David and Enid's Travels

Lutheran church in Riga

We were off the boat right at 8:30, among the first passengers to disembark.  As we walked south from the ship we caught up to the mother and daughter from Colorado with whom we ate supper last night.  They too had cut the chapter on Riga from Rick Steve’s book, and were using it to find their way around the town. 

We wanted to get some money, and thought that we would need Lat’s; however the mother and her daughter told us that they had changed to Euros in January.  We didn’t know that, and so hadn’t brought any Euros with us.  We found an ATM, but when we tried to break a €20 note at a convenience store by buying a package of gum, the clerk wouldn’t do it (we did find a store later in the day to do so).

Narrow streets of Riga

Old town Riga is very interesting.  Since we were in town early there weren’t yet too many others walking the street, but that soon changed and we saw many tour groups, speaking many languages throughout the day.  We saw many old and very nicely restored buildings.  Some of the streets are the narrowest we’ve seen so far.  Other streets are very wide and modern, and have heavy traffic.

The streets of old - town Riga

There are many churches in Riga.  We were in an Anglican, a Lutheran and a couple of Roman Catholic churches before lunch.  Each of them was in a different state of repair.  Since this was before we’d managed to get any Euro’s in change, we gave American dollars in change. 

We also stopped in the Art museum.  We did not go on a tour, but did go into the free lobby which has a lovely tile floor.

It was a bit rainy in the early morning, but later it cleared by about noon.  We were looking for a Latvian ethnic food restaurant.  The first one we went in to had no room, as it was fully reserved for a tour group.  Another one across the square wasn’t yet open.  Its sign said it opened at 12 noon, and it did open just shortly after that.  We were the first guests in; they only let in three other parties, as they were expecting a tour group of 40.  We had a very nice lunch — a bread bowl of sauerkraut and pork soup and a pork sasuage and spiced cooked cabbage which Enid and I shared.

After lunch we went to a small museum, Mentzendorffs House, whis is a restored 17th century aristocrat’s house.  It has very nice wooden floors, and to protect them you are asked to put slippers over your shoes.

Russian Orthodox Church

Next we walked to the Russian Orthodox church.  It has been beautifully restored.  The inside of the church is absolutely magnificent, but does not allow you to take photographs.   They also had a sign asking women to cover their heads.  Enid did, with her rain coat hood, but I saw several women that didn’t do this, even though they were wearing scarves and could have done so.  The altar area of the church was magnificent with large icons, and covered with gilt.

Art Nouveau building

Our final destination in the city was the art nouveau area.  There are a couple of blocks of the city where they have restored some beautiful buildings (there are many art nouveau buildings in the city, but many of them are not repaired fully). 

Art Nouveau decoration on building

After leaving the art nouveau area we walked back a park.  There seems to be green space throughout the center of the city, along the canal.  It was now a beautiful afternoon, and people were out rowing in small boats on the canal.  The park also has free wi-fi (after you watch a 15 second ad in Russian or Latvian) so we checked our email, and I downloaded the map of Visby for tomorrow.

It started to rain again just as we approached the cruise ship.  It was warm enough that we’d put away our rain jackets, so we got rather wet before we got re-embarked on the ship.

View across the ocean this morning

Today was a scheduled day to travel at sea.  However, it started much later than planned.  We were to weigh anchor in Warnemunde at about 9 pm, but shortly after that the captain came on the pa system and announced that we would not leave until 1 am.  It was extremely windy, and the port authorities did not want the ship to leave.  Tonight at supper one of our table partners had been in the British navy, and suggested that this ship is so tall that it would have been too hard to control in the wind.  We did eventually set sail at about 3:45 this morning, but I went back to sleep afterwards, as it seemed to be a very smooth departure.

Legend of the Seas pool

After breakfast today we sat on the upper deck by the pool and read.  It was a much nicer day than yesterday, and warm where we sat behind the windows in the sun.  After lunch we walked around the jogging track, but only did a mile.  I’m not sure that will burn off all the extra calories that I have been taking in with the rich meals!

