Bergen, Norway

After our fjord cruise we made our way to Bergen on Norway's west coast. From the 14th to the 18th centuries, Bergen was a trading center controlled by German merchants. Today it is a city of almost a quarter million but the old center, Bryggen, still exists with a preserved old merchant house complete with dried fish, steep stairs and creaky wooden floors.

At the end of the harbor is Bergen's fish market — an open-air smorgasbord of everything you might (or might not) want from the sea including dried cod jerky and whale meat -- the open-faced sandwiches shown here, however, were delicious. If seafood is not to your liking you can also pick up a Norwegian handmade sweater (most likely imported from China) or a genuine Norwegian troll doll.

In the afternoon, we rode the funicular 1,000 feet to the top of Mt. Fløyen for a panoramic view of the city and nearby islands. For a city that gets an average of 80 inches of rain and only 60 days of sunshine each year, we were blessed with two sunny, dry days to complete our Scandinavian adventure.

On Friday we had our final group dinner and said goodbye to our fellow travellers. Many were returning home, some were travelling to other points in Europe and two other couples were continuing on to Tallinn, Estonia to begin the next Rick Steves tour as were we.

Rural Norway and Fjord Country

We left Oslo on Wednesday morning and drove north toward the mountains. Near Lillehammer (site of the 1994 Winter Olympics) we toured an open-air folk museum. The museum is a collection of buildings from the 1600's in the valley around Lillehammer. It depicts rural life with sod-roof log houses, various farm buildings and crafts demonstrations. Also on site was one of Norway's 28 remaining stave churches. These wooden churches date from medieval times and get their name from the big, stout vertical timbers (staves) used in their construction. They are ornately decorated both inside and out.

After an overnight stop in the mountains, we headed toward the fjords. Along the way we paused for a photo stop and our guide, Dave, treated us to a taste of akvavit, a spirit distilled from potatoes and flavored with various herbs, etc. This particular akvavit was a special variety; it was aged in sherry casks and put aboard a ship to sail below the equator and back in order to make it more mellow.

Further on, we picked up a ferry for our cruise on the Sognefjord. The Songnefjord is 120 miles of towering waterfalls, isolated farms, idyllic villages and shear cliffs dropping right down to the water. Eventhough you're surrounded by dozens of cameras clicking away, at times you feel as if you are the only one there. It can't really be described in words, and (as is usually the case) pictures don't do it justice. However, we'll try -- at least with the pictures . . .

Oslo, Norway

On Sunday, we returned to Copenhagen for our overnight cruise to Oslo aboard the Pearl of Scandinavia. On the way out of Copenhagen we got a glimpse at the Danish push for energy independence when we passed a series of wind turbines just off the coast. In the video of the wind turbines, the jerky nature of the camera was not due to rough seas or any other movement of the ship, but to the wind blowing the photographer around!

Crusing on the Baltic

Our ship docked in Oslo just after 9:30 am and we were off. After a short orientation walk, we arrived at the Norwegian Resistance Museum which details Norway's fight against the Nazi invasion and occupation during WWII. Afterwards, the group walked down to the harbor where we broke for lunch. Oslo has a natural harbor since it lies at the end of a fjord (fiord) There are many shops, nightclubs and restaurants lining it's shores and most of the area is pedestrian-only.

After lunch we visited the 75-acre, Frogner Park. The park was designed by Norwegian sculptor, Gustav Vigeland, who worked from 1924 to 1943. In addition to the landscaping, Vigeland designed over 190 bronze and granite statues consisting of 600 figures. The underlying theme in the park's sculptures is the "cycle of life" from birth and childhood to aging and death.The focal point of the park is a 50 foot tall monolith containing 121 figures and carved out of a single block of stone. It took three stone carvers 14 years to complete the 180-ton project.


















On Tuesday, the group took a short ferry ride across the harbor from downtown to the Bygdøy neighborhood to visit some of the local museums. The Viking Museum contains three virtually intact ships from the 9th century. The ships were used as tombs to bury Viking chiefs along with possessions that would be needed in the afterlife. The Fram museum holds the ship used by Norwegians Ronald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen to explore the Artic and Antartic. A third museum contained the original Kon-Tiki which Thor Heyerdahl built and sailed 4,300 miles from Peru to Polynesia in 101 days. Why did he do this? To show that natives of South America could have settled Polynesia. Although most anthropologists doubt this, at least he got a book and movie deal out of it.

Viking Ship / Viking Ship Carving Detail / Kon-Tiki Raft