Colin and I weren't sure after last summer's Scandinavian cruise whether we'd make it to Norway. After all, it is a pretty darn expensive country and it lacks one of my favorite vacation qualities: warm weather. BUT, one evening I was at an "International Women of Geilenkirchen" meeting on base that was hosted by the Norwegians, and they flashed a slide show of all these gorgeous photos of the Norwegian countryside. They dressed up in their traditional dresses ("bunads") and it reminded me that being Norwegian is a big part of my heritage, even if distant. I've seen my great Aunt Kay in similar dresses, and heard about my mom's visit to our distant relatives "Olga and Olga" back when she traveled after college. And of course, my Grandma Marjorie has introduced our family to Norwegian treats that we are all fond of... kringla, lefsa and krumkake. So that was it - we decided we would do the famous "Norway in a Nutshell" tour. It was a great trip.
We started in Oslo, walking the town and taking the ferry to the Viking Ship Museum.
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| Oslo's town hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony takes place every December |
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| Riding the ferry to the Viking Ship Museum |
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| Viking with Viking Ship |
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| The Oseberg ship dates back to 800 A.D. |
Then we started our Nutshell tour, beginning with a train to the Sognefjord.
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| We ate some lefse on the way... |
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| And enjoyed this beautiful landscape. |
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| We hopped out of the Flam Railway to see the Kjosfossen Waterfall. |
Then we arrived in the tiny town of Flam, where we spent the night. It was a very relaxing night as there is not a whole lot to do there but enjoy the beautiful scenery. So Colin had a few beers and the next day we took a great bike ride.
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| We liked this bar with lots of Norwegian wood... although the beers were a bit steep at about $12/piece. |
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| Flam is situated right at the end of the Sognefjord and is in a valley that is surrounded by steep waterfalls. |
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| Mini Cav also got to enjoy our heritage trip! |
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| I would not want to test this rickety bridge... can't even imagine how cold that water must be! |
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| This cute little timber church dated back to 1667. |
The next day, we hopped on the ferry with all the other Nutshellers and made our way through the gorgeous Sognefjord.
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| You can't really tell based on our photos, but Colin and I were easily some of the youngest people to be doing this tour... apparently it really attracts an older audience! |
We then took a bus to Voss and another train ride and finally ended up in Bergen. We didn't know anything about Bergen before we arrived there, but we loved it. It had a great fish market and was just a charming town.
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| On the way to Bergen Colin checked out this memorial to Knute Rockne, a Notre Dame coach who was born in Voss. |
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| The market sold these massive reindeer pelts. |
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| Lots of crazy fish for sale too... Colin even gave a try to this black whale meat, which looked more like a steak. |
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| 28 Week Bump meets Bergen |
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| We loved it here. We were also spoken to in Norwegian on several occasions, which was somehow very satisfying to me. Maybe because one of the shopowners told me he meant it as a compliment! haha. |
From Bergen, we made our way back to Oslo on a night train. While I swore off night trains after several not so comfortable experiences during my college study abroad, we decided a Norwegian night train was different. And it was! Had just enough room for two and was very nice and clean... but still not my favorite experience. All in all though, our Norway trip really was phenomenal... just relaxing and outdoorsy - we were so glad we did it!