In mid afternoon we went to a talk about St. Petersburg, a sales pitch for the cruise tours, but interesting nevertheless as it filled in a bit of information about Russian history.

Supper tonight was supposed to be formal night.  However, we have no formal attire, as we’re travelling pretty light having to haul our suitcases around the cobblestone streets of Europe.  I did have on a reasonably clean pair of pants and shirt though!  We sat at a table of eight tonight.  We’ve been by ourselves before, but tonight the side we usually sit on seemed to be almost empty.  The people we sat with were interesting though, another Canadian couple from Ottawa, the rest from the US.  We had a good conversation about many topics, ranging from the Falklands war to marijauna in Colorado.

The Rose Garden

We docked in Warnemunde just before 7.  I woke up about 6, and walked up to the top of the ship where I had a cup of coffee, and watched the process of docking the ship.

After breakfast we took the train into Rostock.  The station is just across from the ship, maybe 200 m away.  We got an all day ticket for €4.70 each.  Once again, no one ever checked that you actually have a ticket once on the train. 

This was formerly East Germany, and many of the apartment buildings along the railway were typical period construction, square blocky concrete buildings.  There is also a pipeline all along the tracks, I assume a water line, and it is thoroughly decorated with grafitti the whole way, though I doubt that is particularly an indication of anything East German.

The train ticket was also good for the tram into the center of town, so it was a good deal.  However, we had trouble finding the tram.  We have Rick Steves’ book “Northern European Cruise Ports” and it has been an excellent guide to finding our way in to the cities.  If you read it, and follow the directions when he says to go down to track A, you will find the tram.  However, we went up to the street expecting to find a streetcar, and that was the wrong way to go.

The Steintor, "Stone Gate"

Our first stop was at the Steintor, the stone gate to the old walled city.  Just to the left of this is the rosegarden, and although it was starting to rain, we spent the next half hour looking at the flowers.  Along the edges of the garden were trees with a very fragrant white flower that we do not recognise.  They are common, as we saw them in other places along the railway tracks.

Rose in the rose garden

Boat in St. Petris Church

From here we walked towards the town center and town square, where farmer merchants were setting up booths to sell food and vegetables.  We went on to St. Mary’s Church which was just opening.  It is a very large church.  During the East German period churches were neglected, but now they are doing restoration work.  Since Rostock was heavily bombed in 1942 all the stained glass is gone. The building was not repaired until the 1990’s.  Most of the windows were either bricked up, or had clear glass.  Hanging from the ceiling at one point was a model of a sailing ship.  I thought it was odd, but we saw many more of these model ships in the other churches we went into today.  We also went to St. Peter’s church which was open, and has a very tall steeple-tower, though it is of new construction since the original was bombed.  St Nikolai’s church isn’t open, and the top part of it was converted into apartments, again during the communist era.

By about 11 am we were hoping to find a restroom.  We found them, they are the automated self cleaning toilets, and they cost € .60.  Unfortunately at this point we had no euros, so had to find an atm.  We went in to one bank and it’s ATM’s seemed only to work with that bank’s cards.  We walked around more in the rain until we found another, got some bills, and then were able to get them changed in one of the stores.

An incident happened while we were looking for a bank.  It could have been very serious, though not for us.  An elderly man, we think at least 75,  came up behind us, speaking German, trying to catch our attention.  Just as he caught up to us he fell, flat on his face.  He had stumbled, catching his toe on the curb.  It looked very, very serious as he was sprawled flat out, face down, and not getting up very quickly.  He switched into English when Enid said she spoke no German.  We were concerned that he was hurt, but he said he was ok, and then told us about the clock in the church.  We believe that he must have overheard us wondering about directions (we had mentioned the tourist information office) and he was trying to help us find our way. 

By about noon we’d reached the Kropelin Gate, on the west side of the city wall.  It is no longer connected to the wall of the city, most of which was demolished post war.  However there is still a part of the wall standing, so we walked along it for a way before heading back to the market square for lunch.  We bought a bratwurst on a bun — the sausage was twice as long as the bun was — and ate it out in the square, since it had stopped raining.  After that we walked around some more looking for a bakery we’d seen earlier with nice looking sweetbuns.  We found it, or one that was similar, and had a couple of sweet breads.  Our total cost for lunch was only about 8 euros.

