The occasional webcam
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Hello again. I must admit, these updates are getting harder and harder to write. But this will be the second to last to be written (and it's a long one with lots of pictures) before we go and then you will all be part of our daily lives again and won't need these global updates. You can all come over and see pictures and hear stories of our eastward journey home. That'll be nice, won't it? (Sorry to all the folks on the English side of the pond who read our webpage - you are going to have to keep in touch by email or phone. And you'd better!)
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The occasional webcam |
I believe that when last we left you we were on our way to Stockholm and Norway. We'll tell you about that trip now and then all the other stuff we've been up to in the next (and last) entry. So let's start with Stockholm, shall we?
STOCKHOLM
We signed up for a week's journey to Norway with our friends Sharon and Steve and although they weren't interested, we decided to tack on a couple of days in Stockholm at the beginning - since it is one of the places we'd been meaning to go to. What a wonderful city! It is stunning. And clean. And there did seem to be a number of blondes there. I was even surprised to see many of them actually wearing the two braid hair style.
We booked an early flight out of Heathrow and knew it was going to be a good trip when we saw a sample booth open in the duty free shop with a new French vodka made from grapes. Mind you this was about 8:00am, but we couldn't resist trying the shot, complete with a real grape, that was offered to us. Or a taste of the cosmopolitan they had made. Or the rest of the batch that she would have had to waste. When in Europe…. Check out www.cirocvodka.com if you are interested in vodka from grapes.
We arrived in Sweden and took the train from the airport to Stockholm. Nice ride with high tech video displays in the terminals and on the trains. They showed the news along the way. Impressive. Then we got a mini tour by our cab driver on the way from the station to our hotel. A beautiful first impression.
Stockholm is a series of islands and canals that separate the Baltic Sea and Lake Malaren, so the first thing we did was take a two hour boat tour around the city. Although I admit to nodding off a few times (we had an early morning), it was a nice ride that gave us a good introduction to Stockholm. The waterways are actually clean enough for city residents to swim in. Hard to believe, but true.
The two hour tour ended just in time for a major downpour. Unprepared for the rain, we headed back towards the hotel, ducking into shelter along the way until we were too soaked to continue and happened upon a restaurant that looked good, Restaurant Prinsen. It was amazing. We both got a traditional Swedish beef dish that was superb. After dinner, the rain had let up and we walked back to our hotel and passed out.
On Saturday we got up and walked over to the Vasa Museum. It is a museum built to exhibit the warship Vasa - the only remaining, intact 17th century ship in the world. They found the ship and raised it from the bottom of the sea in 1961. They have since restored and rebuilt part of it to bring it back to its former glory. It's a pretty incredible piece of work. Their website, will give you the whole story.
| Stockholm - click for bigger picture | |||
|---|---|---|---|
) A nice tower viewed from the water |
) View of Palace from the water |
) City Hall from the water |
) Warship Vasa |
) More Vasa |
) Figureheads in the museum |
After the museum, we walked around old town for a bit. It's sort of an artsy, little shoppy area near the palace. Nice place to walk around and have lunch. Then, on our way to tour part of the palace, I had a Swedish massage! Well, really, it was one of those Japanese shiatsu massages in a chair but it was given by a Swedish woman (outside) in Sweden…and that's good enough for me. A Swedish massage it was!
We toured part of the palace (state apartments etc…) which was nice, but not as impressive as some. No pictures were allowed but Tom did sneak one of the Hall of State. It's much more impressive than the picture. Check out the boots the guards are wearing. No idea what they are for.
Just down the street from the palace is the modern section of town - a shopping haven with lots of neon and silver buildings. Tom even bought a pair of Ecco shoes which he says are very comfortable. We were just walking through when we noticed a park and lots of people off to one side of the street. Turns out there was a boules (a French game similar to bocce) competition going on. Lots of boules areas were set up and there were a couple of big chess games going on as well. Check out the picture!
During the day we also passed a number of painted cows - part of the cow parade exhibit that is happening around the world. (See here for more info.) They blended in nicely with all the painted horses that were around. The painted wooden horses are one of Sweden's national symbols. They were first made in the early 18th century by lumberjacks as toys for their kids. In the 19th century they started painting them with bright flowers and they became known as Dala horses. You have to love a city that has large, brightly coloured wooden horses placed all around it. Very friendly atmosphere.
| Stockholm - click for bigger picture | |||
|---|---|---|---|
) Street view of Stockholm |
) Palace main entrance |
) Palace Guard |
) Check out the boots! |
) Hall of State |
) Swedish massage!! |
) Cow! |
) Boules |
) Giant chess |
) Opera House |
) Cow!! |
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After a short rest and some dinner we walked over to Grona Lund - Sweden's oldest amusement park (established in 1883) for some boardwalk games and a ride on the roller coaster. I had to walk around the park a few times before getting my nerve up but it was actually pretty fun. Tom rode wide eyed and smiling while I had my eyes shut through much of it and kept screaming. But I'd go again, I would. And would you believe that at 7:10pm we had to wear our sunglasses on the walk over? Heaven. In fact, throughout the whole trip, it never got dark. While we didn't see the midnight sun (we weren't above the Arctic Circle), it did stay light all through the night. Very impressive.
