Welcome back! It’s been a busy summer and as a result, a definite lag in blogging. I can’t get over the fact that we’re now in the second half of September and will officially be in the fall season in just a few short days. Maybe it’s the warm weather we’ve been having, maybe it’s because work is now winding down from the furor of launch season and it feels like a summer break is in order; either way it’s hard to believe that the summer season has almost come to a close. But I digress…
Facebook, in its attempt to evoke a bit of nostalgia, has reminded me over the past couple of days that “On This Day” seven years ago I was “backpacking” (and by backpacking I mean schlepping a large and unruly roller suitcase completely unsuitable for train travel) through Scandinavia with one of my very good college friends, Vena. We started our journey in Copenhagen, trained/bussed it up to Oslo (a long and harrowing story of delays of missed connections), over to Bergen on Norway’s west coast, back east to Stockholm, a side overnight trip to Uppsala (an interesting experience to say the least), before finally concluding our voyage in Helsinki. It was a whirlwind trip filled with beautiful scenery, amazing architecture, picturesque harbors, Viking artifacts galore, Somersby Pear Cider, friendly locals who all seemed to speak better English than we did, a myriad of hostels, and lots (and lots) of laughing.
On the sixth day of our two week Scandinavian adventure, we boarded the Bergensbanen (Bergen Line) and embarked on a seven hour journey across one of Europe’s highest mountain plateaus – Hardangervidda – from Oslo to Bergen. While the seven hour trip seemed a bit daunting at first, the views from the large picture windows were stunning. We winded through mountainous terrain, passing through an astonishing 180+ tunnels while watching the landscape and weather transition from urban to alpine. We briefly stopped to stretch our legs and admire the snowy hills of Myrdal before coming to a stop in the waterfront city of Bergen. As Norway’s second largest city, the municipality of Bergen is home to some 280,000 inhabitants. Located on the Byfjorden, or “city fjord,” it is surrounded by mountains and has a mix of old and new with a more modern, albeit very small, city center and an older, historic part of town just to the north of the train station.
After a long and epic search for our hostel (this trip took place back in the stone age before we had smart phones to deliver us to the correct doorstep and tuck us in at night), we dropped our stuff and ventured out to the harbor to catch a boat that we had read about in our guidebook to the local aquarium. The aquarium wasn’t too far of a walk but we decided it would be much more fun to see the city from the water. Neither one of us knew what we were in for! As we waited at the boat stop for our ship to come in, we could see extremely large ships in the distance. Suddenly, a small speck came into view, moving stealthily between the massive ships. As it slowly approached, we jokingly said maybe that speck was our boat. The speck grew closer and closer and we ultimately realized, it was in fact our vessel (see below for exhibits A, B, and C)! The tug boat, which was captained by Ernest Hemingway’s twin brother, was the postage stamp of seafaring vessels. But, in the words of Del Griffith in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, “it’ll get you where you need to go!” After the giggling on our part subsided, I looked back at the city behind us. Though rainy and overcast, the colors of the harbor-front buildings and homes that dotted the hillside illuminated the muted landscape. The sharp angles of the buildings in the foreground contrasted nicely with the softer lines of the lush hillside in the background. It really was a beautiful sight! If you ever find yourself in Norway, I would definitely recommend making the trip over to Bergen. Even in the rainy conditions that we endured, the city and surrounding landscape is spectacular. Thanks for reading!
I don’t typically add supplemental images to my blog entries, but I feel like in order to adequately explain the scene described above I have to make an exception! Even still, this might prove to be a you-had-to-be-there moment.
Camera: Nikon d80 – Aperture: f/5.6 – Shutter Speed: 1/250 – ISO: 400
Recent Comments