We crossed the unprotected border ( sort of like we used to have with the US) and entered Sverige easily. We are getting further away from the Gulf Stream, so it is getting colder. In fact Jurg was so impressed that we went through Are, a World Cup Ski Race. We stopped there, to have a coffee of course..It is a big resort but the season is over so most things were closed. We ended up in a hamburg type joint where the coffee machine was broken. Had the hamburgs, sans coffee and pushed on. Winter still has its hold on this area...trees aren't blooming, things are neutral coloured and snow still is caught in the valleys and troughs of the area. And it was cold! brrrr
As we drove on and descended to lower altitudes, things greened up and one could see spring was well on its way. The area looked very much like northern Ontario..lots of birches, conifers, lakes and rocks. We spent the night in a cabin at a resort that used to be a farm in the 1700's. It was actually quite lovely and they served us a great breakfast in the morning in the main building. A good deal too...less than $100!
Then yesterday we continued on toward Stockholm, stopping in Upsalla. What a beautiful town, the opposite of Upsalla Ontario, where we have also been. The Swedes who went to Ontario should have stayed in Sweden and prospered! A beautiful cathedral and the oldest university in Scandanavia are the stars of this small city. And the sun is shining again.
So yesterday we arrived in Stockholm. I went on line to find a hotel and there was nothing...except for one worth $1000 and a Contact Hotel where they had a bunk room available. Guess which one we took. This "Quick Sleep" Room is an inner room with no windows, a double bunk bed and an LCD TV. Rosmarie and Sozon's room has 2 twin beds and a window...but both rooms have a bathroom down the hall, which is very modern. It is unisex...except for the showers..so I have to get used to brushing my teeth next to a guy. But the price is right...$300 American for the 2 rooms for 2 nights including breakfast. We take a 10 minute train ride on a fast commuter train to get into the city...which we did last night and today.
Stockholm is a fabulous city...beautiful, vibrant, well planned. It is spread across several islands with Gamla Stan being the old city area from Mediaval times. We visited a fabulous museum today...the Vasa Museum. It contains a boat the sunk in the 1600's in the harbour here and was raised intact in the 1960's. Fabulous look at the life and times of Sweden in those days. Stockholm has great transit...more subways than Toronto, terrific buses and lots of bicycles. The buildings are incredible and we went up the City Hall tour for a view over the city. The Nobel Prize Dinner is held in the city hall here. We ended our day with a traditional smorgesbord at the Grand Hotel...Jurg is already snoring in his upper bunk as I write this.
Tomorrow we head toward Trelleborg where we will catch a ferry toward Sassnitz in Germany on Saturday for a 4 hr ride ..
Chus!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Goodbye to Norway
It has been a few days since I posted anything and we have seen so much it is hard to sort out what to document. Everyday I thought out in my mind what I should write and then by night time we either had no time or I was too tired and then we started on another wonderful adventure the next day...so maybe just some impressions..
On the road to Trondheim we stopped in a little place called Andalsnes for a coffee. I decided to see if they had any sweaters...Each store suggested another one. Finally in a sports store he said he had some in the basement. He dragged out about 15 older style sweaters and told us 10 years ago, half his products were these sweaters and everyone wore them. Now all the skiers in Norway are wearing the new synthetic products and the wool sweater is out...so he was selling these ones for 500 Kr. I found one that fit me..it had a little hole in it from the hanger. The price then became 200 Kr! Rosmarie fixed it that night and voila I have a sweater! Not new fashion but good practicality.
Just past Andalsnes we detoured to see the end of the Trollistegen road (Troll Climb) that was closed due to snow. Thought we could maybe get a view before the barrier crossed the road. Again we past a resort and stopped for a coffee. The fellow who greeted us in a beautiful wood old style building surrounded by camping huts told us the place had been sold to some Americans who were building a big hotel there this summer and tearing down his wooden chalets. He was quite OK with this as they had hired him to run the new place. Apparently these are Americans from Minnisota, of Norwegian heritage, who have made lots of money in a car dealership and own several other hotels. This hotel will cater especially to the cruise ship people who travel overland thru the Geiranger Fjord and along the Trollistegen. This fellow during his career path had also been a UN soldier in Lebanon. Now he catered to people who come to this area to do base jumping...crazies who dive off the high cliffs with a parachute!
Trondheim is a beautiful city, the third largest city in Norway. It celebrated its 1000 year anniversary last year. Hard to believe that there was so much going on 1000 years ago in this northern country. Beautiful old buildings, great city centre and the most northerly cathedral in the world..and it is a magnificent specimen of a cathedral..100 m long, 100 me tall and 50 m wide. The coronations of the Norwegian Kings take place there. The museum was wonderful that described the restoration of this old catedral. There is a huge university in this city and so there is a lot going on in this 150,000 metropolis. There are beautiful old buildings lining the edge of the river and fascinating walks along the edge of the water.