On Sunday we headed over to see Stadshuset, or City Hall, the last sight on our list before heading over to Norway to meet up with Sharon and Steve. It was amazing - one of the most beautiful buildings I think we've seen in Europe. It's not as old as some as it was finished in 1923, but it is definitely magnificent. It's where they have the Nobel Prize dinner every year (not the peace prize which is in Oslo, but the others). We took a lot of pictures so maybe you can get a sense of it from them. Although we don't have a picture of it, there is a small room where they perform marriage ceremonies for about an hour each afternoon. Each one takes about 3 minutes and that is the long version of the ceremony!
The Blue Room is where the Nobel award dinner is held. It was designed to look like an Italian piazza and see the stairway? Ragnar Ostberg, the architect, had his wife walk up and down the stairs many times so that he could space them perfectly so that when the women came down them in their fancy gowns they would look as if they were floating. I'd love to be invited to the dinner one year. Which Nobel prize should we give Tom so that I can walk down those stairs all dolled up?
One of the most impressive things about Stockholm was how people-oriented (orientated for those of you in the UK) they seem to be. I know it's not a perfect place to live but they've definitely got some things right. And they've got the longest life expectancy in the world. While on the tour of the City Hall, we got a (fuzzy) picture of one of the busts above the doorways. The fuzziness doesn't really matter because the interesting thing about them is not what they look like but who they are. Each doorway down the working corridors has a bust of one of the workers who helped build the place. Imagine that happening in America! Plus, when more women started entering politics they rearranged the meeting schedules to accommodate working mothers and designated a breast feeding room. Not bad.
| Stockholm - click for bigger picture | |||
|---|---|---|---|
) Blue Room at City Hall |
) Blue Room |
) Bust of workman |
) Breastfeeding room |
) More City Hall |
) Mural by the prince! |
) More City Hall |
) Ceiling |
) Golden Room City Hall |
) Tom on the City Hall Tower |
) View from Tower |
) Horse! |
A quick lunch (sushi!) and a stop at the gift shop and we were off to the airport for a quick flight to Norway.
Stockholm Bits & Bobs
NORWAY
We arrived in Oslo about 6pm. Just in time to meet up with Sharon and Steve at the hotel and head out for a quick bite and a walk around the city. Easy to do since the sun doesn't set. To us, Oslo was not nearly as pretty as Stockholm. It definitely seemed like a nice city to live in but it also seemed a little more lived in. Not as pristine or architecturally impressive as Stockholm.
On Monday we took a bus tour which took us to some of the prettier parts of the city. We got off at the Vigeland Sculpture Park which contains 192 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. He lived from 1869-1943 and I think his stuff is brilliant. Life size and full of emotion - extremely expressive. He also designed the park grounds which on a bright sunny day like the day we were there, is beautiful. For more info on the park sculptures, check out this site. For more info on Vigeland, check out this site.
Back on the bus for a short trip to the Viking Ship Museum where we saw 3 of the best preserved Viking ships known - about 1000 years old. They were found in royal burial mounds in the Oslo fjord, labeling them as royal burial ships. Apparently the nobility were buried with everything they might need in the hereafter including "jewels, furniture, food, servants, intricately carved carriages and sleighs, tapestries and fierce-looking figures." Pretty amazing to look at. Plus there were some other Viking artifacts and information on their lives garnered from the boats and other archeological findings. Nice museum, well done.
| Norway - click for bigger picture | |||
|---|---|---|---|
) Palace in Oslo |
) Sculpture Park |
) Sculpture Park |
) More sculpture |
) Last one... |
) Viking Ship Museum |
) Viking Ship |
) Ship bow |
We skipped part of the bus ride in favor of a boat ride and took a quick ferry trip back to the city - passed some major cruise ships. Man, are those things big!
We found a nice restaurant for dinner and Tom ordered reindeer steak. Not bad, actually. A little gamey, but good.
On Tuesday I woke up with Steve's cold. Thanks Steve! We were up early for a train ride to Myrdal where it was actually snowing. It was hard to believe after the warmth we had the day before and all the beautiful scenery we'd passed along the way. But we were pretty high up. We were only there for ½ hour or so before we got on another train - this time a mountain train known as the Flåm Railway as it took down the mountain to Flåm.
