Telemark & Tromsø

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August 25th 2008

Published: August 25th 2008

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Lana62

Edvard Greig

Edvard Greig was a Norwegian composer. This is out front of his estate.

Hello Everyone....or as they say here... Hei Hei. (They say it twice very quickly)

We left Bergen and made our way to a little place called Rauland in the Telemark area. We stayed in a lodge way up on the Hardanger Mountain Plateau. Please excuse my spelling but we figure you guys probably won't know the difference anyway...😊
Our guide, Øivind - whom all the women have fallen in love with by now - told us that every Norwegian is born with their skiis on and a backpack. It's kind of hard on the Mother!! This countryside looks like high mountain terrain. No trees but lots of berry bushes & moss. Cloudberries are the sought after berry here and if you find them, you don't tell anyone where they are.

There is supposed to be reindeer here but all we've seen so far are sheep & cows. We did see one moose on the side of the road. But Darlene has them coming up to her bedroom window at home so that was no big thrill for her. The Australians on our tour were pretty amazed at Darlene's moose stories.

We visited the Heavy Water Plant and learned

Bergen Fish Market

Yum, Yum!!

all about the Nazi invasion. They wanted this water to develop their atomic booms and there is a movie called 'Heroes of Telemark´ which depicts this story. Nine Norwegians skied into this gorge & snuck into the plant to blow it up in the dead of winter. Who Knew!!!!?????

Back to Oslo to finish off our tour and say goodbye to our new found friends. We toured Vigeland Park...otherwise known as the Nudie Park. All the statues are nude as the artist wanted them to remain timeless. Darlene said this was very disturbing to her when she visited as a 13 year old in 1974. The statues all tell the story of the circle of life. Very beautiful!!! If you use your imagination, you can make them dirty. Sorry - that's just Lana's imagination.

Now we are in Tromsø. OH MY GOD!!! What a great place! We are 246 miles north of the arctic circle now. We went to the local Brewery - Macks Brewery and did the tour. Of course, we had to sample the ale and it was fabulous!! They import everything except the water to make the beer. Tromsø is a big university city and

Bergen at Sunset

Taken from the top of the Funicular.

certainly has a younger population. We are staying in a fabulous hotel called the Clarion Collection and it's right on the waterfront. I could stay here forever!

We fly back to Bergen tomorrow for one night and then it's off to Fresvik to meet the relatives. We will take the express boat from Bergen all the way up the Sognefjord to Vik. There we will be picked up by Gyda - my relative. Fresvik is only 300 population so I'm sure I'm related to all of them! We'll see if they are ready for Lana and Darlene.

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