Norway - an extended update
Here’s a bit of an extended blog post as I’m unable to upload any pictures and we’ve seen quite a lot in the last few days.
Oslo is a bit of a strange city. Norway as a whole in fact is a bit odd in a way. By way of background, a third of Norway’s export income comes from oil. Oil has made Norway rich, but of course that could run out at any time, and with it Norway’s main source of income. Norway is one of the few countries which still engages in whaling (along with Japan and possibly Iceland), but this is no longer the moneyspinner it used to be in the days of mass Arctic and Antarctic whaling. Not only does it carry with it the stigma of killing the whales, but there is no longer the need for the whale byproducts as so many synthetic alternatives have been developed.
With that as a background, Norway is expensive. Very expensive. Even taking into account the weaker pound against most currencies, alcohol (which is notoriously expensive in Scandinavia) works out at around ₤10 for a pint, and food is similarly priced. At the last port stop on this fjord cruise, we bought two medium pizzas (one pepperoni and tinned pineapple, one ham and tinned mushrooms) and it came to ₤33. This is from “Peppe’s Pizza” which is pretty much on a par with Pizza Hut (except the pizzas aren’t as good!).
While Finland and Sweden seemed fairly comfortable in their identities and cultural backgrounds, Norway seems a bit lost. Oslo was a strange mix of very historic and rather culturally bland (with the exception of the new Opera House that has recently been built). In the relatively small area that we walked around, there were 6 McDonald’s and 5 Burger Kings. Norway also seems to have its own fair share of chavs, which had been thankfully absent in Finland and Sweden.
In Oslo we arrived late in the evening at about 9 o’clock, having taken the rather useful airport express train pretty much to the door of our hotel. We wandered out to a restaurant that was in one of the guidebooks only to find that it was closed for the summer holidays (a rather common but unfortunate trait all through Scandinavia). We headed straight to one of the other hotels in Oslo which had a restaurant, and ended up having a very nice meal there.
The next day we walked over to the opera house which is an angular white marble construction that is meant to (and does) resemble an iceberg coming out of the sea. It’s pretty impressive, and apparently has great acoustics. I uploaded pictures to Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenokumura/sets/72157621887097696/ (but won’t be able to upload any more for a while – lousy connection on this ship).
After that we walked along the waterfront past the old fort and then took a ferry over to another part of the mainland which houses a Viking ship museum, the Fram museum and the Kon Tiki museum. All pretty landmark things in the history of shipping. The Viking museum was pretty neat. There were two and a half ships in all…all fairly well preserved, having been used in burial mounds and therefore preserved by the clay around them. The Vikings certainly built ships fit for purpose – relatively shallow so they could be beached easily, enabling stealth attacks and quick getaways.
Next to the Kon Tiki museum. This museum is dedicated to the ships and journeys of Thor Heyerdahl who decided to prove popular thought wrong and make a series of voyages using primitive craft (such as a papyrus raft he built and sailed from Morocco to Barbados), and the Kon Tiki, a balsa wood craft he sailed from Peru to the Tuamotu islands in the Pacific.
Finally the Fram museum where the Fram (the ship Amundsen used to beat Scott to the South Pole) is situated. The Fram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fram) is (so the museum says) the only ship to have gone as far North and South as it has and is alleged to be the strongest wooden ship ever built. Over a hundred years old, it really feels like it could be dropped into the water and sail away with no problems. You can walk the decks of it and go inside to see what the living quarters were like, and it really gives you a sense of how the expeditions must have been. The Arctic expedition lasted three years at sea!
After a good day’s walking and museum-going, we headed back to the hotel, dropped off our stuff and then went out for a meal. On recommendation of some of the staff at the hotel, we went to a Chinese restaurant in town (having had our fill of fish and other such typical Scandinavian fare and wanting a change). We didn’t know what to expect, but having been squeezed into a table downstairs, it turned out to be a great meal. So if you’re ever in Oslo and fancy going for top notch Chinese food, go to “Dinner”.
The following day we hopped on a train to start our journey to Bergen on the West coast of Norway. The trip is called “Norway in a Nutshell” and consists of a 5 hour train ride through some pretty interesting scenery, then another hour on the Flam railway (the steepest cog railway line around I think), two hours by boat along one of the Fjords, and then another hour and a half by train to Bergen. It’s a pretty epic day by anyone’s standards, and it is interesting the changes in scenery you go through from Oslo out. Parts of Oslo (particularly around the museums) were like Cape Cod in the United States…then on the train you went through farmland, and then into mountains which in parts looked like the Lake District, the Tierra del Fuego in Patagonia, and Switzerland. Eventually at the end of the day we pulled into Bergen (which some Norwegians argue should be the country’s capital), and checked into our (rather ancient) hotel. The first room we were given was a poor excuse for a broom closet, and we got moved to a larger one, the bathroom of which was the same size as our previous room.
