Our Tour of Norway, Part 1

Last Thursday, our friends Michelle and Vera visited from the U.S. and we began an insanely fast paced, jam packed tour of Norway. (Michelle went to college with Kevin at SUNY Potsdam, and Vera is Michelle's mom.) As soon as they deplaned, we began feeding them smoked salmon, hot black current sirop, brown cheese and Norwegian chocolate. We then took them on a walking tour of Gjovik, through the Olympic Fjellhall and to the Gjovik chocolate factory, of course! Their first evening in Norway ended at Spiseri, a very traditional Norwegian restaurant, where Michelle was able to try some reindeer.

On Friday, we woke up bright and early to begin the long trek to Sognefjord. It was a gorgeous drive (although incredibly long and twisty--I have never been so relieved to buy Dramamine!) Norway is full of incredibly old, beautiful churches, and we stopped by several to take pictures. At this point, my brain is so fried that I have no idea where the first two churches were located along the way, but the third photo is of the Hopperstad stave church in Vik. It was built some time around 1130 and has amazing dragon carvings on the top. There is a graveyard by the church and I really wish I knew more Norwegian so that I could have understood more of the inscriptions. One that I did understand was "Takk for alt", or "Thanks for everything", which made me laugh!

We zig zagged back and forth across Sognefjord a couple of times by ferry. (That's Michelle enjoying our final ferry ride of the day.) Our drive from Gjovik to Sognefjord and then to Bergen took us through a wide variety of terrain--from gentle, rolling hills, where the snow had melted and flowers were beginning to bloom, to the dramatic beauty of the fjords, to crazy, snow and ice covered mountain passes. The last photo is of a tunnel through one such snow covered mountain. The Norwegians love to tunnel--once we got past the treacherous, snaking snowy mountain road, the highway to Bergen was full of tunnels. Not very scenic, but much faster and easier driving!

We reached Bergen by 7:30 and walked around the wharf area (Bryggen). We had a nice seafood dinner at the Unicorn where we tried the famous Bergen fiskesuppe. It was really good, but really different than the fiskesuppe in the eastern part of the country where we live. I was so exhausted by the time dessert arrived that I could barely keep my eyes open. We stumbled back to the hotel (the Clarion Admiral) and into the most comfortable beds ever. It was like sleeping in a cloud, and the next morning over a great breakfast, we all raved about the fabulous beds!

Once I get my Bergen photos sorted, I'll post about our fantastic tour of the city and our adventure on the Flam railroad...more later!