The last few days of our trip were spent enjoying the beautiful weather and sites in Oslo. Oslo is a very easy city to hang out in; Good public transportation, big parks, tasty food, and nice people. First stop was the Oslo Opera House, a landmark of Oslo. The opera house was designed to be enjoyed by all. The roof is sloped such that you can walk up to the top. Many people on their lunch breaks use the opera house roof as a picnic spot.

Walking up the roof

On the roof.
   

Views from the roof.
    

Sculpture in the bay

We wandered around the roof and then went inside for our backstage tour, where we had the opportunity to see the set and costume departments. We also visited the backstage area of the main stage, which was absolutely enormous. I had no idea how much space was backstage. There were multiple stages that could rotate, move in, drop down, etc.

Inside the opera house.
 

After the opera house, we took a tour of the Nobel peace center. While very interesting, it was definitely a bit of information overload. I could have spent hours there learning about all the inspiring individuals that have won that award.

Loan with the Dalai Lama – Courtesy of Loan’s camera

Instead, we headed off to Slottsparken and the Royal Palace, where we learned that tickets for tours were sold out, and decided to hit the National Gallery instead.

Royal Palace

View of the park from the Royal Palace

Changing of the guard

I’m not a huge art fan typically, but the National Gallery was just my speed. It was a relatively small, very manageable art museum, organized (and color coded) by periods. The highlight was Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’. Munch is Norwegian, so he’s a big deal over there.

Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’. We weren’t supposed to take pictures, but we snapped one from outside the room.

Imitating art; I decided to keep my clothes on so we didn’t get kicked out of the museum.

Leaving the gallery, we walked down a very happening (and somewhat touristy) street with outdoor cafes. Dan and Ryan saw a motorcade and stopped to see what the commotion was. Bill Clinton! At least it looks like him in the photos, no?

Bill Clinton!

Elephant on the street

Rejuvinated by some beer and mango smoothies, we headed to Vigeland Park, filled with tons of people and lots of statues of naked people. We had some fun posing.

Angry baby; It’s good luck to rub his left hand.

Phallic symbol?

Dinner was at a family run restaurant around the corner from our AirBnB. Life is good in Norway; The restaurant does so well that they close on weekends and the entire month of July. The son, probably a little older than us, runs the front, while the father cooks. And boy was he a talker! He had us there till 11pm. But he was very interesting and knowledgeable about history and current events. The food was pretty good too.

After a crazy packed first day in Oslo, we took it a bit easier on the second. We took a cruise over to the Viking Ship Museum first thing in the morning, where there were multiple viking ships and other relics that had been dug up.
   

After being retired from the sea, the viking ships were used as burial vessels, where people would be buried with valuables like the relics below.
       

Views from the cruise.
    

The afternoon consisted of wandering around, souvenir shopping, lunch, more wandering, and a nap. Obviously day 1 in Oslo had tired us out! We had a nice last dinner of the vacation, and then hung out at our apartment, swapping photos, and enjoying the company and our last day of vacation.

Dinner

KLAD’s flight to Germany was early the next morning, while Ryan and I didn’t have to leave till mid-day. Unfortunately, the flight to Germany was changed, but no one found out until they made it to the airport. Ryan and I caught up with them in the terminal for a few games of Uno before hopping on our plane back to JFK via Reykjavik.

It was a wonderful trip with great traveling companions!

Who can pass up bacon oast for breakfast?! We tried to bring some home, but it has to be refrigerated. So, what exactly is bacon oast? It is basically cheese with bacon in a squeezy toothpaste looking tube. Does that sound delicious or what?
    

After a nice breakfast of toast, fried eggs, and bacon oast, it was time to leave the awesome Ringebu farmhouse.

First stop was the Ringebu Stave Church. It was sort of like a scavenger hunt; We searched for a man and two pig carvings, a dragon carving, and Norse god faces at the top of some pillars.

I think this was the dragon carving in the top left. Doesn’t really look like a dragon to me

And this was the man with 2 pigs carving; Again, questionable

Pretty sure we were all churched out. Next up was Maihaugen, an open air museum with replicas of Norwegian history (churches, houses, barns, fishing villages, post office). I found some great little homemade booties and a lamb stuffed animal for Kate and Egg’s baby (Nate was born August 19th). The funniest part about the museum was the ‘20^th Century Houses’, basically 1950s style.

