Archives for May 2018

Friday, May 25–After some drama about trying to figure out how to pay to exit our parking garage in Trondheim, involving three phone calls with the EuroPark people, we set our course for Røros and headed southeast. It was a pleasant and uneventful drive.

A waterfall we encountered along the way.

We arrived in Røros in late afternoon. After getting settled in our hotel, we walked up the main street to get the lay of the land.

The town sits on a slope with the church toward the top of the hill.

Røros is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has 75 listed buildings in a fairly small town. It was an old copper mining town from the 1640’s, and is amazingly intact for a town filled with wood buildings. It sits at 2000 ft. above sea level, so it sees some harsh winter weather. (We were told it had snowed just a few weeks before. No wonder everyone was so excited about the warm weather!)

I think I first became interested in seeing Røros when I saw two paintings of the town in the National Gallery in Oslo when we visited 2 years ago. The paintings showed old, brightly painted wood buildings. One was called “A Street in Røros” (if I recall correctly), and the other was the same scene in winter. I did some research on what and where Røros was and have had a bit of a bee in my bonnet about seeing it ever since.

The young man who checked us out of our hotel in Trondheim had gotten quite excited when he learned we were headed for Røros. He lived there for a time. He told us there is a southern group of Sami people in the area. Had no idea of that. He also said that Røros is considered the best terroir for food in Norway (i.e., a unique and distinctive cuisine of a region). He told us to be sure to taste cheese and dairy products (we had been noticing references to Røros cream and Røros cheese for awhile) and reindeer products.

We went to a local guest house for dinner and ate in their bar. Reindeer steak and reindeer burgers were on the menu, but we opted for a charcuterie plate of reindeer sausage from 30 minutes away (think of a strongly flavored salami) and cured mountain ham from a town about an hour away. We ordered some potatoes from 15 minutes away to go with the meat and had locally brewed beer as well. Now I’d call that eating local.

On Saturday, we went up the main street again, only this time there were hundreds of people in the streets and shops. We stopped to look at Røros tweed and a local silversmith’s wares. We wandered through a courtyard and shop filled to the brim with ceramics. The doors and walls were covered in tile, even the door jambs and stair railings.

Then we went back up the hill to visit the church—Bergstadens Ziir.

The man who collected our entrance fee gave us a guide in English and wanted to know if we were from Britain. We explained that we were from the west coast of the United States. As has been typical, he expressed surprise. And, once again, he asked why we were here. He assumed we must have family in the area. This has happened to us so many times now we have lost count. Literally, “Why are you here?” is the question we have fielded over and over.

The church is unusual in that it was built by the mining company and has mining symbols on its steeple and mining references in the church as well. There were special boxes (think theater boxes) where the company directors sat. There were paintings of the directors hanging across the front of the church. Front and center, where in many churches you would see a crucifix, was a rather exalted-looking pulpit. The church has two galleries along each side, where the lesser beings in the company or town hierarchy would sit.

The organ and the royal box.

We went further up the hill and then walked to the river and the old copper mine.  It was active until 1977. There’s nothing very pretty about mining. Slag heaps and lots of scorched earth. But this is what this town was all about. When you’re walking through the shopping and residential areas with their brightly colored buildings, you don’t have much sense of this ragged area just up the hill.

Then you come back down into town, and all seems pretty and busy again.

We really enjoyed seeing this unique town. It may have shops and tourists on the weekends (and I understand it’s wildly popular in the snowy wintertime, featuring sleigh rides), but its winding streets and authentic houses give you a taste of a long past time. Just walking amongst all this palpable history is pretty special.

On Tuesday, May 22, we drove northwest, enjoying views of the pretty Gudbrandsdalen Valley.

Then our E6 highway went through an area where it was surrounded on both sides by the Dovrefjell National Park. By the time we came to the mountains, it was quite overcast. It was still pretty, but the gray skies rather washed out what was obviously a very scenic area. We made a quick stop at a roadside rest area where there was a large pillar with a picture of a musk ox. That seemed rather odd to us and wondered what the Norwegian words were trying to tell us. We later found out that musk ox do indeed inhabit this part of the world and are to be treated very warily. Who knew?

We spent Tuesday through Thursday nights in Trondheim, which gave us 2 full days to explore. It was a walking city, so we were lucky that the weather was still holding for us. We happily stowed the car in the city parking garage that was somewhat attached to our hotel. Over $30 per night. Not quite San Francisco city parking rates, but close enough. Still, the only other option was metered on-street parking, which would cost almost the same amount and be considerably less convenient. Jerry was pretty excited to know he wouldn’t have to drive for a couple days.