Bergen is a lovely little city (although we only really had a whistlestop tour of it on one of the tourist motorised trains. It’s got quite a history, and one of the areas called Bryggen is oozing history. It’s the oldest part of the town and the buildings are all still made of wood. There was great debate as to whether the whole area should be demolished (due to the predeliction of it to burn down in fires!), but fortunately it was saved. The area is suffering from subsidence (mainly due to the fact it is on reclaimed land), and the wooden buildings are all wonky and leaning into each other.
Bergen has a good fish market – stalls are set up in the main part of the harbour and tarpaulins are draped between to keep off the almost inevitable rain (Bergen gets 2m of rain each year). There are Norwegian King Crab, crab, and lobster which are cobalt blue in colour – quite striking and I have pictures which I will upload in due course. You can also get whale steaks cooked for you, elk hotdogs, reindeer burgers etc.
After a day’s sightseeing in Bergen we hopped on the Hurtigruten ship which is a mix between a ferry and a proper cruise ship. It goes up the coast of Norway and even as far over as Kirkenes which is on the border with Russia. It’s a 7 day trip if you’re going the whole way, but we will be hopping off in Tromso after day 4 in order to start our Arctic cruise from there.
We cruised the Geirangerfjord which is a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s an undeniably impressive fjord…but it’s almost difficult to appreciate the scale of it all with little in the way of reference points. Fjords were formed by glacial movements in the last ice age, and what is interesting is that they tend to be deeper at their most landlocked point and along the fjord than at the sea mouth. Some of the fjords we have passed through have been over a kilometre deep in places, and only 12 metres at their shallowest.
Along the Geirangerfjord are dotted farms which have long since been abandoned and turned into summer homes. Some of them are 300 metres above the water, and the mind boggles at the effort required to climb up what looks like sheer cliffs in places to get to these houses. The majority have no road access, so it must be a determined person to spend a summer up in one of them and lug the provisions up there as well.
Tomorrow we dock at Trondheim for a few hours, then on up the coast. The following day we are going for a “Viking Feast” in a reproduction of the grandest Viking hall that ever stood together with traditionally-brewed mead to drink. After that we’ve got a day in Tromso before we hop on the cruise up to Bear Island, Svalbard and the Arctic!
I hope to be able to upload some more pictures in Tromso, but no guarantees.
Be seeing you
Ken
Oslo is a bit of a strange city. Norway as a whole in fact is a bit odd in a way. By way of background, a third of Norway’s export income comes from oil. Oil has made Norway rich, but of course that could run out at any time, and with it Norway’s main source of income. Norway is one of the few countries which still engages in whaling (along with Japan and possibly Iceland), but this is no longer the moneyspinner it used to be in the days of mass Arctic and Antarctic whaling. Not only does it carry with it the stigma of killing the whales, but there is no longer the need for the whale byproducts as so many synthetic alternatives have been developed.
With that as a background, Norway is expensive. Very expensive. Even taking into account the weaker pound against most currencies, alcohol (which is notoriously expensive in Scandinavia) works out at around ₤10 for a pint, and food is similarly priced. At the last port stop on this fjord cruise, we bought two medium pizzas (one pepperoni and tinned pineapple, one ham and tinned mushrooms) and it came to ₤33. This is from “Peppe’s Pizza” which is pretty much on a par with Pizza Hut (except the pizzas aren’t as good!).
While Finland and Sweden seemed fairly comfortable in their identities and cultural backgrounds, Norway seems a bit lost. Oslo was a strange mix of very historic and rather culturally bland (with the exception of the new Opera House that has recently been built). In the relatively small area that we walked around, there were 6 McDonald’s and 5 Burger Kings. Norway also seems to have its own fair share of chavs, which had been thankfully absent in Finland and Sweden.
In Oslo we arrived late in the evening at about 9 o’clock, having taken the rather useful airport express train pretty much to the door of our hotel. We wandered out to a restaurant that was in one of the guidebooks only to find that it was closed for the summer holidays (a rather common but unfortunate trait all through Scandinavia). We headed straight to one of the other hotels in Oslo which had a restaurant, and ended up having a very nice meal there.
The next day we walked over to the opera house which is an angular white marble construction that is meant to (and does) resemble an iceberg coming out of the sea. It’s pretty impressive, and apparently has great acoustics. I uploaded pictures to Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenokumura/sets/72157621887097696/ (but won’t be able to upload any more for a while – lousy connection on this ship).
After that we walked along the waterfront past the old fort and then took a ferry over to another part of the mainland which houses a Viking ship museum, the Fram museum and the Kon Tiki museum. All pretty landmark things in the history of shipping. The Viking museum was pretty neat. There were two and a half ships in all…all fairly well preserved, having been used in burial mounds and therefore preserved by the clay around them. The Vikings certainly built ships fit for purpose – relatively shallow so they could be beached easily, enabling stealth attacks and quick getaways.