One of the oldest two-story houses in Gudbrandsdal. Oddly enough, it didn’t actually say when the house was built.

One of the most exciting pictures from Maihaugen.

Adam and Loan fishing at Maihaugen.  Pictures courtesy of Loan’s camera.
     

The best part of the day came in Lillehammer. We visited the Olympic ski jump. There were a bunch of people practicing, even though there was no snow! The surface of the jump was like a turf, and they would just stop at the bottom in the grass. We were able to walk underneath the jump and up to the top where the skiers would take off. It was very cool to be able to get that close! Never would have happened in the U.S.  The following are lots and lots of pictures of the ski jump.  Some of them you’d swear were against green screens, but no, we were taking pictures next to and below the jump.
 

We took the long way up

The skiers take the short (smart) way up

View from the top

Olympic torch

Loan and I doing our best ski jump impression; Loan looks much more committed.

Outside the Olympic ice rink.

We made a quick stop in the town for lunch and headed on to Oslo. We took a round about way (ie, we had no idea where we were going) to fill the cars with gas and drop them off at the rental company. The rest of the evening was spent hanging out and relaxing in our Oslo lodging, another great AirBnB apartment.

Napping in Oslo before dinner.

Sunday was a slow morning, finally starting the drive to Ringebu around 11am. Amazingly, I have found traveling companions that are even slower than Ryan getting going in the morning. I really don’t mind, though, because it makes for a relaxing trip. Most of the day was spent driving. In addition to the ‘normal’ cars mentioned in an earlier post, we have seen a very large number of Teslas and American muscle cars. We made a stop at a few churches along the way and a cemetery that (we think) had a lot of the Kostad ancestors.

Ryan outside a Stave Church

Norwegians love their trolls!
     

Church and cemetery with Kostad ancestors.
      

We rolled into Ringebu pretty late, after most restaurants and grocery stores had closed, so we picked up Chinese takeout on the way to the AirBnB. This AirBnB was absolutely breathtaking! It was the second house on a farm, where the grandparents used to live. The houses overlooked a beautiful green valley and lake.

Unloading at the farmhouse

View of the valley out the back

Storage barn off to the side

The mom was there when we arrived and showed us around the house using the little English that she spoke. Amund, the son, who we estimate to be a little younger than us, arrived a little while later. He was the one who had put the house on AirBnB, and we were his first visitors! Amund had been an exchange student in California during high school and then attended a small college in Michigan. The family invited us to eat dinner out on the porch of their house next door. While we ate our Chinese takeout, they brought us out local delicacies to try, including aquavit (potato liquor), cured pork, potato crisps, and beer and wine.

Dinner on the deck at 10 something at night – Courtesy of Loan’s camera

Proscuitto, potato crisps, and aquavit – Courtesy of Loan’s camera

The house itself was an interesting mish mosh of stuff.

View from the dining room table

Ryan sitting at the dining room table, engrossed in Lonely Planet

Chilling in the living room before bed

Saturday was spent wandering all around Alesund. First stop was the Alesund Church. The person at the tourist info office said it would be open, but as is typical with our church experiences on this trip, it was closed. On to the Art Noveau Museum, which housed interesting exhibits on the various styles of architecture, the fire of 1904 and rebuilding of the city, and the impact of Japanese influence. In the corridor to the June Art Museum, Loan, Ryan, and I stopped in the kids’ activity center to make some of our own art. I know art is subjective, but the items in this museum were not what I would call art. The thing closest to art was a sculpture that looked like a bunch of breasts stuck together.

Alesund, built in the Art Nouveau style

Another closed church

We were all getting a little museumed out, but headed to the Aalesund (alternative spelling of Alesund) Museum anyway. The museum was 3 levels that took us through the history of the city. The most interesting parts were about WW2 (still not sure if the Enigma machine on exhibit was a real one) and the Uerad life boat that crossed the Atlantic in 5 months in 1904. There was a replica of the life boat that we could climb into. Tight quarters for a rocky trip on the Atlantic! Dramamine would have been a necessity on that trip.
     