Trondheim was to be our furthest north point on this trip. At 63.4 degrees latitude, it was about 2-1/2 degrees shy of the Arctic Circle. We were still a month ahead of the solstice, but we were close enough in time and latitude to get almost the full effect of the midnight sun.

On our last night in Trondheim, sunset was at 10:46pm. That means the official time of the sun dropping below the horizon. But then we had a very long twilight. Any sunset color was occurring closer to 11:00 to 11:30pm, and twilight lingered until well after even our late bedtime. With all that light outside, we were having trouble convincing ourselves it was time to go to bed, and have found ourselves staying up longer than usual.

Combine that late sunset and twilight with the pre-dawn twilight and 3:43am official sunrise, and you have a day without actual darkness.  At no time that we peeked outside did we see anything other than what you might call a deep twilight. You would be hard pressed to call it dark.

It has been confusing to our 45-degree latitude selves. If we were to ever do this again, we would invest in some good-quality eye shades. It hasn’t been problematic, but we have several times thought we must have overslept. Mostly, I’d have to say we’ve adapted.  One young man told us that Norwegians love to cocoon (my word, not his) in winter. They hunker down and enjoy being cozy. But when the sun comes out, all they want to do is be outside. They typically only sleep 5 or so hours nightly during summer. That’s another way to adapt. We’ve opted for trying to learn to sleep when it’s light.

Our plan for Trondheim was a slower pace, a break in the driving routine, a chance to do some laundry, that sort of thing. We only knew of two primary sights: Nidaros Cathedral and a set of colorful and very old warehouses along the river.

Our hotel (not historic, believe it or not, but located in an historic neighborhood) was right on the Nidelva River, and we had a view of the warehouses on both sides of the river.

We continued to be lucky with weather. The sun popped out again late in the day Tuesday, which boded well for the next day. One of our restaurant servers told us he had lived in Trondheim for 25 years (I’m guessing that may be his entire life) and that he had never experienced a May like this one. According to one of our reception people at the hotel, May broke all records for most days of 20-degree (Celsius) temperatures and for highest temperature ever recorded in Norway in May. Service people kept telling it was never like what we were experiencing. It has been nice, but sure has rendered useless many of the layers we brought for the guidebook and internet predictions of cool and rainy May weather.

On Wednesday morning, we set off to see the Cathedral. It was about a  20- to 25-minute walk. Since it was located just before we reached the cathedral, we stopped at the old pedestrian bridge, Gamle Bybru, to get a close-up view of the warehouse district.

One’s first view of the cathedral causes a bit of an inhalation. It is massive. Looks like a regular church, but on steroids.  Its oldest section dates back to 1320, and it is the largest construction from the Middle Ages in Norway.  Further claims to fame are that it is the site for coronations of Norwegian royalty and that it is the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world. Though originally Catholic, at the time of the Reformation it became the seat of the Lutheran bishop of Trondheim, in what is called the Church of Norway.

Also, the cathedral has long been a pilgrimage site. There are marked pilgrimage paths through Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and there is a pilgrim welcoming service every afternoon.

All gargoyles are somewhat amusing to view, but I thought this one was particularly funny. (Perhaps not the reaction the architect intended.) I’ve felt like this a few times in my life, haven’t you?

No photographs are allowed in the cathedral. Hard to understand, because it is massive and it is made of stone. I can’t see what damage might occur. I understand no flash, but no photography was pretty frustrating. We ran into that at Westminster Abbey. But, there, it is filled with thousands of tourists and photography would slow down the movement of the lines and crowds. At Nidaros, other than a visiting class of school children, there were only about six  of us in the huge space.

Chartres was the model for the stained glass at Nidaros, and I have to say this was some of the most beautiful stained glass we’ve seen. I assumed their plan was to force you to buy a book about the cathedral. I told Jerry I might just have to buy a booklet or something about the stained glass. They offered nothing of the sort. A picture of the beautiful rose window was all that was available in either guidebooks or postcards. Definitely an opportunity missed on their part.

We stopped next door to see the Norway crown jewels, a small but  interesting exhibit.

Another site mentioned as a must see in Trondheim was its large main square, Torget, where two main boulevards meet. So we headed there next. Oops! It is one gigantic construction site. I mean from one end to the other. Construction fencing, equipment, and hard-at-work crews. The only bit of the square that could be seen was the statue at its center.

Instead, we wandered down a pedestrian shopping street and a couple of the other streets. It was an attractive city center. Lots of old buildings, none of them very tall. There were also quite a few trees, lots of people, a street musician here and there.

A view across the boat harbor to Trondheim’s Central Station.

In the evening, we made our way to a seafood restaurant in one of the old river warehouses on the west side of the river, near the cathedral. Nice seafaring atmosphere and very good seafood. We walked over the Gamle Bybru to the east side of the river. There was pretty light on the warehouses.

