Post card from Norway #1

We are one week into our travels, so its time to show and tell. This will come in dribs and drabs when I find time away from shore excursions (as I start this, we are near Nordkapp, as the very top of Norway. Anyhow, bookmark this page, and drop back in to read more.

We flew Sydney-Dubai -Oslo, got our bags and asked a young man how to get seniors' tickets to Oslo-S, and he said that as seniors went at half price, I should go through the turnstiles at full price, while he ushered Christine around them. We congratulated each other on our joint mathematical genius, and reached Oslo in no time at all.

The next morning, we caught a train to Bergen, which took us over the mountains, where the notion of spring had yet to catch on, as seen by the icicles sighted near Myrdal. Then came the bummer: it was Easter Sunday, the train stopped at Voss ("technical reasons"), and all of Norway was driving back from the mountains, so it took three hours, not the promised hour and a half.

With jet lag biting in, we grabbed a cab, and got absolutely ripped off. That's life...

English is the primary second language of Norway, and they seem to assume that even foreigners will speak it, give this sign from an Oslo bookshop. On the cruise, announcements are in Norwegian, English and German: the French, it seems, are expected to manage to understand the English.

Tours off  the boat are in German and English, though some of the guides give more detail in German. We toured Alesund with a German couple, and got a great deal of social history.

They were a bit short on the humour side, or perhaps they just did not know what skate boards  are, but my delight in finding a troll on a skate board left them cold.

On with the tour  then, we are travelling along the cost of Norway in what was once a freighter line that took a few passengers, and expanded. This is our third visit to Norway, so we know they are very strong on managing and climate change, but when jet lag saw me out of bed before dawn, I snapped this island, and totally failed to se the wind generators out on the ridge behind. Eat yer heart out, Don Quixote!

The next morning saw me also up befores dawn, trying to catch sunrise in the mountain tops, but the intense (to us) cold drove me in before I saw it. There is snow and ice everywhere!

As we had been to Nordkapp in summer (a chilly 18C at midsummer, we gave today's excursion a miss,.

Still, as we pull out from the wharf, we are all being plied with hot chocolate and apple cake, so I will post this much and finish it later. At least you have the pics.

After dinner and slipping in a bit more, this next one marked where we crossed the Arctic circle.

And here is Chris, looking happy, just after we did so.

Interesting to us: trees well north of the Arctic circle. Two typos in that line: time for bed.

We went on a coastal walk. The 'guide' was of little value: failed to point out the barnacles, and gave us a load of old cobblers about a tsunami putting the Dogger under water, when it was a case of melting glaciers.

He also failed to mention the lichens and this moss, and had no knowledge of how Hrafna-Floki used ravens to find Iceland. In short, not much chop!

When people are going into guiding, they really need to be able to stay ahead.

Then again he failed to point out these snow-covered rocks, which tell a very relevant story.

The antique physics teacher in me said nothing, but I certainly thought it.

Back on the boat, this snowy hill was beautifully framed by a bridge. Norway has many, many bridges, and even more tunnels.

Trees, however, are another matter. All the same, this one was north of the Arctic Circle,  as were the ones below, clearly planted to act as an extra snow fence.

This last one in this first tranche is of Honningsvåg, and it reminded me of a style I knew as a child. I thought it might have been like L S Lowry, but an artist mate, Tamsyn Taylor, tells me it is reminiscent of Breughel. See what you think...

Here ends the first round. I ill put a link to the others as they kick off. (The next one is now complete.)