Norway

 (Oslo | Preikestolen | Voss & Folgefonna Glacier | Bergen | Hardangervidda National Park)
(Click on any picture to get a larger version of that image.)

Oslo
The Viking Ships Museum on the Bygdøy Peninsula held three ships buried inside funeral mounds and later unearthed by archaeologists. (If Viking ships weren't enough, you could visit two other ship-related museums just down the street.)
Above the city is the Holmenkollen ski resort — whose main attraction is a ski jump that doubles during the summer as a scenic overlook. At the base is a ski museum.
The royal palace. Parliament. (Note the total lack of paranoid security barriers — or even visible guards — around both Parliament and the royal palace.)
Another can't-miss Oslo attraction was the Gustav Vigeland Sculpture Park; Vigeland worked on the park for 19 years until his death in 1943. The sculpture is all very well done, but I found it ... disturbing.
After a couple of days in Oslo, the Ford Ka and I set out for the fjords, taking the first of what would be many ferry rides.

My first "real" fjord, the Lysefjord.

Preikestolen

My first all-natural destination was Preikestolen ("Pulpit Rock"), a 600-meter cliff overlooking the Lysefjord. My hostel (left) was as close as you could get (and in a beautiful location all its own), but it was still a couple hours' hike the next morning to get to the rock itself.
Those Norwegians really build trail to last. Over the ridgeline. Looking down the Lysefjord. Prikestolen itself. There were about ten people on the rock when I got there; by the time I left, there were closer to fifty.

Voss and Folgefonna Glacier

After Prikestolen, I headed north to Voss, a convenient base for the next day's trip to the summer ski area on Folgefonna Glacier
The ski area wasn't much by Lake Tahoe standards (one big, wide, run, up and down), but how many chances do you get to say that you've been skiing in the middle of summer — on a glacier?
Late that afternoon, I left Folgefonna and headed northwest to Bergen.

Bergen

After skiing, I drove to Bergen ("The Gateway to the Fjords"), a fun city that reminded me very much of Seattle. That weekend happened to be "Nordsteam 2000", so there were far more boats in the harbor than usual.
Just like San Francisco's row of victorian houses, the Brygge is Bergen's picture-postcard landmark, a remnant of the days when the merchants of the Hanseatic League maintained their trading posts and warehouses in the city.
Near the Brygge was the Fløibanen, a funicular railway you could ride to get a spectacular view of the city.
Just outside of Bergen, I saw my first (and only) stave church, a form of architecture unique to Norway. Unfortunately, though, this was a replica of the original 1880s building, built after the original church burnt down in a 1992 fire.

Hardangervidda National Park
After Bergen, the next day I set out to gradually make my way back to Oslo. The first scenic attraction I reached was the Hardangervidda National Park.
Most of the park was very flat and alien-looking; coming across this spectacular waterfall was a total surprise.

This page maintained by Kevin Hogan <khogan@Adobe.COM>.
If you enjoyed this, perhaps you might like to see pictures of my other European travels.

Last updated on March 24, 2001