Tuesday we explored some art museums in Bergen as well as wandered the twisty cobblestone roads in the older part of town. The art museum here is split between 4-5 buildings, each with quite a small display and entirely focused on Norwegian artists. The Munch collection was pretty large and it was nice how they’d divided the work into three sections showing the different phases of his evolution as an artist (first, emulating Renoir, Gauguin and other prominent artists of his time; second, very moody pictures where he attempted to show emotions through color and style; third, more vibrant and colorful paintings. I didn’t get any photos of phase 1 but here are two from each of the other phases.
There is also a lot of street art in the Skostredet part of the city. Most of it is not to as high a quality as the street art in Oslo – also, the bad graffiti artists didn’t seem to have respect for the nicer works so some decent looking things were marred by other graffiti. I read that before Banksy was famous he did a few works in public areas in Oslo and the city painted over them, not realizing that he’d later be a celebrated artist. Anyway, the picture with the lady holding a cod (below left) was particularly good.
Even though the forecast had said intermittent rain, we instead got intermittent sunlight and the old harbor area was prettier today than yesterday. We climbed up in the hills awhile and had nice views over the bay.
Here is a small sampling of the old houses we saw while wandering the steep and narrow back alleys above the old town.
In the late afternoon, Megan enjoyed a nice hot chocolate and we lounged a while in a nice lobby at the art museum. On Wednesday we flew back home and I’m posting this from the airport in Los Angeles as we wait for our final connection to Santa Barbara. It was a great trip and we feel like we saw a lot of different aspects of Norway, but we will be happy to be back home and not living out of the suitcase again!
The ferry ride through the Nærøfjord from Flåm to Gudvangen was two hours long. It was drizzling and very windy and chilly on the deck. However the interior of the boat was warm and comfortable. The ferry that we took is called Future of the Fjords and it is 100% electric so it was extremely quiet. The picture at left is taken from our ferry of another ferry of the same style — very modern and with large windows. You can also walk up the ramp to the top. Because of the wind, we just would go out every once and a while to take some pictures and then keep warm inside the rest of the time.
Today we dropped off the rental car and took a train headed (ultimately) towards Bergen. But not before Megan enjoyed another “Kanelsnurr” (cinnamon snail) for breakfast. I read an article in a travel magazine a few weeks ago that suggested family vacations can be more fun if every member of the family has a personal quest that they can fit into multiple days of the journey. After trying a Kanelsnurr early in the trip, Megan decided that her quest would be to taste test as many as possible in order to determine the best Kanelsnurr bakery (not that we have agreed to buy her every Kanelsnurr that she sees, so her taste testing has a some limits!). This is Kanelsnurr number 5 for the trip from the well-reviewed Åpenti Bakeri which was near Ekebergparken. She says it ranks among the best, but one from downtown Oslo was better.
We took the train from Oslo which is at sea level. It took us all the way to 1237 meters before the descent to Myrdal which is at 866 meters. We got off at Myrdal and transferred to the Flåmsbana railway, the steepest standard gauge railway in Northern Europe! It is a 20km ride and goes from 866 meters back down to sea level. The views from the train were amazing, basically one waterfall after another. At one waterfall they let us get off and take pictures.
As we enjoyed the photo op, suddenly we could hear singing (a recording that sounded a bit like Enya). Then a woman in red popped up from behind a structure near the waterfall and started doing a sort of dance — perhaps more like elaborate gestures than an actual dance. Before we’d gotten off the train the conductor had warned of the legends of the mystical huldra, women with cow’s tails whose seductive beauty can lure men away. Some legends say the huldra live in the mountains here and perhaps that is who the mystical dancer was. Luckily Leon was not lured away!
A bit further up the path we came upon another favorite. Megan called it “two soft-serve ice cream cones with legs”. Next we were trying to find a work that I’d heard about that was made in honor of the 150th anniversary of Edvard Munch’s birth. It is a platform that overlooks the backdrop of “The Scream” (called Skrik in Norwegian) and she filmed more than 200 Norwegians screaming there to make a performance art movie. Now it is still open for regular people to go there and scream or to just look at the view. When we first tried to find the artwork, Leon used Google maps which brought us to a bridge outside the park where there is a commemorative plaque about The Scream. So first we screamed there on the bridge. Then I made us go find the artwork. Megan and I screamed on the art installation as well, but I guess Leon was burned out on screaming!
It was cooler in Oslo today than it was last week, in the 70s instead of the 90s, and it is supposed to be like that tomorrow. That’s a real relief! As we walked back to the train station we saw one last large public art piece, depicting scuba divers in the air. For dinner tonight we are making a halibut that we found at a local fish market near our home exchange house.
Today we didn’t do much other than drive back to Oslo, so it seems a good time for a post about some miscellaneous things related to Norway but not unrelated to specific destinations. First off in this category – trolls! Once we left Oslo, the number of troll statues increased significantly, reaching a peak of course at Trollstigen. We haven’t stopped for nearly all of them so consider this just a delightful sampling of what has really been out there. Nearly all have big noses, but other than that, there is a lot of variety. Some are tall and skinny, some are short and squat, some are mean-looking and some seem friendly.
We reached the waterfall after 40 minutes and 230m of altitude gain (described as “it takes 100 days to get there” by an exhausted young boy coming down). Luckily they have chains to hold along the edge since in order to get behind the waterfall you need to lean over to avoid hitting your head while climbing down wet slanty rocks. The volume of water coming down is large and noisy — pretty fun to be right behind it! It was also surprisingly dry. In fact, it drizzled the entire walk up to the waterfall so while we were in the cave behind the waterfall we were dryer than the rest of the walk.
We felt pretty good about avoiding the cruise ship crowds while in Geiranger. At lunch we’d made reservations so we enjoyed a harbor side table on the deck which felt quite secluded under the circumstances, and although the waterfall hike had a lot more people than other hikes we’ve done, we figure that the rain kept some of them indoors. But then as we headed back towards our rental, we encountered more of the crowds. Our car was stuck at one hairpin turn for about 5-10 minutes as tour buses and cars contended for the very limited parking and driving space at the Ørnesvingen (Eagles Bend) lookout. We were stuck so long that Megan and I had time to get out of the car, go check out the viewpoint, take some photos and come back. Eventually though the bus causing the hold-up managed to maneuver around the hairpin and Leon was able to start the car up again and make his way to a parking spot so he could see the view as well.
Balents Trip Blog 