From here we headed toward Sweden...only 100 km away.
On the road to Trondheim we stopped in a little place called Andalsnes for a coffee. I decided to see if they had any sweaters...Each store suggested another one. Finally in a sports store he said he had some in the basement. He dragged out about 15 older style sweaters and told us 10 years ago, half his products were these sweaters and everyone wore them. Now all the skiers in Norway are wearing the new synthetic products and the wool sweater is out...so he was selling these ones for 500 Kr. I found one that fit me..it had a little hole in it from the hanger. The price then became 200 Kr! Rosmarie fixed it that night and voila I have a sweater! Not new fashion but good practicality.
Just past Andalsnes we detoured to see the end of the Trollistegen road (Troll Climb) that was closed due to snow. Thought we could maybe get a view before the barrier crossed the road. Again we past a resort and stopped for a coffee. The fellow who greeted us in a beautiful wood old style building surrounded by camping huts told us the place had been sold to some Americans who were building a big hotel there this summer and tearing down his wooden chalets. He was quite OK with this as they had hired him to run the new place. Apparently these are Americans from Minnisota, of Norwegian heritage, who have made lots of money in a car dealership and own several other hotels. This hotel will cater especially to the cruise ship people who travel overland thru the Geiranger Fjord and along the Trollistegen. This fellow during his career path had also been a UN soldier in Lebanon. Now he catered to people who come to this area to do base jumping...crazies who dive off the high cliffs with a parachute!
Trondheim is a beautiful city, the third largest city in Norway. It celebrated its 1000 year anniversary last year. Hard to believe that there was so much going on 1000 years ago in this northern country. Beautiful old buildings, great city centre and the most northerly cathedral in the world..and it is a magnificent specimen of a cathedral..100 m long, 100 me tall and 50 m wide. The coronations of the Norwegian Kings take place there. The museum was wonderful that described the restoration of this old catedral. There is a huge university in this city and so there is a lot going on in this 150,000 metropolis. There are beautiful old buildings lining the edge of the river and fascinating walks along the edge of the water.
From here we headed toward Sweden...only 100 km away.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
our changing plans
Flexibility is the name of the game here, especially when you have your own car! Yesterday we had great plans to stay in a fancy hotel in Balestrand and live it up for one night. We planned to arrive there early enough to enjoy some walks and exercise in this community on the north side of the Sognefjord. Little did we know that this one weekend is the Balestrand jazz festival. Sigh! no rooms in this place...what a surprise in this low time of the tourist season. The setting was magnificent so we had a coffee and cake in a little cafe and pressed on. The drive was the usual spectacular stuff...up and down mountains, clinging to the edges of fjords, beautiful forests.
We stayed in Struyn in a hotel with our own bathroom, and had dinner in a fast food place serving pizza, kebobs, and pasta.
Then today we headed for a ferry ride that was incredible. At 9:30 we got on a car ferry that took us up the Geiranger Fjord, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. There were only 3 cars on the ferry and 6 people...in the summer there would be 60 cars and several hundred people. The weather was cool and cloudy, but the rain held off for the ride. The walls are up to 1000 metres high and punctuated with many foss (waterfalls) cascading down top to bottom. There were remnants of abandoned farms that were inhabited some up until the 1960's. Hard to imagine the life of isolation where you got in and out by boat and had to have your children tethered together so they wouldn't fall off the cliffs. On the patches of fertile soil they grew fruit and raised goats or sheep. Hardly a wealthy existence...most probably headed for the oil fields when Norway offered more options. But the scenery was spectacular..can't even describe the awe one feels in these fjords.
The beautiful mountain drives we wanted to take to leave Geiranger were all closed due to snow so we expected to just take the main road and head for Lillehammer...that was until we read about Alesund in the tourist book. So altered the route and headed north west and here we are in Alesund on the coast....a beautiful town with a tragic past. A fire in 1904 burned the whole place to the ground...so the country rallied round and rebuilt the place in Art Nouveau style by 1907 or so. It is lovely to walk through and such a surprise to find here. We have splurged on a Radisson Hotel and Jurg is watching the Canada Russia game with commentary in Norwegian.
We ate our lunch in a Panorama restaurant overlooking Alesund so dinner was a picnic in Sozon and Rosemarie's room at the Radisson. How we mix it up, eh!