The rest of the afternoon was spent climbing 418 steps up to Fjellstua for nice views of the city, followed by an evening kayak trip around the harbor. Dinner was late, like most of our dinners in Norway, since 10pm feels like about 6pm. Loan and I shared a few dishes, including whale and reindeer. Not bad, but neither make my favorites list.
     

Views from the top.
    

Interesting and slightly freaky carvings on the way down

Wondering if the REAL Amazing Race passed through here. I don’t watch the show, so I guess I’ll never know.
     

Cars we did not expect to find in Norway.
     

Kayaking around the bay before dinner.

Dinner in Alesund

After a string of early mornings, we were finally able to sleep in! We woke up to beautiful sunny weather and ate breakfast out on the hotel deck. The rest of the day was spent driving along winding roads with switchbacks and hairpin turns up to Alesund, with stops at the glacier museum, a few lakes, another fjord cruise, a walk out to a beautiful viewpoint, and lots of waterfalls. Throughout the driving so far, we have seen most ‘normal’ cars (ie. what you’d find in the U.S., including trucks and SUVs), not the typical small European cars.

Breakfast spread of local ingredients

View from the deck

Enjoying breakfast!
     

Little house with a garden and chickens next to the hotel

Woolly mammoths outside of the Glacier museum

View out the front of the glacier museum

Lake Hornindalsvatnet, the deepest lake in Norway and 13th deepest in the world.

Seven Sisters Waterfall

Adam and Ryan at a waterfall on the side of the road. Pretty rainbow

Other nice views.
          

I love these structures with greenery on top!
     

Moon’s out!

Another early morning . . . We woke up at 5am and left the hostel at 6 to drive up to Jostedal for a glacier hike. I previously mentioned that Norway was known for their tunnels, and we had driven through an 8km long tunnel. I quickly learned that was nothing! We drove through a 24.5km tunnel and multiple tunnels that had roundabouts inside of them!

Crossing a bridge into a tunnel

Roundabout inside the tunnel

The glacier hike took us on Nigardsbreen, one of the Jostedalbreen glacier tongues.  “Breen” is glacier in Norwegian.  Jostedal Glacier is the largest glacier in continental Europe.  The glacier hike was really cool! We were equipped with crampons and ice picks and fitted with harnesses. A large group was then hooked together with rope, so if one person went down, the rest followed. Ha ha, just kidding.

All ready to hike, with picks and crampons

Due to low water levels in the lake at the bottom of the glacier, we first had a one hour hike out to the glacier. Three hours were then spent on the glacier, followed by another one hour hike back. Unlike New Zealand, where the entrance to glaciers were roped off, people in Norway can just walk right up and onto the glacier.

Long hike out to the glacier

Loan is almost there

The hike was really cool (literally and figuratively). Walking over the deep crevices was the best part. The crampons dig really well into the ice. When we stopped for a break, I walked up a slope that was probably about a 60 degree angle. There was one person in our group who was very tentative crossing all the crevices, so it was very slow going at times. On the way back down, we picked up a person from another group who was also having some problems, which made it even slower going. We wouldn’t have minded so much, except it had been 4 hours without a bathroom at that point.

Be careful!

Hiking on the glacier . . .

Some very large crevasses . . .

View looking out from on the glacier

At the bottom of the glacier, there was an individual who had broken his ankle during the hike. Because it wasn’t a life threatening situation, I feel that it’s ok to say how fascinating it was watching the medivac helicopter come in, lower down a paramedic in a basket, fly back up, and then return again to pick the paramedic and patient.

Between the glacier hike and hotel, we stopped at Jostedal Kyrkje, where Oscar’s grandfather Lars Haugen is buried. According to Oscar, Lars used to carry mail across the Jostedalbreen glacier.