We walked back to our hotel on the eastern side of the Nidelva, through the Bakklandet neighborhood. All we had so far seen of the Bakklandet was right around our hotel, which was pretty busy and commercial. What we discovered on our walk “home” was a wonderful old residential district. Cobblestone streets and everything on a nice small scale. Quite a delightful surprise.

On Thursday, we headed into the city center again—across the Bakke Bru, the bridge right next to our hotel. We visited the Var Frue Kirke, which we had passed a couple of times.

Unusual pulpit.

Not far away was our goal: a visit to the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimusem. Now there’s a mouthful! It is the arts and crafts museum and was touted as having a fine collection of furniture, silver, and textiles, including pieces by the tapestry artist, Hannah Ryggen, whose name we had bumped into several times.

It turned out that the museum opens late on Thursday, so we had to cool our heels awhile. We visited a particularly charming jewelry store that was nearby and that was doing a land office business with others in our same predicament. (They must love Thursdays!) While this could have been a dangerous detour, we escaped with all our kroner still in our pockets.

We still had a little time to wait when we returned to the museum. There was another couple also waiting, and I heard them speak English. So with my finely trained cruising instincts still on tap, I asked them where they were visiting from. They happened to be from Vancouver, B.C. They were on a Holland America cruise. We ended up in a conversation that went beyond the opening of the museum. They had lived for 11 years on their sailboat and traveled the west coast US, Mexico, and Central America. They went through the Panama Canal, and summered in Maine and wintered in Charleston.  We also talked cruising. It was fun to meet them.

I had no previous sense of Trondheim being a cruise port. It is on a wide fjord, but is a ways inland. This was one of the very, very few times in Sweden or Norway that we had bumped into Americans, and we did see them all over town that day. Another surprise.

A few of the textiles in the museum collection. First, a piece by Hannah Ryggen, Etiopia (1935).

And two others I thought were particularly striking. The first looked completely different when you viewed it from the left rather than the right. From the right, there was no color other than neutral tones. Very interesting piece, Frise (2014), by May Bente Aronsen. The second piece below was  Prima vera, Villa Giulia (1988), by Tove Pedersen. Beautiful color and intensity. All three of these pieces were quite large.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For our final Trondheim evening, we walked across Bakke Bru and to a different section of the city. Our restaurant was in a very old house. Once again, we had a nice dinner and then enjoyed a stroll along the river and back to our hotel.

We ended up really enjoying Trondheim. It has a very pleasing feel to it. Buildings not too tall. Lots of wooden structures. Bustling and thriving. Completely walkable though they have a lot of bicycles and a very modern and busy bus system too.

Trondheim was definitely a good stop on our journey. On Friday, we would turn our car south again. The trip was now going into its final week or so, which is a point at which everything starts to feel different.

After our visit to Lindesnes on Friday afternoon, we drove 2 hours north and east along Norway’s southeastern coast. It is known as the Sorlandet and is a popular summer vacation area.

We spent the night in Grimstad, which is one of Sorlandet’s “white towns.”

These white-painted towns dot the coastline, strikingly pretty against the deep blue of the Skagerrak Sea.

On Saturday, May 19, we drove north along the coast. The roads were tiny, and the traffic on this Saturday of a holiday weekend was bracing. Once again, we were in white-hair-inducing territory.

We got a sense of how beautiful this rocky coastline is. It would be a lovely area for a summer cottage (or a vacation rental). It must be a boater’s paradise.

There were few opportunities to pull over or stop. The one place we planned to stop—Risor—was completely overrun with holidaying families. People were four deep on sidewalks. Everyone seemed to have an ice cream cone in hand, and the nearest parking was about a half mile out of town. Deciding it was unlikely we were going to enjoy our exploration in these circumstances, we opted to head further north—on a highway—to our planned stop for the next 2 days.

We turned off the highway in Tonsberg and drove south to Notteroy Island and onto Tjome Island. These are the two main islands of an archipelago of hundreds of islands.

We were staying at Engø Gård, considered to be one of the top three (or five, depending on who you’re talking to) inns in Norway. This was our planned indulgence on this trip celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary. It is in a lovely setting, an old estate with converted buildings providing lodging, dining, swimming, and meeting facilities. I had booked one of the two rooms in Vinhuset, the old wine storage building. (How could I not?)

We thankfully settled into this quiet haven and left those crazy roads behind—that is, after traversing several more to get to the inn!

Vinhuset, where we had our room. Even here, we had stairs!

The building on the right was Reception.

The old barn, now the breakfast room, restaurant, and reception hall. This sloped entrance to the upper level is very typical of Norwegian barns.

The inlet on which Engø Gård was located.

