all of those waterfalls and craggy cliffs stop registering for a while. My students use the word "awesome" all the time to describe things that aren't literally awesome. The fjords are. Here's an assortment of photos from my nutshell extravaganza.
Norway--maybe all of Scandinavia--is troll territory. You find them in every single souvenir shop. On one of the last trains of the tour, I heard a Norwegian man and his young son explain to a Chinese woman who spoke broken English that they had spent the day troll hunting. The Chinese woman was fascinated, and she had clearly never heard the word troll. the man explained that trolls lived deep in the forest and were very hard to find--that you were lucky to even get a quick glimpse of one of these hairy, knob-nosed creatures. He was being very serious, obviously trying to preserve the idea that trolls are real for his young son, but the Chinese woman was clearly believing everything he said, too. She was fascinated and looked a little horrified as she asked her very serious questions. I have to say, the whole exchange was pretty entertaining for this eavesdropping tourist.
The last leg of our Norway in a Nutshell tour was a bus that we boarded someplace about an hour outside of Oslo. We'd been touring for about eleven hours by that point, and we were exhausted and cranky. We got on the bus and drove for maybe two minutes when the people at the front started calling out to the driver in Norwegian. He'd left the luggage port wide open, so he had to stop to close it. We drove about two blocks on, and the driver started to say a few words about the area over the PA system while he was simultaneously trying to turn the corner. That's when it happened. He hit a guy on a motorcycle. We were in the back of the bus, so we couldn't really see what happened. All I know is that the driver got off the bus for a bit, then came back on to say that we'd be delayed because the police and an ambulance were coming. I was able to get a glimpse of the injured man, and he was definitely hurt, but not in a way that seemed horribly serious (for as much as the untrained naked eye can determine such a thing, that is). That was a relief to me. We didn't have to wait for long, and before we knew it, we were moving again--and moving really fast, too. Not long after we got started again, the driver braked really hard and fast, and we could see another motorcyclist turning the corner ahead of us. He'd clearly almost hit him, too. I find that I think a lot in newspaper headlines in moments that frighten me. Here's what I was thinking then: "Drunken Norway in a Nutshell Bus Driver Kills Tourists in Crash." Happily, I lived to tell.
We got to Oslo ahead of schedule--probably because the crazy driver was speeding. Before we started the tour, my friend Dwight had referred to it as the Norway with a Nut-Job tour, and the last leg lived up to that name. The scenery was breathtaking, and whether we wanted it or not, there was even a little drama thrown in for effect.
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Beautiful Bergen
I honestly didn't want to leave Stockholm. Being there made me wish that we had lopped Copenhagen off of the front of the trip and devoted more time to Sweden, but that's one of those things you only know after the fact. I thought a lot in Stockholm about how to fit the place into some future study abroad program, but the truth is, Scandinavia is just too expensive for study abroad. Scandinavia is too expensive for lots of travelers, I suspect, but despite the expense, I'm glad for this trip. So where did we head next? Beautiful Bergen, Norway: this is the second largest city in Norway, and it sits on the country's western coast. The center of the city is surrounded by seven mountains, and those mountains are studded with colorful houses. It's really quite lovely.
One of Bergen's claims to fame is weather related. They have about 240 bad weather days each year. I say bad weather, but apparently, in Bergen, they say that there is no such thing as bad weather--just bad clothing. We were lucky. While we had some drizzle on our first day there, we had good weather for the rest of our short stay. It was chilly, though, only reaching the low 60s at the highest, but given that Cincinnati is in the midst of a terrible heat wave, I'll take it.
Bergen is the gateway to Norway's western Fjords, and that was the reason for our visit. We had a day and a half in Bergen before boarding a train for the start of a day-long fjord excursion. First, the lowdown on our time in Bergen. On day one, we visited more art museums and more Munch paintings. The Bergen Art Museum is made up of several galleries in different buildings. I made my way to the Lysverket Art Collection first, and I spent my time looking at their collection of modernist art. I loved it: all of those Picassos, Klees, and Munches. There were supposed to be some Miros there, too, but I couldn't find them. Next, I visited the Rasmus Meyers Art Collection to see their sizable collection of paintings by Munch: wonderful and troubling. I need to find out more about Edvard Munch. He seems like a pretty tortured soul. I have to admit that I was feeling a little tortured that day, too--really exhausted and really sore. Two days of biking in Sweden, combined with knee, hip, and back problems equals a painful day. I do really well when I'm just walking, but the start and stop walking required in a museum is hard on everyone, I think. It's hard on me, anyway.
Okay, this is Henrik Ibsen, but this is a little how I was feeling.