This is already getting to be a long post, but I can’t end it without writing about the great hotel we stayed at that night, the Fjaerland Fjordstove Hotel. This hotel was a small family owned establishment, almost more like a bed and breakfast, situated right on the fjord. The rooms were quaint, clean, and comfortable. There was a large sitting area on the first floor, with windows out to the fjord, filled with antiquey books, photo albums, and games, in all different languages. From the sitting area, there was a door out to a wrap-around deck looking out on the fjord. Also on the first floor was a beautiful dining room, where we enjoyed a delicious 3-course dinner made with local ingredients. The menu included Juniper smoked trout with beets and horseradish cream sauce, lamb with cauliflower and pumpkin purée with mint yogurt and salad with grapes, and meringue with lemon curd fresh cream and berries for dessert. We ate it all before we remembered to take pictures.  What a beautiful place to relax after some hard glacier hiking!

FJaerland Hotel

Local beer at dinner

We got up early to drive to Pulpit Rock (real name Preikestolen). I drove, Ryan slept. Because Ryan is not feeling great, I’ve been doing the majority of the driving. I enjoy driving, but not as much as I enjoy looking at everything we drive by, which is why Ryan typically does most of the driving. It’s hard to complain about driving an X3, it handles really nicely.

Pulpit Rock is steep cliff with a flat top, which makes it a huge tourist destination. The hike was 4km up and 4km back. It wasn’t too difficult, but definitely got a bit steep in a few spots. This trip is Kerwin’s first experience hiking, and he is doing an extraordinary job not only keeping up, but frequently beating the rest of us to the top. It was fascinating to us that there could be this huge cliff full of visitors and no fences. That would be unheard of in the US. There were some amazing views once there. Ryan and I both have Pulpit Rock pictures as our computer screen desktops now.

Just getting started . . . .
   

The mandatory pictures at the edge of the cliff . . .

Adam and Loan

Kerwin, Dan, and Adam

Ryan and Nicole

View from a small ledge above

Group photo. Can you see us?

Kerwin and I cautiously look over the edge

On top of the world . . .
One guy hiked to the top with his heavy duty drone and was flying it while we were up there. That would be some great video footage. On the way down, there was a zipline that ran across a ravine. I am never one to pass up a zipline, and it was crazy cheap (only $19, you would never find that in the US). Dan and I took the zipline across and met the others at the bottom. Dan, as I learned, is not a huge fan of heights. Not sure why exactly he decided to do the zipline, but pretty impressive.

The rest of the day was spent on the long drive (4 hours) to Loftus, on lots of narrow, curvy roads on the side of a mountain with no line down the middle. The locals all like to zoom around the curves in their fast cars. It was fun and exhausting driving. There were waterfalls and great scenery all along the way.

That evening we stayed at a hostel, where we had to rent sheets and towels, separately. I’ve stayed in a lot of hostels, only a small number of which required you to rent linens, and none where linens and towels were rented separately. We got in so late that there were no restaurants or grocery stores open for food, so we ate dinner at the gas station. Everyone except me got a hot dog, and I picked up some ramen noodles to make back at the hostel. Overall, the lodging was fine. Rooms with bunk beds (I got the top) and shared bathroom were very clean, and we met some nice Swedish girls traveling during their gap year (talk about making us feel old!).

Room at the hostel. I slept on top.

View out the window of our hostel

Tuesday morning was the start of our road trip. Kerwin, Dan, Ryan, and I took a cab to the car rental company to pick up our cars. Kerwin and Dan were helped first, and got the Golf Polo they had reserved. Ryan and I were helped next. The rental company was out of Polos, so got a free upgrade to an X3 instead. What a shame . We found our way back to the AirBnB with only a few wrong turns (signs in Bergen were slightly misleading). The Polo was too small to fit all of KLAD’s bags, so we put half of them in our X3.

We hit the road and drove about 15 min to Fantoft Stave Church. Stave is a style of architecture, after the English word ‘staff’, describing the columns that hold up the church. We visited a few of these types of churches in Norway. This particular church was a replica rebuilt after the original was burned in a fire.

After the church, we headed to Stavanger, our destination for the evening. The drive took us through 2 ferry crossings and a bunch of really long tunnels. The longest was around 8km. Many want down for the first half (at a 7 degree grade) and then back up for the second half. As I learned on the trip, Norway is known for their tunnel construction.

