Travels in Norway

BURSTS FROM NORWAY

Saturday, June 20 - On the cruise ship from Trondheim to Bergen with Alison

Rocks and more rocks, some the size of mountains, sea and fantastic sky drama, big fluffy white clouds, skinny black clouds, sun, rain and something in between: the scene changes on the half hour: Norway by boat. Amazing!

Tuesday, June 23

Norway has been wonderful though not always as expected. I underestimated the grandeur of a changing sky when visible over ocean, and the sky did change, constantly. Sometimes glowering, sometimes sunny and serene, sometimes sending down sheets of rain, followed by brilliant sun rays, and once I glimpsed a rainbow between two huge black cliffs. This isn’t a big cruise ship, like the ocean liners with little compartments for 5000 people, and all the essentials, like buffets, cafes and bars; beauty parlors and saunas; movies and live entertainment; shops- every one  selling down jackets at $150.00 and beautiful Norwegian sweaters at about $300.00  For us, the best part was a corner of the top front deck with very comfortable chairs under a see-through roof and side walls. We could lounge there and watch the sky change, the great rocks, green hills, and little fishing ports float by, sometimes very close, sometimes from a considerable distance.

When we landed in Bergen we became proper tourists: checking out the museums and the restaurants. Tonight we went up in the funicular and when we got to the top the sun came out with greater enthusiasm than we had seen before, and made the harbor stretched out before us gleam while the sky transformed itself into the Nordic dusk. The night never went really went dark. Even at 4:00 in the morning there would be enough light to walk around easily. 

Because we wanted to see some inland Norway, the next day we took a 90 minute trip by train into the interior, had lunch and then returned. The sky was less dominant inland, without that great expanse of ocean and the changing play of clouds,  but much of the ride was along deep, dark blue lakes, as  compelling as the sea had been, surrounded completely by very high, steep greenly clad hills and the familiar fringe of small well-kept cottages marking the edges. I thought of pictures of Switzerland without the snowcapped peaks. We hung out in Vossa, had lunch, watched some sky surfing almost overhead,  and a handful of children knee deep in cold water on a pebble beach while their parents in down jackets watched from the shore. Tomorrow we are on an airplane all day, homeward bound. So short, so sweet.

Thursday, June 25

We left Bergen this morning in a light rain at 9:00. I had a window seat, thanks to Alison's kindly ticketing, and I watched the deeply fringed and rock lined coast of Norway slowly disappear, the clusters of dark islands and solitary rocks of huge proportions and jagged edges silently sinking into the fog. Not quite two hours later the coast of Holland appeared in brilliant sunshine, so flat it would be hard to distinguish land from sea but for the long sandy frame of beach, extending to the edge of the horizon. We flew over a crazy quilt of fields in many shades of green or brown, each square, triangle or diamond neatly embroidered in place with its own row of trees. When we landed it was 40 degrees Celsius. The lesson is, if you don’t like the weather in one country try another.