I went back to our adorable hotel, the Klosterhagen, and just relaxed in my room with a glass of wine from the bottle I bought in the duty free shop at the airport. Alcohol is incredibly expensive in Norway, so my eight dollar bottle of wine was a real bargain. My hotel room was small, bit really nice. The hotel is pretty interesting. This is from their website: "Klosterhagen Hotel is set up primarily to offer work training and work clarification for people in need of assistance on their way back to an ordinary work life. We exist both for those who are interested in working at a hotel in the future, and for those who see the hotel as an opportunity for general work training on their way towards jobs in other businesses." All that and a fabulous breakfast buffet, featuring homemade bread and yogurt, a variety of cheeses, meats, and fish (including whale!), and great coffee. Plus, in the evening, they baked these delicious little cinnamon and sugar butter cookies for their guests. I'm all about the food!
I got a second wind that evening, so Cindy and I went out wandering. We headed down to Bryygen--Norwegian for wharf--the oldest part of the city. This area is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Bryggen played an important part in the Hanseatic League’s trading empire from the 14th to the mid-16th century, or so I've read. There were lots of fires in this area over the years, so lots of the old wooden buildings have been lost, but as they do in many places in Europe, they've rebuilt the new buildings to look just like the old ones. Today, only 62 original buildings remain in Bryggen.
Cindy and I ate fish and chips at the fish market area near the wharf and wandered through the shops there. At one point, I looked at my watch and realized that it was 10:30pm, but the sun was still shining. This is the land of the midnight sun, and I have to say that it freaked me out a bit. It was light very late in Copenhagen and Stockholm, too, but this was the first time I really saw the sun shining at a time when it would be fully dark at home. In fact, I'm not convinced that it ever got fully dark in Bergen. At midnight, when I went to bed, it was like twilight. I kept thinking of what it must be like there in the winter. In the northernmost parts of the country, the sun never even rises in the winter. Now, that could give a girl a mean case of seasonal affective disorder. Both of the following photos were taken between 10:30 and 11pm!
By day two in Bergen, I was hurting. All the healing that I thought had happened where my hips and knees were concerned during my time in England and France was undone, and I needed to rest. Of course, I frequently fail to listen to myself on these matters, so instead, Paul and I set off for the town's funicular and the promised stunning views of the city from the top of the mountain. It was stunning, too! This shot even has a couple of birds on the wing in it!
We walked one of the many paths on the top of the mountain, around a lovely little lake and through the woods, and by then, I was exhausted.
Back down the mountain for lunch and a rest before we parted company for the afternoon.
I spent some time at the Leprosy Museum--that's right! Bergen was a real leprosy center between 1850 and 1900, with three leprosy hospitals and the largest population of patients in Europe at the time.The city’s oldest leprosy hospital, St. George’s Hospital, is now a museum that tells the story of both the disease and the stigma that resulted in terrible human tragedy. Today, leprosy is known as Hansen’s Disease, and it is named after the Norwegian physician Armauer Hansen who discovered the leprosy bacillus in Bergen in 1873.
I spent the evening just resting--something I really needed to do. That about sums up my stay in beautiful Bergen. next stop: the Fjords!
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One of Bergen's claims to fame is weather related. They have about 240 bad weather days each year. I say bad weather, but apparently, in Bergen, they say that there is no such thing as bad weather--just bad clothing. We were lucky. While we had some drizzle on our first day there, we had good weather for the rest of our short stay. It was chilly, though, only reaching the low 60s at the highest, but given that Cincinnati is in the midst of a terrible heat wave, I'll take it.
Bergen is the gateway to Norway's western Fjords, and that was the reason for our visit. We had a day and a half in Bergen before boarding a train for the start of a day-long fjord excursion. First, the lowdown on our time in Bergen. On day one, we visited more art museums and more Munch paintings. The Bergen Art Museum is made up of several galleries in different buildings. I made my way to the Lysverket Art Collection first, and I spent my time looking at their collection of modernist art. I loved it: all of those Picassos, Klees, and Munches. There were supposed to be some Miros there, too, but I couldn't find them. Next, I visited the Rasmus Meyers Art Collection to see their sizable collection of paintings by Munch: wonderful and troubling. I need to find out more about Edvard Munch. He seems like a pretty tortured soul. I have to admit that I was feeling a little tortured that day, too--really exhausted and really sore. Two days of biking in Sweden, combined with knee, hip, and back problems equals a painful day. I do really well when I'm just walking, but the start and stop walking required in a museum is hard on everyone, I think. It's hard on me, anyway.
Okay, this is Henrik Ibsen, but this is a little how I was feeling.