Street in Warnemunde

We took the tram back to the train station, and got the train back to Warnemunde.  We walked around here for a while as well.  Enid was happy as she found a store selling Meissen china. It has very narrow streets with restored buildings.  I’m sure it’s main function is to entertain cruise ship passengers, as there were many of them in the streets today.  Overall it was a cool, rainy day, but we made out better than most of the cruisers, as we have our gore-tex rain coats and rain pants.

Enid in front of "Legend of the Seas"

Statue of Hans Christian Anderson

We only had this one day to tour around Copenhagen, so we did as much as we could on a self-guided walking tour of the downtown area.

We started by walking by Tivoli Gardens, the amusement park, and the Carlsberg Glyptotek.  After passing the statue of Hans Christian Andersen weW walked along the Stroget stoppng in at a couple of old churches.

Vor Frue Kirche

There are a lot of very large cathedral-like churches in the central part of Copenhagen.  The first was Vor Frue Kirche, then we stopped at Sankt Peders church, and then Holy Spirit church.

Nyhavn

We next walked along the canal at Nyhavn, a lot of which is under construction.  From here we went to Amalienborg Palace.  We stopped at the gardens, but decided we should go in to see the grounds.  They are very large surrounding a large open central square.  To the west side is another huge domed church, Frederiks Kirke.  Not so old as some we saw today, built around the end of the 19th century, but it has a beautiful dome and spectacular interior.  I guess that is to be expected from a church built just off the royal palace.

Dome of Fredericks Kirke

Fountain in Amalienborg Gardens

We ate our lunch in the garden.  By this time most of the tour groups seemed to have moved on, so it was very peaceful.  Since we only had a couple more hours until we had to be on the tour boat, we walked quickly back to our hotel and took our luggage out of storage.

We got conflicting messages from the hotel clerk last night (he was right) and this afternoon about where to catch number 26 bus to Frihavn, the cruise ship port.  We couldn’t really see any sign of a bus stop where we were told to look for it though, so we walked in to the tourist information building across the street.  There the clerk very gruffly told me where the bus would stop.

We waited and when the first number 26 bus came the driver told me that it was not the right bus.  We needed to wait for the next one.  We did that, but unfortunately this driver seemed to speak no English.  We did get the word “ship”  from him, so thought we were on the right bus.  At first the bus was going in the opposite direction to what we wanted (I could tell this from the GPS), but he soon made a U-turn in the middle of the street.  A few stops later two other English speaking people got on, and they also asked if the bus was going to the cruise terminal.  I spoke to them, and they said that it was the correct bus, and that we would just ride it to the end of the line.

A bit later another couple got on, and they too were from the boat.  Both they and the other couple had been on the boat around Norway, and so they knew where the stop was.  It was a good thing they were on the bus, as I do not know how we would have known where the bus would stop otherwise.

After going through the check-in process, which went very quickly and smoothly, we got in to our cabin.  It is a very nice room, right at the bow of the ship with a large window overlooking the ocean, and no obstructions at all.  We spent the rest of the afternoon finding our way around the ship, going to muster drill, and made reservations for supper for the rest of the week.

It was a fairly relaxed day as we slept well on the boat last night, got up and had breakfast, then cleaned out our cabin by 10 am.  After that we sat and watched the shoreline go by.

It was a bit of a cloudy day, though it didn’t rain.  Along the way down the rocky coast of Norway are many small towns and villages.  The houses are built very close to the water, and almost every one has a boat house.  There is not much sign of industry, though I saw at least one fish farm, and as you get closer to Bergen there are more and more industrial structures, including what looked like at least one oil tanker terminal.

Since lunch was 320 kroner apiece we ate our sandwiches instead, and had pizza in the airport in Bergen instead for only 108 kroner for us both.  Quite a difference in price!

Our luggage was amongst the first off the boat, and we got on the first bus to the airport.  We had a ticket, though they never checked, so we aren’t sure if they just counted bodies, or assume that old tourists are honest.