Next to the Kon Tiki museum. This museum is dedicated to the ships and journeys of Thor Heyerdahl who decided to prove popular thought wrong and make a series of voyages using primitive craft (such as a papyrus raft he built and sailed from Morocco to Barbados), and the Kon Tiki, a balsa wood craft he sailed from Peru to the Tuamotu islands in the Pacific.
Finally the Fram museum where the Fram (the ship Amundsen used to beat Scott to the South Pole) is situated. The Fram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fram) is (so the museum says) the only ship to have gone as far North and South as it has and is alleged to be the strongest wooden ship ever built. Over a hundred years old, it really feels like it could be dropped into the water and sail away with no problems. You can walk the decks of it and go inside to see what the living quarters were like, and it really gives you a sense of how the expeditions must have been. The Arctic expedition lasted three years at sea!
After a good day’s walking and museum-going, we headed back to the hotel, dropped off our stuff and then went out for a meal. On recommendation of some of the staff at the hotel, we went to a Chinese restaurant in town (having had our fill of fish and other such typical Scandinavian fare and wanting a change). We didn’t know what to expect, but having been squeezed into a table downstairs, it turned out to be a great meal. So if you’re ever in Oslo and fancy going for top notch Chinese food, go to “Dinner”.
The following day we hopped on a train to start our journey to Bergen on the West coast of Norway. The trip is called “Norway in a Nutshell” and consists of a 5 hour train ride through some pretty interesting scenery, then another hour on the Flam railway (the steepest cog railway line around I think), two hours by boat along one of the Fjords, and then another hour and a half by train to Bergen. It’s a pretty epic day by anyone’s standards, and it is interesting the changes in scenery you go through from Oslo out. Parts of Oslo (particularly around the museums) were like Cape Cod in the United States…then on the train you went through farmland, and then into mountains which in parts looked like the Lake District, the Tierra del Fuego in Patagonia, and Switzerland. Eventually at the end of the day we pulled into Bergen (which some Norwegians argue should be the country’s capital), and checked into our (rather ancient) hotel. The first room we were given was a poor excuse for a broom closet, and we got moved to a larger one, the bathroom of which was the same size as our previous room.
Bergen is a lovely little city (although we only really had a whistlestop tour of it on one of the tourist motorised trains. It’s got quite a history, and one of the areas called Bryggen is oozing history. It’s the oldest part of the town and the buildings are all still made of wood. There was great debate as to whether the whole area should be demolished (due to the predeliction of it to burn down in fires!), but fortunately it was saved. The area is suffering from subsidence (mainly due to the fact it is on reclaimed land), and the wooden buildings are all wonky and leaning into each other.
Bergen has a good fish market – stalls are set up in the main part of the harbour and tarpaulins are draped between to keep off the almost inevitable rain (Bergen gets 2m of rain each year). There are Norwegian King Crab, crab, and lobster which are cobalt blue in colour – quite striking and I have pictures which I will upload in due course. You can also get whale steaks cooked for you, elk hotdogs, reindeer burgers etc.
After a day’s sightseeing in Bergen we hopped on the Hurtigruten ship which is a mix between a ferry and a proper cruise ship. It goes up the coast of Norway and even as far over as Kirkenes which is on the border with Russia. It’s a 7 day trip if you’re going the whole way, but we will be hopping off in Tromso after day 4 in order to start our Arctic cruise from there.
We cruised the Geirangerfjord which is a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s an undeniably impressive fjord…but it’s almost difficult to appreciate the scale of it all with little in the way of reference points. Fjords were formed by glacial movements in the last ice age, and what is interesting is that they tend to be deeper at their most landlocked point and along the fjord than at the sea mouth. Some of the fjords we have passed through have been over a kilometre deep in places, and only 12 metres at their shallowest.
Along the Geirangerfjord are dotted farms which have long since been abandoned and turned into summer homes. Some of them are 300 metres above the water, and the mind boggles at the effort required to climb up what looks like sheer cliffs in places to get to these houses. The majority have no road access, so it must be a determined person to spend a summer up in one of them and lug the provisions up there as well.
Tomorrow we dock at Trondheim for a few hours, then on up the coast. The following day we are going for a “Viking Feast” in a reproduction of the grandest Viking hall that ever stood together with traditionally-brewed mead to drink. After that we’ve got a day in Tromso before we hop on the cruise up to Bear Island, Svalbard and the Arctic!
I hope to be able to upload some more pictures in Tromso, but no guarantees.
Be seeing you
Ken
posted by Ken at 8:44 pm
1 Comments:
I love Norway! :)
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