From their website:
The train journey provides some of Norway's wildest and most magnificent scenery. On the 20 km-long train ride you can see rivers that cut through deep ravines, waterfalls cascade down the side of steep, snow-capped mountains and mountain farms cling dizzily to sheer slopes. The Flåm Railway is one of the world's steepest railway lines on normal gauge. The gradient is 55/1000 on almost 80% of the line, i.e. a gradient of one in eighteen. The twisting tunnels that spiral in and out of the mountain are manifestations of the most daring and skillful engineering in Norwegian railway history.
It was a beautiful ride with amazing views of hills, waterfalls and the valley below. In fact, the train stopped about ¼ of the way down to let us see a gushing waterfall named Kjosfossen, where Huldra, the wood nymph frequently appears to passengers on the train, dressed in scarlet and dancing and singing at the foot of the 90-ft cascade to attract a husband. Mountain legend has it that under the dress the nymph has the tail of a cow. If she can persuade a mortal man to fall in love and marry here, she becomes human and loses the tail. The unfortunate husband is doomed to die. Indeed she did appear and did sing for us. You can just make her out in the picture below.
| Norway - click for bigger picture | ||||
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) Train to Myrdal |
) Train to Myrdal |
) Snow up high! |
) Snowy peaks |
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) View from the Flåm Railway |
) Gushing waterfall |
) See the nymph? |
) Us |
) View from the Flåm Railway |
Once down the hill we waited about a ½ hour in Flam for the Fjord Express ferry to Balestrand, our final destination for the day. It was a little bit chilly on the ferry, but worth standing outside for. What amazing scenery - absolutely beautiful. About 1.5 hours worth of beautiful fjord scenery later, we arrived in Balestrand, a 'big' resort town on Sognefjord.
Once there, we unloaded and stopped in the local gift shop, just about all that was open at that time. There was an older woman in the shop from Minnesota, Doris, who was short about $.30, so Tom gave it to her. You would have thought he'd given her $1000 she was so grateful. The trip we took is a pretty common one and so we kept running into her (we were at the same hotel and then we ran into her again in Bergen) and we'd hear her yell across the room "There he is. Do you know that man did?" And things like that. Loudly. She introduced us to her husband and all sorts. Very Minnesotan for those of you to whom that makes sense. Yup, yup, sure it does. It was pretty funny. My husband the hero.
We stayed on the main hotel on the island - right on the water with amazing views in every direction. Buffet breakfast and dinner was included. Can't say that I liked the food much but it was plentiful. We played cards in the bar after dinner as we drank our tea and coffee. We were very civilized.
On Wednesday we took a relatively short ferry ride to the Norwegian Glacier Museum which is a very hands-on museum with all sorts of interesting information about glaciers. It was really very well done. They even had an exhibit on Otzi, the 5000 year old iceman they found in 1991. After the museum they took us to see a glacier. We weren't close enough to touch it but you can see from the pictures that we were close. Hard to comprehend how old they were.
Thursday was a day of spectacular beauty. Wonderful sunshine and blue skies; perfect for a midday hike. We set off and followed the nature trail, trying to decide on what type of hike we wanted. We chose a moderate one, with good views, as you can see below. We only saw a few people on the trail so that was nice. The hike was about 1.5 hours and then back to town for a late lunch and onto the ferry to continue down the Sognefjord to Bergen. That was a solid 4+ hour ferry ride, but smooth water and a deck of cards made the time go quickly. We also saw the longest floating bridge in the world on our ferry ride.
| Norway - click for bigger picture | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
) Fjord views |
) Fjord views |
) Fjord views |
) Fjord views |
) Balestrand hotel view |
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) Hotel from afar |
) More hotel view |
) Panoramic hotel view |
) Sharon & Steve |
) View from ferry to glacier area |
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) Foot of the glacier |
) Glacier |
) Us at glacier |
) View from our hike |
) More view |
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) Baaaaaa |
) More view |
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Bergen was the capital of Norway in the 13th century. It's now the 2nd largest city in Norway with a large university. Historically it has had significant commercial importance because of its harbour. Bergen was part of the Hanseatic League (13th - 17th centuries), a chain of European and Baltic cities with shared trading agreements so there is a lot of history there. There's also a lot of beauty. It's a wonderful city with a great feel and gorgeous scenery. It's surrounded by 7 mountains and 7 fjords and is full of vibrancy.
We arrived late in the day and thought we'd have a cheap, easy dinner so we went to a pizza place. We will admit to two pitchers of beer and two very large pizzas, but we were still amazed at the bill of almost $100! It is a very expensive country.
On Friday we took the bus tour, mostly because it brought us to the cable car which brought us to the top of Mount Ulriken, the highest of the 7 mountains surrounding Bergen. These pictures should give you some idea of what Bergen looks like.