There isn’t much room to wait in the international side at the Bergen airport.  We did get a seat in the restaurant area where we waited until they opened the waiting area.  However it wouldn’t have had more than about 20 seats in it.

We caught the train at Copenhagen airport.  We weren’t quite sure where to get off — at first they only announced the stations in Danish only, but when we got to the main station it was obvious, and they announced it in many languages.  We sat across from a Swedish family that were on their way to Florida.  As there was a rail strike in Sweden they had to fly to Copenhagen to catch their plane, so had to stay overnight in a hotel.

The Cabinn City hotel is interesting — cheap though for central city accomodations — as the room has a built in single bed, a mattress under the bed on the floor that pulls out, and a third bunk bed up high.  It was very hot up there.  Originally we didn’t see the matttess on the floor, so were planning to take the mattress off the bunk as it would be far too hot to sleep up there  However it’s now cooling off some as we have the window open.

We are not far from Tivoli amusment park.  There is a very tall ride that we can see out the window.  It looks like a crane, but there is an amusment ride that swings around it and rises to the top.  It is very high, as it is a long ways above us and we are on the fifth floor.  It would not be a fun ride if you were afraid of heights.

Leaving Trondheim

As soon as I had showered this morning I went over to the grocery store.  Since it had been closed last night when we came back from supper, we’d been unable to get the bread and cheese we wanted for today and tomorrow’s lunch.  Fortunately the store opened before 8 am, so I was able to get what we wanted.

After breakfast and making our sandwiches for lunch we headed out towards the dock.  We had no idea where the Hurtigrute terminal actually is, and there aren’t a lot of signs.  We asked one couple, and they gave us the general direction to go, but when we came to the dock, we still couldn’t see exactly where the boat was.  There was a cruise ship at a different dock, so we headed in that direction and the security guard told us how to get to the boat.  Then he changed his mind and gave us a shortcut by opening an electronic gate that he controlled. 

Old Nazi fortress at the mouth of the Trondheim harbor

After about another 400 m we could see the boats, since there were two ferries.  We headed towards where we thought the gate was, but after a truck went through we realized it wasn’t the right way.  Eventually we got to the correct gangplank, though we realized later that we approached it from the wrong way as it was all closed off by a heavy iron fence that we had to squeeze by.  But we did make it to the ferry on time!

Lighthouse in the fjord

Kristiansund

It was a pretty nice day to travel on the water.  The sun shone for much of the day, and though it was windy and cool we went on deck several times to view the fjord scenery and to take a lot of pictures.  In the afternoon we stopped at the city of Krstiansund for half an hour.  Some of the people got off the boat and onto a bus.  They had no luggage, so we assumed they would be meeting up with us later on, and they did at our next stop at 9pm that evening in Molde.  They were on some kind of a tour on the highway I guess.

Molde

Norwegian farm

As you approach Molde you can see some tall mountains that still have snow in the peaks.  There is also a large North Sea gas plant, and what appeared to be some fish farms.  Enid though asked a good question, “What do the people here do for a living?”  Some are employed in oil and gas, and other resources  There are a few very small farms.  Some are involved in fishing.  But there seem to be a lot more people here and not much of an industrial base to support them.
We’d hoped to have a nice meal tonight, but Fjord Tours didn’t book us in for a meal time, and didn’t indicate in any of their information that we would need to make a reservation.  So instead we ended up eating a not-so-great hamburger in the small cafeteria.

On the water

We have a nice cabin with a window, and now this evening the sun is just starting to set at 10 pm.  Our next stop is at Alesund, though we hope that we are asleep by that time.

Saint Olav on the Cathedral west wall

Well, after the firealarm in the middle of the night, it wasn’t a great sleep. However, this morning we had a good breakfast here in the hotel, and then walked towards the Nidaros Cathedral. It was a gray and overcast morning.

Var Frue church

About half way to our destination we stopped into another old stone church, Var Frue church. They keep it’s doors open to help homeless people, but I don’t believe that they have any other activity here.

