Norway

 It was our first trip to a new country since we came back from traveling to 29 countries in 2019. Like a lot of people, we had things disrupted in the past few years, especially travel. Cruising to Norway was one of those things that T. and I had talked about doing for years, and when we weren't able to spend Christmas together, we decided to give each other this trip to the fjords.

Few countries in the world can have undergone as complete a peacetime transformation as Norway. Whereas Norwegians' fierce warrior ancestors, the Vikings, once dominated northern Europe and even sailed to the coast of North America, for centuries Norway was ruled by its neighbors, Denmark and Sweden. Until very recently it had always been one of the poorest countries in Europe. All that changed in 1969, when oil was discovered under the North Sea. 

Today, Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, and a place of fascinating contradictions. In another country all that oil wealth would have enriched private corporations, but so socialist was Norway that in the period following World War II, some Western powers feared that it would join the communist bloc. That didn't happen, but the country's great resources are still owned and distributed by the state. It administers the money on behalf of Norwegians, who have one of the world's highest and most equally distributed standards of living. That also means that for visitors, the price of everything is eye-watering. Norway is a country known for its generosity, full of environmental concern, yet a whaling nation and one whose wealth is built on fossil fuel.

Stavanger

Our trip was likewise contradictory. We enjoyed the cruise, but don't recommend such a large ship. Nevertheless, what we saw of the southwestern and western fjords was spectacular. And it was nice to be traveling the nearest to "normal" since before the pandemic: able to share a dinner table with strangers, T. able to hear and talk with them more or less successfully...

We expected snow in Norway and we got it; we did not necessarily expect sunshine, so warm on our sailing from England that we could bask on the deck! Not having to take an airplane anywhere was a bonus. 

On the North Sea. Did not expect to be in the pool!

Ever since we lost my mom, precisely at sunset, M. Soleil has had an even more special place in my heart. When the sun broke through the clouds over the North Sea, where a few moments before we'd felt raindrops, T. said "That's Grace, showing you the sun still shines." The first night I saw some pink in the sky over on the port side and had to run and get T., as the beautiful sun was just starting to dip below the horizon--at 9:00! "She's outdone herself today," T. said.

Anyway, our first port of call was the oil city of Stavanger. Bizarrely, we docked right next to the old town.

 

This did mean it was an easy walk into Gamle Stavanger--Old Stavanger--and around the city park.

 

I wanted to visit the Domkirke, Norway's oldest cathedral, but it was closed for renovations. Although a different building is currently serving as the parish church in Stavanger, closed churches would become a theme of this trip. 

 

Cathedral detail, Archaeology Museum

We had a browse around some shops, not that we were going to buy anything very big at Norwegian prices. We looked at a poncho and both had the same thought: "[Your] Mom would like this." She seemed to be with me everywhere. Back on board there was a pianist in the atrium playing Del Shannon's "Runaway," complete with Musitron part. I got a chance to listen to him, while wearing my gym shorts and desperately fighting through crowds of formally attired people--I had an appointment at the spa but it was black tie night!

The sunlight "fingers of God" cut gorgeously through the sky as we chugged north, even as the waves rocked and reeled so much they had to cancel the acrobatics show. There was a real drop in the temperature that night. 

Early the next morning we docked at the tiny village of Olden. Almost everyone in town seemed to be passengers on our ship, but they all must have gone off on excursions, because we were among only a few people hiking up the trail to Huaren viewpoint.

 

On that 380-m climb, there was an interlude that T. said was a microcosm of how the world should work (and often does). At the top, a woman offered to take our picture,

and then partway down the track we saw a glove lying on the ground. I glimpsed the same colors as the glove on a man further down the trail--new gear? I hurried back to grab the glove for him, and some time after we returned it, his companion picked up T's lens cap, which she hadn't heard fall to the ground. 

view from the top

 

That evening we sailed through Nordfjord, with gorgeous views all the way. It must have been after 9:00 p.m. when I put on my down jacket and scarf and braved the cold winds of the forward deck to catch yet another amazing view. The burning sun dipped below a horizon of Viking-dark clouds.