Tomorrow we are going to head for Trondheim our last Norway stop before returning to Sweden. I so hope I can find a nice wool Norwegian sweater for skiing ....
We stayed in Struyn in a hotel with our own bathroom, and had dinner in a fast food place serving pizza, kebobs, and pasta.
Then today we headed for a ferry ride that was incredible. At 9:30 we got on a car ferry that took us up the Geiranger Fjord, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. There were only 3 cars on the ferry and 6 people...in the summer there would be 60 cars and several hundred people. The weather was cool and cloudy, but the rain held off for the ride. The walls are up to 1000 metres high and punctuated with many foss (waterfalls) cascading down top to bottom. There were remnants of abandoned farms that were inhabited some up until the 1960's. Hard to imagine the life of isolation where you got in and out by boat and had to have your children tethered together so they wouldn't fall off the cliffs. On the patches of fertile soil they grew fruit and raised goats or sheep. Hardly a wealthy existence...most probably headed for the oil fields when Norway offered more options. But the scenery was spectacular..can't even describe the awe one feels in these fjords.
The beautiful mountain drives we wanted to take to leave Geiranger were all closed due to snow so we expected to just take the main road and head for Lillehammer...that was until we read about Alesund in the tourist book. So altered the route and headed north west and here we are in Alesund on the coast....a beautiful town with a tragic past. A fire in 1904 burned the whole place to the ground...so the country rallied round and rebuilt the place in Art Nouveau style by 1907 or so. It is lovely to walk through and such a surprise to find here. We have splurged on a Radisson Hotel and Jurg is watching the Canada Russia game with commentary in Norwegian.
We ate our lunch in a Panorama restaurant overlooking Alesund so dinner was a picnic in Sozon and Rosemarie's room at the Radisson. How we mix it up, eh!
Tomorrow we are going to head for Trondheim our last Norway stop before returning to Sweden. I so hope I can find a nice wool Norwegian sweater for skiing ....
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Norwegian Roads
There isn't a boring road here in the Fjord area of Norway. And very few potholes to boot. If they marked scenic routes on a map, it would be much easier to mark the unscenic ones only. But there are incredible challenges in creating this road system. Most of the roads in this area hug the sides of the fjords, snaking along the bottoms of the tall cliffs. In the past, many of these were very narrow. As road improvements have taken place, tunnels are used. One can see that the oil money here has been buried underground, so to speak...or at least under mountains and the odd glacier. It is not unusual to have 6 and 7 kilometer tunnels that bypass windy fjord parts or connect roads that were otherwise blocked by mountains. We figure that every single Norwegian could have their own tunnelnamed after them, if they wished.
A number of the "unimproved roads" that climb over the passes and snake down the sides are marked as national Tourist Roads. They have beautiful views over the fjords and valleys. Only problem is they are closed in winter...which seems to extend until now. The weather has taken a turn as it is wont to do here, and now we have rain and cool temperatures. That means snow up above the treeline. So, our plan for tomorrow has to be altered...
We are up near the Geiranger Fjord...another UNESCO World Heritage Site...in a town called Struyn. The car ferry has just started at the beginning of May to travel up and down the fjord so we will take that and view the fjord in the forecasted rain. But we will have to stick to the main roads and may just head back towards Lillehammer. The joys of travelling out of season!
A number of the "unimproved roads" that climb over the passes and snake down the sides are marked as national Tourist Roads. They have beautiful views over the fjords and valleys. Only problem is they are closed in winter...which seems to extend until now. The weather has taken a turn as it is wont to do here, and now we have rain and cool temperatures. That means snow up above the treeline. So, our plan for tomorrow has to be altered...
We are up near the Geiranger Fjord...another UNESCO World Heritage Site...in a town called Struyn. The car ferry has just started at the beginning of May to travel up and down the fjord so we will take that and view the fjord in the forecasted rain. But we will have to stick to the main roads and may just head back towards Lillehammer. The joys of travelling out of season!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Hardanger Fjord Area
The day started early today, as we had a ferry at 8:30 from the dock in Laerdal. We were making our own breakfast at the Pension and we wanted to make sure we got a place on the ferry as we didn't have a reservation. Breakfast at 7 and we were at the ferry by 7:45...no one else was there..not even a ticket person. Finally about 8:15 people came from the ferry to wave us on...we were the only passengers. 45 minutes later we arrived in Kaupanger where one busload of Portugeuse tourists joined us for the travel down the Narrow Fjord...a UNESCO World Heritage Site. What a magnificent sight these fjords are from the water...majestic dark brooding walls ( or at least that's how it seemed in the rain!), snow capped mountains, dark cold water. Outside it was cold and wet so we sheltered under the overhang of the boat. Some of the Portugeuse men played cards the whole time...they must have fjords in Portugal I guess.