Once in Stavanger city proper, we got lost finding the AirBnB. This turned out to be a recurring theme throughout our driving experiences in Norway. We finally found it, moved the car 3 times because we couldn’t figure out from the street signs if we were legally parked, and unloaded our luggage. We headed across the street to the grocery store to pick up sandwich ingredients for the following day. Not obvious, was that there were actually two grocery stores across the street. We walked into the first one, split up and walked around. Something wasn’t right with this store, it looked familiar, but not quite ‘normal’. Turned out, we had walked into the Asian grocery store. No wonder we couldn’t find bread and deli meat! We headed next door to the typical grocery store, and purchased the necessary sandwich-making materials.

Loan found us a great restaurant for dinner called Matbaren. Of course, we got lost on the walk there.

Establishment we did not go to while in Stavanger

Back to the room for an early bed-time, cause the next morning was a very early start. Oh yeah, I should mention that, as is typical on vacation, Ryan was already sick. He caught a cold from Loan he thinks. At least we weren’t in a third world country, so no IV needed, just annoying sneezing, stuffiness, and congestion.

Also known as a train to a bus to a ferry to a train to a train. The ferry cruise through the fjords consisted of beautiful weather, nice views, tons of waterfalls, lots of colorful lupins. The scenery reminded us very much of New Zealand. Enjoy the pictures!

Here comes the first train

Views from the train.

Time to board the bus

View from the bus

The bus ride took us down a steep narrow mountain road with many switchbacks at 18% grade. It also went through Voss, the adventure capital of the Norway, where we caught a glimpse of someone parachuting.

Can you see the guy in the air?

How about now?

Adam and Loan waiting for the ferry

On to the ferry

Beautiful views from the ferry and enjoying the ride!  Lots of photos below courtesy of Loan’s camera.

Dan photobombs while Ryan is just wandering by

I get sleepy on the ferry

On to the Flamsbana!

Very odd stop at a waterfall where there was a performance with two woman singing/dancing on the rocks

Closer up picture of the woman at the falls

At some point during the performance, one performer ‘disappeared’ near the top of the falls, only to ‘reappear’ at the bottom of the falls.  I don’t remember who it was, but someone asked ‘How did she do that’?

The last train of the day.

Dinner was at a restaurant next to the fish market and was delicious! Ryan and I had seafood and fish soup. I followed it with salmon and scallop sashimi, both delicious. Ryan had wolffish, which looked really cool. Great meal all around!

Kerwin enjoyed the classic car gatherings in downtown Bergen.

Though we felt good when we arrived, it was pretty obvious we were a bit jet-lagged when everyone (even Kerwin) slept in late. Ryan and I woke up around 10:30am, made some breakfast in the room (after purchasing supplies at the 7-11 down the street the night before), and were ready just in time to make the noon walking tour. The walking tour was less walking than expected, but was still interesting. The guide took us through the Bryggen Museum, describing the many fires throughout the years that had burned down much of Bergen and viewing remnants from original buildings.

Similar to parts of New York, the parts of Bergen closest to the water are built on landfill. When a fire occurred, the rubble would be pushed into the water and new buildings would be built on top of that. She then walked us through the Schotstuene (old assembly hall) ending at the Hanseatic Museum.

Dried cod, at one time the principal export of Bergen — Looks delicious!

After the ‘walking’ tour, we did some more walking; to the train station to pick up tickets for the following day, past the lake, some art museums, around Johanneskirken.

Longhorn found in Bergen

Yoga in the middle of the square

I become part of the art

There was a slack line setup near the lake.  This is about as far as we all got before falling off.  Pictures courtesy of Loan.

View from Johanneskirken

Bryggen Quay from across the water. The 11 houses on the right are original and are all slightly tilted from settling.

Kirken means church in Norwegian, and we visited a few of them in Norway. We don’t quite understand why, but all the churches in Bergen were closed on Sunday afternoon.
Mariakirken, a big church in the center of town, had been closed down for renovations and had a special opening this evening for an organ recital. It was a new organ that had just been installed, and the builders of the organ were in attendance. There were a few presentations before the recital (all in Norwegian, best guess was thanking the people who donated $, thanking the people who built the organ, etc). The organ sounded great. But there isn’t really much to watch during an organ recital, since the organist plays from the 2nd floor back of the church. I’m pretty sure all of us fell asleep at some point during the recital.