I went back to our adorable hotel, the Klosterhagen, and just relaxed in my room with a glass of wine from the bottle I bought in the duty free shop at the airport. Alcohol is incredibly expensive in Norway, so my eight dollar bottle of wine was a real bargain. My hotel room was small, bit really nice. The hotel is pretty interesting. This is from their website: "Klosterhagen Hotel is set up primarily to offer work training and work clarification for people in need of assistance on their way back to an ordinary work life. We exist both for those who are interested in working at a hotel in the future, and for those who see the hotel as an opportunity for general work training on their way towards jobs in other businesses." All that and a fabulous breakfast buffet, featuring homemade bread and yogurt, a variety of cheeses, meats, and fish (including whale!), and great coffee. Plus, in the evening, they baked these delicious little cinnamon and sugar butter cookies for their guests. I'm all about the food!
I got a second wind that evening, so Cindy and I went out wandering. We headed down to Bryygen--Norwegian for wharf--the oldest part of the city. This area is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Bryggen played an important part in the Hanseatic League’s trading empire from the 14th to the mid-16th century, or so I've read. There were lots of fires in this area over the years, so lots of the old wooden buildings have been lost, but as they do in many places in Europe, they've rebuilt the new buildings to look just like the old ones. Today, only 62 original buildings remain in Bryggen.
Cindy and I ate fish and chips at the fish market area near the wharf and wandered through the shops there. At one point, I looked at my watch and realized that it was 10:30pm, but the sun was still shining. This is the land of the midnight sun, and I have to say that it freaked me out a bit. It was light very late in Copenhagen and Stockholm, too, but this was the first time I really saw the sun shining at a time when it would be fully dark at home. In fact, I'm not convinced that it ever got fully dark in Bergen. At midnight, when I went to bed, it was like twilight. I kept thinking of what it must be like there in the winter. In the northernmost parts of the country, the sun never even rises in the winter. Now, that could give a girl a mean case of seasonal affective disorder. Both of the following photos were taken between 10:30 and 11pm!
By day two in Bergen, I was hurting. All the healing that I thought had happened where my hips and knees were concerned during my time in England and France was undone, and I needed to rest. Of course, I frequently fail to listen to myself on these matters, so instead, Paul and I set off for the town's funicular and the promised stunning views of the city from the top of the mountain. It was stunning, too! This shot even has a couple of birds on the wing in it!
We walked one of the many paths on the top of the mountain, around a lovely little lake and through the woods, and by then, I was exhausted.
Back down the mountain for lunch and a rest before we parted company for the afternoon.
I spent some time at the Leprosy Museum--that's right! Bergen was a real leprosy center between 1850 and 1900, with three leprosy hospitals and the largest population of patients in Europe at the time.The city’s oldest leprosy hospital, St. George’s Hospital, is now a museum that tells the story of both the disease and the stigma that resulted in terrible human tragedy. Today, leprosy is known as Hansen’s Disease, and it is named after the Norwegian physician Armauer Hansen who discovered the leprosy bacillus in Bergen in 1873.
I spent the evening just resting--something I really needed to do. That about sums up my stay in beautiful Bergen. next stop: the Fjords!
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A Bit of Sweden
One of my favorite things to do on a vacation is to rent a bike and set off. In Stockholm, we rode two days in a row, and I loved it. Not far from Gamala Stan, the old town area where we were staying, is an island called Djurgarden, or deer garden in English. This island is the home of Skansen, the World's biggest outdoor museum, devoted to Swedish heritage. It's also home to the Thielska Galleriet Museum of art, a summer palace that used to be used by Swedish royals, a fabulous hedge labyrinth, and a whole slew of cafes and parks.
The biking was great: the Swedes do a fine job of creating and maintaining good bike lanes throughout the city, and the rental bikes were good touring bikes with big baskets in the front and enough bounce on the seat to allow you to ride over curbs and potholes without feeling the jolt. Well, on day one of biking, that is. On day two, my tailbone was sore, and I felt the jolts a bit more. Since our first biking day was a Monday, some of the things we wanted to see were closed. We did get to Skansen, but I have to admit, I am no fan of places where people dress in period dress and reenact, well, anything. I can't explain why, but my suspension of disbelief simply does not extend to pioneer villages or Civil War reenactments, or, in this case, to people pretending to be 19th century Swedish craftspeople. What I did enjoy at Skansen were the great views from the top of the funicular and the people watching. Happily for me, Skansen was only a portion of our time on the island. We spent the better part of the day biking around the coast taking in the great seaside views.
Our ride on day two took us to a part of the island near the Rosendal Palace. The Rosendal Gardens are a series of organic beds--orchards, vegetables, perennials--that exist to help promote organic gardening methods in Sweden. They're lovely, and wandering through them reminded me of my old dream of working in a public garden. Maybe in some other life! Cindy had done lots of pre-trip research, and she located a hedge labyrinth near in the gardens. We have a long history of labyrinth walking that probably deserves some blog entry at a later date. For now, let it suffice to say that if there's a labyrinth, we'll walk it. There was a nearby playground, so there were tons of kids running through the labyrinth, but it was still wonderful. The hedges were tall, so you couldn't see the path ahead of you, but since it's a labyrinth, there's no getting lost. Towards the middle of my walk, the kids left, and it was really peaceful. I loved it.
