It's a wrap

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The races have been amazing. We are so glad we came to Norway for the races. Both the elite women's and men's races were exceptional with huge and huger crowds .. and the Dutch fans finally showed up. Saturday was enjoyable with two races that day - ending with a decisive victory for Chantal Blaak from the Netherlands. Sunday was the men's elite race - and the crowds were enormous. We started the day out watching on TV as the race started 40kms or so from Bergen. It was a long race, so we had time to go and watch the circuit from several spots. We had intended on watching the closing laps from the park or the main square - but there were so many people you could hardly see or move ... so we decided to come back to our apartment and watch the end of the race on TV, Our apartment is right on the race course .. I mean right on, like just outside our door .. so we could hear the crowd as the riders went by cheering and when the riders weren't here singing. It was crazy. So everything was good until there were about 3 kms left in the race - just as they cyclists were lining up for the final stretch - we heard a loud pop - and the electricity went out. We did get to watch the final kms of the race eventually - it was a photo finish with Peter Sagan taking his third title. It seemed like it took forever to get to the finish area - the crowd estimate was 100,000 people - but it sure seemed like there were more than that. Every path was jammed solid with people - and it stayed like that until the closing ceremony was finished. The closing ceremony was a lot like the Olympic ceremonies - full of traditional music and cultural things. So we watched the ice music - played on ice by the band - up until they blew the huge ice horn thing - and decided that was about as much culture as we needed. Because we weren't sure if our power was back on, we decided to eat out last night. Dave chose pizza - a good choice. When it came, it came uncut, with pizza scissors you used to cut the pizza. Dave was pretty good with the scissors - but I think they were right handed scissors.

For our last day - we wanted to visit some more of the sights and museums and the replica of the Stave Church they have in Bergen. We visited the Fortress Museum - which is a military museum. There was a good exhibit on the Norwegian resistance in World War II as well as information on the Norwegian support for many UN peace keeping missions. They had a whole section of the museum dedicated to the resistance - complete with exploded pencils and other James Bond like instruments. Then we were off to visit the Stave Church. Although we have walked a lot here, we decided to take the tram since it was 25 minutes by tram - I don't know how long by foot, but further than we wanted to walk. It was an adventure buying the tickets - and then figuring out which tram to get on. Thankfully there were only 2 ways to get on - and we got it right on our second try. Once we got off the tram, it was about 700m to the church. A crazy thing here is that drivers always stop for pedestrians. If you even look like you might be considering crossing the road in a crosswalk - they all stop and wait for you. It is a little unnerving actually .. we had to cross three roads on our way to to the Stave Church - which was up a short but intense climb. This is a replica of a church that was built in the 1100s in Sogn, a village near the eastern end of Sognefjord. The church was bought by consul Fredrik Gade and saved by moving it in pieces to Fantoft near Bergen in 1883. Subsequently, it was destroyed by arson in 1972, and this replica was built shortly after that. We couldn't go inside - but we wanted to see it anyway. In case you are wondering what a Stave Church is - Wikipedia has this .. A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the buildings' structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts are called stafr in Old Norse (stav in modern Norwegian). Two related church building types also named for their structural elements, the post church and palisade church, are often also called 'stave churches'. Originally much more widespread, most of the surviving stave churches are in Norway.

Today was probably the prettiest day we have had since we arrived. Blue skies, sunny, and warm all day. Bergen generally gets rain 300 days a year - and we figure we have been here for 4 or 5 of the days it won't rain this year. It has been an awesome trip all around.

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Photos

Norwegian Fans
Enthusiastic always

And they dress up
We called these 2 Mother and Father Norway

Chantal Blaak
Women's Elite Road Race Champion

The Norwegian Salmon Industry was a Sponsor
We didn't eat any fish here - but we thought this was unusual

Slovakian Fans
Celebrating the Sagan victory

The Fortress Cantina
Having some coffee

Art Everywhere
Even on manhole covers