“God dag” from Norway in the sunshine

Warehouse buildings at Trondheim
Originally uploaded by rtw2007.

We have had a really good few days in Norway. In Bergen, we managed to avoid the rain altogether, which was pretty good going given that it supposedly rains in Bergen on 290 days each year. Devastatingly, the Leprosy Museum (which Michael and Rich visited on their trip here last year) was closed. We decided that we could cope without a dose of leprosy and so instead we meandered around the town; sampled some fantastic salmon from the fish market (sadly Michael decided against starting his portrait project by taking a snap of the craggy Norwegian fisherman in the market, on the basis that he was far too grumpy); had a lovely lunch at the Pygmallion café; and took a long walk up the steep hillside near to the funicular railway, which lead to great views over the city.

In Bergen we established that most of the roads are open (the Hamiltons had needed snow chains last week, but there seems to have been a thaw since then – and anyway we think that Chris was just trying to scare us…). We decided to spend the next couple of days heading north through the western fjords towards Ålesund and then Trondheim. What we didn’t realise was that we would end up spending the majority of our daily budget on ferry fees and tunnel tolls. The beauty of having a non-country-specific budget is that we will be able to live the high life in China, but the downside is that we have to scrimp and save our way around Norway.

We wild camped on a remote Norwegian island (and again came across a scary Norwegian fisherman – they seem to be the prevalent in this area). Despite some wheel spinning chavs disturbing our beauty sleep in the night by revving and beeping the horns at us, we survived in tact and headed into Ålesund the next morning to take a look around the (slightly bizarre looking) town. From Ålesund the road turns east towards Trondheim and we briefly left the main highway to travel along the Atlantic Highway, which dips spectacularly on and off the coastal islands. Cue Michael getting very over excited and taking lots of photos of bridges.

The next day had the most beautiful scenery yet, but we had a mild “disagreement” as Michael insisted on speeding past it all in a flash (none of that at the triangular box construction bridges, of course). Having got over that issue, we headed to Trondheim where we managed to get trapped in the one way system despite having a map and being in a smallish Norwegian city – bodes well for later in the trip when we get to some real cities! We eventually strolled around the town on a really beautiful sunny evening. The great thing about being this far north is that if you happen to hit a good day weather wise, the light is amazing and it lasts long into the evening. Trondheim was a bit of a surprise – although the modern centre is a bit of a concrete jungle, the rest of the city has a really good atmosphere and easily rivals Bergen in terms of being picturesque. The city used to be the capital of Norway many moons ago and the old part of the city reflects that - the façade of the cathedral is really ornate with lots of statues and gargoyles etc; the river area is very pretty and has lots of pavement cafes; and we really enjoyed sitting in the sun at the fort overlooking the city, along with lots of students having picnics, cooking on barbeques and generally relaxing.

We have today driven into Oslo, listening as usual to our new favourite radio station, P4 Norge, on the way down. They have a presenter who sounds, disconcertingly, exactly like Terry Wogan (but with a bit of hurdy gurdy Norwegian thrown in). We are not quite sure why we keep listening, because they only have a play list of about 5 songs, and the rule seems to be that both Mika and How to Save a Life by The Fray have to be played at least once every five minutes.

So far, touch wood, everything is going well. Admittedly we are only in Norway, which is easy going compared to some of the places we will end up (although we are not finding the people all that friendly). We are really pleased with the van and finding it easy to live in. Michael is already playing too much Football Manager (leading Inverness Caledonian Thistle to mid-table mediocrity), so all pretty much as normal there. We have taken an enormous number of photos already and are wondering how on earth we are going to get are hands on enough memory space to hold our photos for the whole trip.

Thanks for all of the comments so far (BJ, Pam H and Lisa amongst numerous anonymous girls from school) – keep them coming! We are now off to enjoy the sights and sounds of Oslo. Adjø.

PS We've put a few Norway photos onto the website - more to follow once we leave Norway.

Also Michael (Mr B) would like to say hi to all the girls at WGGS. I am thinking of you all back at school now. Especially big hello to my favourite class - my year 9s... only joking, my year 10s, no, year 11s. Of course, I like all my classes equally... and hello to 12B, I hope you are looking after Mr. Hepburn.