Nidaros Cathedral

After this we continued on to the main cathedral. When we arrived it was closed for a worship service (since it was Sunday morning). We got our tickets, and found that the tours would start at 1:15, so we walked around the grounds, viewing the cemetary. We saw no gravestones that pre-dated about 1800.

On our way back around the cathedral we joined the service which was underway, probably a bit after 1/2 done. I am glad that we did so. The choir, actually two choirs, one a boys/mens chorus, and the other a mixed choir, were accompanied by the pipe organ. The acoustics in the cathedral are phenomonal, with at least a two second reverberation. At the close of the service the choirs sang the Hallelujah Chorous, and I think it was the most spectacular acoustic performance of it I have ever heard. We were seated right below the pipe organ, and directly across from the boys choir.

Statue of Jesus, about 1630

After the service we went to the Archbishop’s Palace museum for about half an hour. Here they display many sculptures and artifacts from the church that have been preserved from some of the many restorations. As we found out later in our tour, part of the grounds were destroyed by fire in 1983, and after this they spent a lot of time doing archaeology of the site, and built this new museum.

Following lunch we re-entered the cathedral for our tour. The tour guide explained the history of the church, starting with Saint Olav in the early 1000’s (2015 is the 1000th anniversary of his becoming king of Norway). Sometime before this he converted to Christianity after going to England as a Viking warrior, and after his death was made a saint. He was buried on this site, and his tomb was marked by a small wooden church, that over the years grew to become the most northerly medieval cathedral in Eurome by the 1300’s.

Archbishop Eystein began construction of the cathedral in Romanesque style, so the oldest part of the building has rounded roman arches. However after his return from exile in England he changed the construction to become Gothic, so about 3/4 of the building has Gothic arches. There have been many fires in the cathedral, and the cathedral has been rebuilt, at least in part, several times. The most recent restoration began in 1869 and was completed in about 2001. All of the stained glass in the building is modern, installed after 1900.

Crypts in the church basement

After the reformation the church was converted to a Lutheran cathedral, and at this time Saint Olav’s grave was lost so no one knows where he may be actually buried in the church. In the basement of the church there are some crypts of wealthy people, and also a large display of gravestones, many of them dating to the 1300’s. These would be the graves of very wealthy people, as the poorer folk would only have had wooden crosses, so their graves are long lost.

After our guided tour of the church we crossed over to the museum area again, and saw a display of the very beautiful crown jewels of Norway. After this we went back to the museum, and spent another hour or so enjoying the history there. We have learned a lot about the history of Norway in the last two days, and it has been very interesting.

Old city bridge

On our way back to the hotel we took a detour to the old city bridge. It is lined by colorful waterfront buildings. We also walked by Stiftsgarden, the residence of the Norwegian king when in Trondheim. We were too late in the day for a tour, and had done enough touring for the day anyway.

Stiftsgarden, the royal residence

Oslo Cathedral

After the breakfast buffet this morning,  we walked through downtown Oslo early on a lovely Saturday morning.  We stopped at Oslo Cathedral, but it was not yet open on this beautiful day.  It was very quiet at 9 am, but that was soon about to change.  We saw store clerks setting out tables, and blue and white balloons all along one street as we walked towards Akershus Fortress. 

Akershus Fortress

Nothing was open yet at the fortress, so we were able to walk around without too many other tourists.  In the harbour, tall ships were still docked, though they soon set sail, and we also saw two cruise ships coming in to dock.  We decided not to go on a tour of the castle part of the fortress, but instead just walked around the large and open grounds.  The walls are high abouve the water so you get excellent views out over the city.

The Oslo harbour from Akershus FOrtress

Nobel Peace Prize museum

We next walked to the Nobel Peace Prize museum.  They had a display in it called “Be Democracy” about the effect of social media on democracy.  It was very up to date as it included a picture and information about Kiev.  They also have some displays about the winners of the peace prize, each one on an individual monitor that showed a picture of the winner and some information as you walked by.  Not all of them seemed to work in the same way, as we waited before some for more information, but it never showed up.