The narrow fjord is barely 250 metres across. There are few roads here and the little settlements that occur every once in a while are boat access only. Quite a complicated life I guess, at least in the transportation department.
We disembarked at Gudvagen and travelled a magnificent winding road down to Voss. Instead of heading for Bergen we decided to stay in the countryside and sought out the Voringfoss Waterfall. Several different streams hurl an incredible number of metres down the side of a canyon to a river below..the height makes Niagara look puny.
So tonight we stay at another guest house in Ovre Eidfjord in the Hardanger Fjord area. It is a restored home with beautiful views across meadows to the walls of rock that surround this valley. The Dutch couple that have renovated it love their closeness to nature and are great hosts. We share a bathroom among 5 rooms...but the 4 of us are the only ones here. That is typical low season...but the rates don't change. 690 kr including breakfast. (divide by 5 to get the cost in US $) The view is worth it and the quiet is wonderful. The rain here makes everything very green...right now we have some sunshine again and will until it sets close to 10pm.
The narrow fjord is barely 250 metres across. There are few roads here and the little settlements that occur every once in a while are boat access only. Quite a complicated life I guess, at least in the transportation department.
We disembarked at Gudvagen and travelled a magnificent winding road down to Voss. Instead of heading for Bergen we decided to stay in the countryside and sought out the Voringfoss Waterfall. Several different streams hurl an incredible number of metres down the side of a canyon to a river below..the height makes Niagara look puny.
So tonight we stay at another guest house in Ovre Eidfjord in the Hardanger Fjord area. It is a restored home with beautiful views across meadows to the walls of rock that surround this valley. The Dutch couple that have renovated it love their closeness to nature and are great hosts. We share a bathroom among 5 rooms...but the 4 of us are the only ones here. That is typical low season...but the rates don't change. 690 kr including breakfast. (divide by 5 to get the cost in US $) The view is worth it and the quiet is wonderful. The rain here makes everything very green...right now we have some sunshine again and will until it sets close to 10pm.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Nordic Meanderings
Today as we stood at the scenic overlook at the top of the Aurland Fjords we knew we were in the real Norway. All those pictures of blue sky, clouds, snow covered peaks, massive green slopes that slide into dark blue seas were right in front of us. A tiny ferry skimmed across the water far below us and the clear cold and very clean air brushed past us. We had driven 20 minutes up a switchback road lined with farmland and implements, birch trees just touched with green and tiny white and black lambs that frolicked in the sunshine. We wanted to continue on the road the travelled over the mountains to Laerdal, but the road doesn't open until June 1...snow of course!
After the view, we returned to Aurland and reluctantly took the longest tunnel in the world...24.5 kilometres ... to Aurland. I suppose that should be considered an adventure in itself! Every 6 kilometres they break up the boredom with coloured lights that illuminate the ceiling and walls and mark the passage of the journey. Today they were washing the tunnel and used a pilot car to guide us around the huge machines doing the spring cleaning.
South of Laerdal we visited a Stave Church...one of the oldest ones in Norway...built in the 1100's from specially grown pine trees. These churches with their Christian crosses and Viking dragons on the roof are a national treasure. Just a few remain and are a testament to the wood working skills of the Norse that were honed by the sea as they built boats like the ones that went to Newfoundland.
Tonight we stay at a Pension in the historic area of Laerdal. The wooden house we are in, is beautifully but simply decorated with collectibles and great art pieces. We leave tomorrow to catch a car ferry and travel down the Narrow Fjord, a UNESCO World Heritage site..and more wonderful Norwegian scenery.
After the view, we returned to Aurland and reluctantly took the longest tunnel in the world...24.5 kilometres ... to Aurland. I suppose that should be considered an adventure in itself! Every 6 kilometres they break up the boredom with coloured lights that illuminate the ceiling and walls and mark the passage of the journey. Today they were washing the tunnel and used a pilot car to guide us around the huge machines doing the spring cleaning.
South of Laerdal we visited a Stave Church...one of the oldest ones in Norway...built in the 1100's from specially grown pine trees. These churches with their Christian crosses and Viking dragons on the roof are a national treasure. Just a few remain and are a testament to the wood working skills of the Norse that were honed by the sea as they built boats like the ones that went to Newfoundland.
Tonight we stay at a Pension in the historic area of Laerdal. The wooden house we are in, is beautifully but simply decorated with collectibles and great art pieces. We leave tomorrow to catch a car ferry and travel down the Narrow Fjord, a UNESCO World Heritage site..and more wonderful Norwegian scenery.
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