In the afternoon we headed over to the Leprosy museum which was fascinating. It is in an 18th century building that was used as a leprosy hospital. In fact, there was a leprosy hospital on that site for about 500 years. A student at Bergen University was our tour guide and we learned about the history of leprosy and the science of the disease. Sounds weird, but it turned out to be a really interesting an unique museum.
After dinner we took the Funicular to top of Mount Floyen. It's not quite as high as Mount Ulriken but the view is just as beautiful, and the night is as beautiful as the day. Especially since it is almost always dusk.
| Norway - click for bigger picture | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
) Ferry to Bergen |
) Steve & Sharon on ferry |
) Floating bridge |
) Atop Mt. Ulriken |
) Us on Mt. Ulriken |
) A few radio antennae! |
) Streets of Bergen |
) Streets of Bergen |
) Toby and a troll |
) View from Mt Floyen |
) Another view |
) Funicular track |
) Leper Hospital |
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On Saturday morning we took a walking tour or Bryggen, the old part of Bergen where most of the Hanseatic history is. The trading area is now a Unesco World Heritage Site. There have been a number of fires in the area and lots of excavating has been done to try and recreate what was. The tour started in the Bryggen Museum which was actually built around some of the excavations in an attempt to show what the town really looked like. It ended in the Hanseatic Museum, a 1704 building which showed us more about life of the Hanseatic merchant sailors, which was not a very posh life at all. In between the museums we stopped in an old assembly house and walked through the narrow streets you see in the pictures. Lots of cobbled streets and slanting timber houses. The assembly house was where families would gather for joint meals and to keep warm in the evenings.
After dinner we took the Funicular to top of Mount Floyen. It's not quite as high as Mount Ulriken but the view is just as beautiful, and the night is as beautiful as the day. Especially since it is almost always dusk.
| Norway - click for bigger picture | |||
|---|---|---|---|
) Bryggen |
) Bryggen |
) Dried cod being weighed |
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We walked around and shopped for a while. I drooled over a moose leather coat (like buddah!) but ended up buying an original print in a Norwegian artist's gallery. I've almost forgotten what it looks like by now so you'll have to visit us and see it for yourselves. Here's a picture of me with the artist (click for bigger view).
Next on our list was the Theta Museum, which documents the resistance movement during the German occupation from 1940-45. It's in the actual hideout that was used by a group of kids (19-22 year olds) to communicate information about the movements of the German fleets to Norwegian authorities in Britain. Check out the pictures. Aside from the size of the room (it is Norway's tiniest museum) they basically lived in, the location is unbelievable. It is close to the water and right in the heart of the community. They did it out of a sense of duty, they weren't hired to do it or anything. Just brave boys with a strong moral sense and a responsibility to others. That they were never discovered is amazing. I wish there was a website where you could read more about it but I couldn't find one. We do have a booklet you can borrow if you are interested They did have this very cool door which, from the outside, looked like part of the wall, but could be opened by connecting two 'nails' with a piece of wire. That completed the circuit and unlatched the door. You'd never try that without knowing about it. Very clever.
That afternoon we went to the West Norwegian Museum of Decorative Arts since Sharon took a course on interior design. It was an interesting museum with lots of different exhibits - some interactive. Like an exhibit on Norwegian chair design where you could sit in the different chairs. Not something Tom and I probably would have thought to do on our on but very enjoyable. And that's part of what was so nice about this trip, having somebody else's thoughts and interests suggesting things to do. Tom and I tend to end up at the same sort of places and this was a really nice change.
| Norway - click for bigger picture | |||
|---|---|---|---|
) Relaxing at the Design Museum |
) Theta Museum |
) Clever door |
) Radio equipment |
We split up that night since Kris Kristofferson was in town and I had to go. Not that I'm a huge Kris Kristofferson fan (although I did like him as a kid) but he is a legend of sorts and well, we were both in Bergen! He did a solo show that was pretty good. He sang all the old classic country songs he wrote (which are great) and a lot of his newer, more political stuff which I don't like as much. I feel like he sacrificed his writing for his message and I think that's just lazy. Tom came to keep me company but thankfully enjoyed it more than I thought he would.
| Norway - click for bigger picture | |
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) Rosencranz Tower |
) View from tower |
Sunday morning we took a quick tour of Rosencrantz Tower before heading to the airport. It dates back to 1560 and was built as a residence and fortress. I think it was a castle at one point. The walls are really thick and they did a nice job with the museum. You do get some feel for what it must have been like to live there. It is hard to imagine actually living back then though. I think I would miss a few of our modern creature comforts…
Norway Bits & Bobs
And there you have it for this report.
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