On Sunday, we drove further south on Tjome to Verdens Ende (World’s End), the southernmost point in the archipelago. We clearly weren’t the only ones thinking this would be a great place to be on a sunny day. We found a parking place, but had to stand in a relatively long line to get our parking ticket.

We walked out onto the rocks to see the views. Almost as soon as we arrived, a runner came in to much applause. There were people sitting here and there awaiting runners. That helped to explain part of the crowd.

We went ahead and walked further out on the rocks, enjoying the incredible views. This is where the Skagerrak Sea meets the entrance to the Oslofjord. Beautiful place on a beautiful day. After wandering around and taking some pictures, we found some rocks to sit on and soak up more of the sea air.

The symbol of Verdens Ende is a vippefyr, a form of lighthouse that preceded modern forms. This is a replica of one that was located here. A fire would be built in the hanging basket and could be pivoted on the pole.

No other runners came in while we were there. That seemed a bit odd for a race. I noticed a man who seemed to be involved in the race and who stopped to talk to some of the friends and family who were sprinkled about. As we left, I asked him if he could tell us about the race. It turned out he was the race organizer. The race was an ultra marathon of 100km. It had started Saturday noon in Oslo. Wow! I asked the man if he had run this race, and he said no. But I noticed he was wearing a race t-shirt and got him to talk briefly about that race, which he had run in 2014: an ultra marathon around Mt. Blanc! Double Wow!

As we walked back toward the parking area, several more runners came in. We could hear the crowd welcoming them in.

In the parking area, cars were lined up in hopes of getting a parking place. A popular place.

We headed back to our idyll in Engø Gård. We had a lovely dinner and enjoyed the luxury of a fairly quiet day, sunshine, pink skies at sunset. The next day we’d be leaving this area behind.

Even without the indulgence of Engø Gård, the archipelago would be a wonderful place to spend more time.

On Friday, May 18, we drove up the southern switchbacks away from Dalen. Done with those, hopefully.

At the top of the hill (and I use the word “hill” warily; it wasn’t exactly a mountain, but hill seems rather pallid in comparison to this trek with a 12% grade), we turned west rather than to the east as we had on our canal exploration. Very quickly, we were in snow-covered mountains. Certainly we had seen some snowy mountains on the horizon as we approached Dalen. And, in fact, we had driven in patchy snow on both hilltop areas above the valley. None on the road, but plenty on the ground. Fairly amazing considering the temps had been in the mid-70’s to low 80’s for a week.

We were now in mountain territory. We passed a ski area. The trees were short and rugged looking.

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We saw lakes that still had a slushy coat of ice in spots. We stopped at one lake that had pretty reflections on it.

We came around a bend and saw the most spectacular waterfall. No signs, only a small place to pull off before you could see the falls. We turned around and went back to watch this beauty for a bit.

We came down out of the mountains to the Setesdal Valley. It’s a relatively narrow, farming valley with 3000-foot cliffs or hills on either side. It was a pretty drive with not much to tempt us to stop.

Except maybe more of those beautiful reflections.

And except for this pretty waterfall. At least this one got a well-deserved road sign telling us it was coming up. Reiarsfossen was its name. 210 meters high. Picture doesn’t begin to do it justice.

As we had planned, we took a major detour this day so that we could visit Lindesnes. It probably cost us at least 3 hours of driving and sightseeing time (and maybe more). But this was one of the most important stops on our trip. Lindesnes is a lighthouse at the very southernmost tip of Norway at 58 degrees latitude.

Two years ago, on our Into the Midnight Sun cruise on Norway’s west coast, we had visited Nordkapp, the northernmost point on mainland Norway at 71 degrees latitude, well north of the Arctic Circle. I thought visiting Lindesnes would be a perfect bookend to our Nordkapp stop. And, besides, I love lighthouses.

We got there just after 4:00pm and were afraid it would be closed. Fortunately, it was open until 5:00pm, so we bought our tickets and headed out toward the light. We had to climb a (to me) daunting hill on uneven old stones to get a view of the light and the sea. My knees took a deep breath. There was no way we were going to drive all this way and then have me say “no can do.” So up we went.

I wasn’t fast, and I’m sure it wasn’t pretty, but I made it up that hill and the one beyond it without stopping once. Where there is a will, there is a way!

And here is what we got to see. This is where the North Sea and the Skagerrak Sea meet, sometimes with great vigor. It was lovely and calm while we were there and so, so beautiful.

There was evidence of German World War II bunkers and gun emplacements.

We came back down off the rock and walked away very satisfied. It is hard to explain, but both of us felt it was a good and right pilgrimage.

You can see, we’re not the only ones noting the Lindesnes-Nordkapp link. We knew we weren’t the only people to think of it, but this sign proves it. Shucks, guess we’re not the vanguards we’d like to think we are.