Norway - May the Norse be with you

I have just spent 10 amazing days visiting my 55^th Country; Norway. What a beautiful country, the landscape was just breathtaking.  I started in the capital of Oslo where I visited a few museums including the Viking Boat Museum with Viking Long boats.  The detail they used to make some of the carvings was so clever.  The Vikings were very skilled craftsman and navigators.  I can’t imagine what it must have been like for people who lived in the places they invaded, looking out and seeing the convoy of Vikings heading towards to you.

Oslo

I liked the beautiful gardens of the Royal Palace in Olso and the fact the royal family seemed pretty normal marrying people who were not from royal families around; marrying for love not for power.  That whole idea of marrying for power has long been left in the past.  The other fascinating thing in Oslo was the Vigeland Sculpture Park where there are lots of unusual statues including one of a man with babies all over him and he is fighting them off.

Gierangerfjord

We headed up the country for and saw some of the most beautiful scenery including a road called trolls pass (well actually Trollstigen) that was a steep climb up a mountain with 11 hair pin turns… rather challenging for a car let alone a coach.  There were also a few crazy people riding their bikes up it. The view from the top was out of this world, you could see right down into the valley and far beyond. That day we were heading to Grienger Fjord which was also completely spectacular, this day was one of my highlights in all of Norway.  The Video is of parts of the drive that day that I recorded with my GoPro.

There is also a small town in Norway called Hell where we stopped for a quick photo.  Its not really as bad as it sounds because the word hell actually means 'luck' in Norwegian.  

Reindeer Carving

Every day in Norway the scenery was spectacular and we had many stops to take photos and check out different things.  One day we stopped at a small reserve where there were ancient rock paintings the clearest was of a reindeer. We also stopped at a polar park where we heard the arctic wolves howling and saw the really cute arctic fox.  My highlight there was the big brown bears, so clever and cuddly however would not like to come up against one in the woods because of their sheer size and huge paws with the longest sharpest claws I have ever seen.

Arctic Circle

Further up Norway is the Arctic Circle centre just as you head into the Arctic Circle.  When you think about the Arctic you generally think of freezing cold conditions, snow, polar bears and winter.  However the south part of the Arctic circle the day I visited was about 28 degrees with very little snow; not Arctic at all and definitely no polar bears.  What we did see a lot of was Reindeer which are surprisingly a lot smaller than I expected but very cool with furry antlers.  During the summer months they are left to roam free and in the winter they are herded by the Sami people that live in the north of Norway.  I was also on a serious mission to spot moose and had my whole bus looking for them too but alas I saw no moose.  We did have a moose sighting but it was called out as reindeer and by the time everyone decided it was a moose it was too late for me to see one. 

Nordkapp

My last destination was Nordkapp which simple means ‘North Cape’ and is the northern most point of Continental Europe.  We were hoping to see the midnight sun which is literally seeing the sun at Mid night as it doesn’t set for a period of time over the summer months at all.  In fact the whole time in Norway it was light at night, the sun had gone down but it was still very light.  We quickly got use to sleeping when it was light outside.  In the evenings it was hard to judge what time it was and we were constantly so surprised by the how late it was.  Sadly for us when we got to Nordkapp we didn’t see the midnight sun as it was too cloudy but it was still amazing to experience Nordkapp.

Norway really blew me away with its sheer size, beauty and wild life.

*sorry the music stops half way through, I tried to publish it again and it stopped in another place.