 

The weather had certainly changed, and now it was against us. The next day, in Ålesund, we had actually booked an excursion, to hike Sugarlump Mountain. T. was concerned about back-to-back ascents of 300 m, but in the event, the hike was canceled. There had been snow and high winds in the area that week--not that we experienced any during our day in Ålesund! Along with everyone else in town, it seemed, we were climbing the Aksla Steps to a nature trail, and a view overlooking the peninsula.

 

At the bottom of the hill we finally got good coffee, one of a number of things the P&O company does not get right, at Racoon Coffee (yes, that’s how it is spelled). Nicer than gravadlax (smoked salmon) or even Norwegian fish pie, which I also tried on the trip.

 

The unique thing about the skyline, as it were, of Ålesund is its domination by Art Nouveau architecture. There was a tremendous fire in the town in 1904, as a result of which, much of the city was rebuilt in the style popular at the time, which Norwegians call by its German name, Jugendstil. We visited the Jugendstil center, housed in a 1907 pharmacy. 

 

I carried on to have a look at Ålesund church, but guess what? It was closed!

 

Church on left; big yellow building at top right is Aspøy skole

I continued up the hill to take a look at an absolutely massive yellow building that you can look up and see from anywhere in the town. A woman (perhaps local; certainly Norwegian) approached me and said “English?” When I confirmed that I speak English, she went on to address me in that language, saying how unfortunate it was that the church, of which Ålesund is so proud, was closed, when it’s worth visiting. “It’s a shame!” she repeated after me. She seemed sorry on behalf of Norway. 

(The yellow building, by the way, is Aspøy skole, built in 1921. I thought it must be a museum or something by now but, charmingly, it is what it always was: the local elementary school.)

Joachim Rønneberg led the raid (from Britain) during World War II on German heavy water manufacturing, preventing the Nazis from getting the atomic bomb.

Norwegians may not be a very religious people these days, but everyone we spoke to was extremely nice! Where else in the world would a taxi driver, to whom we gave way as pedestrians, roll down his window and say “Thank you very much” in our language?

 If the drivers of Norway were any friendlier, they’d wait all day for others to go. 

"Sister and brother" statue

Niceness and generosity are much-needed characteristics in Norway, as in other countries. The Norwegian settlement pattern is unique: historically, a farming and fishing population was spread thinly all across the land, with few areas either wilderness or densely populated. Meanwhile, the massive social changes of the past five decades include a significant population change: whereas in 1970 immigrants, including people with two immigrant parents, numbered a mere 57,041 in 1970, by 2017 that number had risen to 883,571. 

 

Our fourth and last port of call was further south down the coast, at Haugesund. We heard from some women we had dinner with that it had pelted down snow the night before, and there was snow on the deck in the morning.

 

Polar bear skeleton found when someone renovated their basement

However, the sun came out once again in Haugesund and it was lovely all day! We had more good coffee and pastry at Totalen—our reward for walking 6 km out and back along the coastal path. 

The old and the new

Stone cross in Haugesund, dating from ca. A.D. 1000

Haraldshaugen, monument to Harald Fairhair, who first united Norway

Vår Frelsers church. Closed!

 On our last, sea day, T. had a little luck in the casino while I, belatedly, discovered the “busker” on board. He played songs like “American Pie” and “Wichita Lineman,” and of course, that put me in a mellow mood. I wish I’d been to more of his shows but I talked to him that night, and learned he’d just bought his new 12-string guitar at a music shop I’d seen in Haugesund.

 

Relaxing in Olden

In the evening, the sky cleared and once again I saw some pink sky. Had to go out walking on the deck, where there was one other woman, who started talking to me. She lives in London, but sounded French; at any rate, she was enjoying the beauty of the sky.

Norway may not have that many world-famous artistic figures, but their best-known include Henrik Ibsen, the most-performed playwright in the world after Shakespeare (his A Doll's House was the world's most-performed play last year) and Edvard Munch, whose  The Scream set a record price for the sale of a painting.

 

Much parodied

One of the only Norwegian books I have read is Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. In this novel, Sophie, a girl about fourteen years old, is led through a discovery of Western philosophy and the contributions of wise men and women through the ages. An unlikely subject for a bestseller, perhaps, but philosophy professor Gaarder managed to take a good idea and make it accessible to millions of readers. It is with a quotation from another Gaarder book, seen on display in Stavanger’s archeology museum, that I will leave you. Like so many things, it reminds me of my Mom, and how great a teacher she was of children, including her own.