I am finally
getting over my jet lag and ready to post a little bit about Norway!
We joined the
cattle car rush at LAX on Wednesday, August 28. We left at 1 p.m. on
Scandinavian Airlines. After a plane change in Chicago we arrived in Copenhagen
Denmark the next day at 2 p.m. (having lost 9 hours). Then we took a short
flight to Bergen Norway and voila we are in Norway! Isn’t life amazing?
The coast of Norway is also amazing. It
is all rocks, islands, fjords, mountains, green everywhere, crashing waves. The
culture is totally oriented to the sea and fishing. Much of the land is
uninhabitable and nonproductive. But they have oil and gas, so the sea has been
very kind to them.
Bergen is a former capital, the second
largest city, and has lots of history in its buildings. Our hotel, the Radisson Blu, is right on the harbor in the City Center. There are a lot of tourists,
and lots of shops in the old, reconverted buildings.
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| Suzanne Kleinbub, Biltmore Blu Hotel, Bergen Norway |
We had a lovely
room on the second floor of the hotel. We joined the rest of the tour (43
people, most from Florida and Minnesota – we are the only Californians) for our
welcome dinner and then went to bed!
On our second day
in Norway we spent the morning listening to our program manager, Eva, giving us
information about the Vantage tour. In the afternoon we had a city tour of
Bergen. The city is small (about 250,000 people) and I felt that our bus driver
went around in a spiral pattern just to make it seem larger! I saw some
landmarks several times, from different angles as we drove.
Anyway, most of the
original buildings were built of wood and the city has a history of fires (as
do most Norwegian cities). So, there is quite a mixture of older and newer. My
strongest impression was of how rocky it is. There are many stone walls – some
natural and some man-made. The town is very hilly with steep streets and houses
stacked up the hill sides. But, there are lots of trees and flowers and it
looks quite beautiful. This is all volcanic, the rocks are basalt.
Traffic was
terrible – Eva said there was a tunnel closed, which contributed to the congestion.
We drove into the hills on the edge of town to visit the summer home of Edvard
Grieg (his family changed it from “ei” to “ie” which made me think of the
Temple/el situation)! This was his summer home and had lovely views of the city
and the fjords. You walk up a road lined with birch trees to get to the house.
It is quite small – 2 stories with three rooms on each floor. We had a hard
time getting the whole group inside. The home was built in 1878. Grieg lived
there with his wife and one daughter who died at 1 ½. He died in 1907. They
have also built a concert hall which is sort of underground with a grass roof. There is another building with a museum and gift shop.
Since Grieg carried a rubber frog in his pocket for luck, I had to buy one to
add to my frog collection. I also bought a CD.
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| Don Kleinbub at Stave Church, Bergen Norway |
The next stop was
at a stave church. This is another Norwegian institution. There were hundreds
of them built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries when Norway became
Christian. They are built of wood, but the planks are placed vertically and
interleaved together so they didn't use nails. The one we saw was a replica
built and moved here mid century. They had covered it with a tar like substance
so it was quite dark. It was also very tall with several steeples. They used dragon
heads on the eaves – I think in reference to the Vikings who also used serpent
heads on their boats. This was another lovely woodsy spot and beautiful to walk
around.
And then we headed
off to board our ship which will be home for the next twelve days. I will tell you about
that in the next post.
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| Don Kleinbub, Bergen Norway, August 30, 2013 |
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