Afterwards, we had lunch at the Rosenthals Tradgars Kafe, a wonderful organic restaurant in an old greenhouse. We had big cheese and veggie sandwiches on crusty bread, bottles of beer, and chocolate cake for dessert. We wandered through the gift shop and plant nursery, hopped back on our bikes, and headed for the Thielska Gallery for a look at the Edvard Munch paintings there. The collections are the private holdings of the 19th century Swedish banker, Ernest Thiel, and they include works by several 19th century Scandinavian artists.
Of course, we spent some non-biking time in Stockholm, too. On our second night there, we took a dinner cruise through the Stockholm archipelago, the second largest in the Baltic Sea, and it was simply stunning. There are something like 30,000 islands in the archipelago! I have a real affinity for big bodies of water and islands, so this is pretty high up there on my list of things I loved on the trip. We had a good meal, and then watched the sun start to set as we navigated our way around tiny islands all the way to Vaxholm, the so-called capital of the archipelago and home to Vaxholm Castle.
On our last night in Stockholm, Cindy and I wandered around for a few hours in Gamala Stan, shopping, people watching, and hunting down a place to buy ice cream. We also visited the smallest sculpture in Stockholm. People rub his head for luck and knit him little hats and scarves in the winter!
Honestly, Stockholm was my favorite stop on this trip. That may be because it involved so many of my favorite things: gardens, biking, islands, big water, friends, and lots of laughter. This is a city I'll need to return to one day. Two and a half days in Stockholm is simply not enough time.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The biking was great: the Swedes do a fine job of creating and maintaining good bike lanes throughout the city, and the rental bikes were good touring bikes with big baskets in the front and enough bounce on the seat to allow you to ride over curbs and potholes without feeling the jolt. Well, on day one of biking, that is. On day two, my tailbone was sore, and I felt the jolts a bit more. Since our first biking day was a Monday, some of the things we wanted to see were closed. We did get to Skansen, but I have to admit, I am no fan of places where people dress in period dress and reenact, well, anything. I can't explain why, but my suspension of disbelief simply does not extend to pioneer villages or Civil War reenactments, or, in this case, to people pretending to be 19th century Swedish craftspeople. What I did enjoy at Skansen were the great views from the top of the funicular and the people watching. Happily for me, Skansen was only a portion of our time on the island. We spent the better part of the day biking around the coast taking in the great seaside views.
Our ride on day two took us to a part of the island near the Rosendal Palace. The Rosendal Gardens are a series of organic beds--orchards, vegetables, perennials--that exist to help promote organic gardening methods in Sweden. They're lovely, and wandering through them reminded me of my old dream of working in a public garden. Maybe in some other life! Cindy had done lots of pre-trip research, and she located a hedge labyrinth near in the gardens. We have a long history of labyrinth walking that probably deserves some blog entry at a later date. For now, let it suffice to say that if there's a labyrinth, we'll walk it. There was a nearby playground, so there were tons of kids running through the labyrinth, but it was still wonderful. The hedges were tall, so you couldn't see the path ahead of you, but since it's a labyrinth, there's no getting lost. Towards the middle of my walk, the kids left, and it was really peaceful. I loved it.
Afterwards, we had lunch at the Rosenthals Tradgars Kafe, a wonderful organic restaurant in an old greenhouse. We had big cheese and veggie sandwiches on crusty bread, bottles of beer, and chocolate cake for dessert. We wandered through the gift shop and plant nursery, hopped back on our bikes, and headed for the Thielska Gallery for a look at the Edvard Munch paintings there. The collections are the private holdings of the 19th century Swedish banker, Ernest Thiel, and they include works by several 19th century Scandinavian artists.
Of course, we spent some non-biking time in Stockholm, too. On our second night there, we took a dinner cruise through the Stockholm archipelago, the second largest in the Baltic Sea, and it was simply stunning. There are something like 30,000 islands in the archipelago! I have a real affinity for big bodies of water and islands, so this is pretty high up there on my list of things I loved on the trip. We had a good meal, and then watched the sun start to set as we navigated our way around tiny islands all the way to Vaxholm, the so-called capital of the archipelago and home to Vaxholm Castle.
On our last night in Stockholm, Cindy and I wandered around for a few hours in Gamala Stan, shopping, people watching, and hunting down a place to buy ice cream. We also visited the smallest sculpture in Stockholm. People rub his head for luck and knit him little hats and scarves in the winter!
Honestly, Stockholm was my favorite stop on this trip. That may be because it involved so many of my favorite things: gardens, biking, islands, big water, friends, and lots of laughter. This is a city I'll need to return to one day. Two and a half days in Stockholm is simply not enough time.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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