National Theatre

We ate lunch in the park by the National Theatre and the Parliament buildings.  There were many people, especially families with children in the park.  One man was blowing large balloons in the wind.  It reminded us of Graeme and Geoffrey who had a similar large balloon making hoop when they were young.

Blowing balloons in the park

We stopped in an outdoor sporting goods store on our way to lunch.  They had displays of tents outside.  We walked in, and it was very crowded as they had a sale at 30% off.  Even then the prices were very high, as everything is in Norway.  An Arcteryx gore-tex jacket would cost over $1000 Canadian.
 
As we walked back towards the hotel we saw the street where they had been setting up the stalls in the morning.  It was now so crowded that it was almost impossible to walk through.  Their were thousands and thousands of people all shopping for bargains.  To avoid the crowds, which were almost impossible to walk through so we knew we had to avoid this street when we walked to the train station with our suitcases, we walked into some department stores and did some window shopping.

The Cathedral was to open at 2 pm, so we waited outside in the shade for about half an hour.  Inside the cathedral is very beautiful, with a lot of gilt carvings, and the entire roof covered with paintings, probably a fresco.

After this we went back to the hotel to get our luggage from storage, then walked the nearly a kilometer to the train station.  It is quite a way to the airport, a 20 minute ride on a fast express train.  After passing through security I couldn’t find my boarding pass..  I thought I had left in the screening basked, but afterwards found that I’d put it away by accident with my passport.  We had some pizza before we boarded our plane, then took the 45 minute flight to Trondheim.  It is another half hour bus ride from the airport into the city.

The Comfort Inn is a small but modern room.  It is the first time we’ve had a shower with a full sized stall.  The others have been fold out doors into the rest of the bathroom.  This one doesn’t get the floor nearly so wet.

We were both vary tired, so we were in a very deep sleep when the fire alarm went off at 2 am.  We got partially dressed, Enid remembered we needed to get our passports, and I grabbed the cameras.  We put on our coats (Enid also had her fleece, and pulled on her pants) and went outside with all the other guests in the hotel.  After a couple of minutes the fire trucks arrived, and then we had to wait about 15 minutes before they gave the all clear and we went back in.  Even at 2 am it was very light outside, as we are a long way north here.  I went back to sleep right away, but Enid struggled to do so, so she didn’t have a very good night.

Diorama of the Fram locked in polar ice

We almost slept so long that we missed breakfast this morning!  I guess we were tired after the long day yesterday.

After breakfast we took the #30 bus, which stops just outside the hotel to the Viking Ship museum.  This was most interesting.  They have three ancient Viking boats that were used as burial chambers. 

Viking ship

Based on what was found in the boats, these must have been very powerful and wealthy Vikings.  The boats included many beautifully carved wooden decorative objects.  Some of them were utilitarian, like cooking implements, clothing, and beautiful wooden sleighs.  The assumption of archaeologists is that these materials were included in the burial chambers to assist the dead in the afterlife.

Viking burial ship

Both Enid and I were very astounded to learn of the sophisticated culture which the Vikings must have had.  Iron in particular was not an easy substance to smelt in that early part of history, yet they had many iron artifacts, including large pots that would have held several gallons, and were supported on iron tripods.  Many of the boxes were decorated with intricate patterns of iron nails.

After enjoying this museum for the morning, we walked about 1.5 km to the area where there are three other museums: the Kon Tiki museum of Thor Heyerdahl, The Norwegian Maritime Museum, and the Fram Museum.  We went to the latter two after eating lunch.

The Fram, Roa;d Amundsen's ship to the South Pole

The complete ship “Fram” is included in the Fram museum, as well as many artifacts from the heroic age of Polar exploaration at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th century.  I found it extremely interesting, having a real interest in that period of history, and also it reminded me of the project Geoffrey and I did for the Saskatchewan Department of Education, “Mission to Mars” in 2000.

We had intended to go the Gjoa display, but were rather tired after completing the Fram displays, and actually forgot about it until after we’d toured the Norwegian Maritime Museum.  By then we were quite “museumed out” and so didn’t bother to go back to look at it.

