June 25 – July 8, 2007, Norway : It’s a short two hour flight from Reykjavik to Bergen, but an entirely different world. Norway is green and lush, forests and undergrowth anywhere. The hilly greenness makes the suburbs of Bergen feel a bit like Seattle, though this feeling gives way around the slate roofs of the town center.
We flew into Bergen on the 25th and immediately boarded the Hurtigruten (coastal steamer), bound for Alesund. This is a short overnight trip – Don has a deep seated aversion to cruise ships. Our boat (the M/S Trollfjord) is an interesting creature – it’s basically a cruise ship, though on a much smaller scale than the behemoths found in the Caribbean or along the inland passage to Alaska. In addition to the berths for 800 people, the boat also carries cars and cargo. The ports of call are also very un-cruiseship-like – we pulled into tiny towns in the middle of the night for 15 minutes to load and unload, then headed out again. Even larger ports like Alesund warrant only an hour.
In addition to our boat, there are a large number of regular cruise ships running the same routes. Stopped at Geraingerford were the Aida (German) and the Maxim Gorky (Russian). We’ve encountered large numbers of Russian tourists throughout Fjord country – their boom has extended from the rich and young who started appearing in the west a few years ago down to ordinary package tourists who look like they’re from the Russian sections of Brooklyn.
On its way north, the Hurtiguren went through Geraingerfjord, one of the more famous fjords. Fjords are a little difficult to describe – perhaps the best way to imagine them is as if the Sierra Nevada were flooded to the 6000 foot mark. Steep mountains and waterfalls descend directly into narrow fingers of the sea. In these narrow valleys, the sea looks more a mountain reservoir – calm and almost glassy. It’s hard to believe that it connects to the Atlantic. In places, farms (abandoned since the 1950’s), cling to inclined patches on the hillsides.
We’ve moved a little further south in latitude from Reykjavik (64 degrees versus 62 degrees in Alesund), but there’s little change in the daylight- still somewhat light all night. The telltale signs are the satellite TV antennas pointing nearly horizontal to the southern horizon; it sometimes takes some work to get a straight shot down a fjord for reception. Lots of engineering ingenuity on display here – the network of roads and tunnels is amazing. Even tiny villages and valleys are served by tunnels several kilometers long. On our longest driving day (Alesund to Bergen via Geraingerfjord), we stopped counting at the fortieth tunnel. We are really glad to have rented a car – the extra flexibility in deciding when and where to go has been a godsend given the variability in the kids’ moods.
Prices in Norway continue at the nosebleed levels we saw in Iceland. Beer is $10 a glass, gasoline $7.50 a gallon. The hotel in Stavanger wanted $5 to wash each pair of socks or underwear- we ended up going to the laundromat, which seemed like a bargain at $7.50 per load.
Our itinerary continues to be child driven – Aquariums, boats, trains, and zoos, with no churches and few museums. Touch pools in the aquariums here include crabs and lobsters- hard to imagine in litigious America. (Sierra declined to pick one up). The zoo in Kristiansand is the largest domestic tourist attraction in Norway – we stayed a couple of nights at the Noah’s Ark themed hotel there. Dinner was quite an experience – a zillion tow-headed kids running in all directions, parents downing $10 beers to drown out the noise. Despite not understanding a word, we felt right at home (particularly after the second pint).