Boat in the Norwegian Maritime Museum

We didn’t enjoy the maritime museum nearly as much as the other two.  It does however have some nice displays covering the century from 1914 -2014, starting with old wooden boats and culminating with displays about some of the modern challenges to a maritime economy, including damage to the environment caused by oil drilling in the North Sea, and transportation in general.

It was cool and cloudy this morning, but by late afternoon was quite nice and sunny.  After riding the bus back to the Anker Hotel we showered, then went for supper.  We walked to an area that was marked as “restaurants” on the map in the lobby.  Mostly though all we saw were many small Middle Eastern restaurants, mostly from Turkey.  We ate in one of them, and the food was very filling — and also very spicy and I now have heartburn.

Right next door to this hotel is the Anker Hostel.  They have a laundry, and so Enid is now doing a load of wash while I complete catching up on our blog for the last two days.

The Internet service is somehow defective in the Heimly Pensionat.  Last night I tried to contact our hotel in Oslo to tell them that we would be arriving late.  However, there was no way to locate their wireless router — but only on Android or Windows devices!  It was working fine on iPhones.  The clerk rebooted the router, and then it worked for a while, long enough that I could send an email to the hotel, but not well enough to post the pictures on the blog.  After rebooting the Apple devices lost their wireless signa, but after about 15 minutes the system reverted back to its original configuration — Apple only!

I’ve never experienced this kind of behaviour on wireless before.  Because we were worried about the very late arrival in Oslo (almost 11 pm) the hotel clerk tried to phone for us, but all he got was a busy signal.  I hoped that the email had got through!

This morning the desk clerk tried agian, got through right away, and confirmed that our late arrival was ok.  That was a relief.

We then stored our luggage at the hotel and went hiking, in the rain and wind, towards the Flam church.  This is an old wooden structure, built sometime in the 1600’s, right beside the river.  And yes, Arden, it had a very interesting cemetary surrounding the church on all sides.  After a brief view inside the open church, we sat in the front porch and ate our lunch.  We were happy to be out of the rain!

On the way back we stopped at a small water mill grindstone.  The building was open, but not in use.  I was surprised that the large grindstone was incredibly easy to turn.  It must be very, very smooth and I guess is lubricated by the flour that sits between the two stones.

Farther along on the way back we passed a large waterfall.  There is a trail that you can hike up to it, but it was quite muddy, and we were tired enough that we didn’t get more than a hundred metres up the trail before we turned back.

We had an early supper/late lunch in one of the restaurants at the dock.  There were many tour busses parked in town, and three cruise ships (not the same ones that were here yesterday) yet there were not many people in the stores and shops. I guess most of them must have been out on boats travelling the fjord.

We left Flam on the Flamsbana railway.  It is very beautiful along the valley with many waterfalls.  At the largest one, Kjos, a Norwegian siren “sings” to you from the rocks.  A bit tacky, but at least not an animated Disney caricature!

After the falls the railway hits its steepest part, and spirals and tunnels through to the top of the mountain at Myrdal. We got off, along with 20 or 30 others waiting for the train to Oslo.

However we soon found that it was about 40 minutes late, because of a power failure. When we did finally get on the train we had a smooth trip into Oslo, though we had to stop a couple of times to wait for switching, I imagine as we were off schedule. It seemed like most of the freights were shunted to sidings to wait for us though, so we went pretty straight through.

The top of the mountain is quite flat, but at about 1200 m there was still a lot of snow and the lakes were largely ice covered. It was very interesting topography, barren and arctic like with no trees. We did pass through one ski resort, though it is now closed as there isn’t enough snow left to ski.

As we dropped down into Oslo we saw more and more farms, and very pretty countryside. It is quite heavily forested with evergreens, interspersed with small farms.

At last we got to Oslo, just before mid-night. The security guard in the central station recommended that we take a taxi to our hotel, which we had been planning to do, and so it was a short ride of about 5 minutes to the Anker Hotel.

This is a very interesting hotel. It is the cheapest we’ve had so far on this trip, but it also the largest room, and the first with a true double bed, not two twins. It is right beside a fairly busy street, but on the seventh floor even with the window open we were so tired that we quickly went to sleep.