Blogs from Western Norway, Norway, Europe - page 2

Today we left the glory of past Olympics in Lillehammer behind as Arpi guides the intrepid Insight Vacations Bus up the mountain road 4843 ft to the top of Mt Dalsnibba and the Geiranger Skywalk. But first we have to make a stop along the way. We left Lillehammer this morning at about 9:00AM following some unpronounceable river to Lom. Lom is a small town of 2200 residents known for having some phenomenal cinnamon rolls and for the Lom Stave Church. The Lom Stave Church dates back to the 12th century and is constructed entirely of wood and is one of the oldest remaining stave churches in Norway. Its unusual dark appearance is due to the fact that the exterior of stave churches are covered entirely with tar as a waterproofing agent and a preservative. Our ... read more

First: One item about Andalsnes. The second stop in our tour was for cake and coffee, but they had many Troll figures in various poses around the grounds. One of these figures (on a motorcycle) was included in the photos, but they weren't really explained in the text. Anyway, there were quite a few and this was just one example. Now for information about Skjolden. We had such a late excursion that there just wasn't time enough to write a proper description afterwards, so this is actually a day later. We did get some photos for your enjoyment. Our ship sailed in through the Sognefjord fjord and arrived at Skjolden at noon. We mentioned this fjord a few days ago, but now we have been to the longest navigable fjord in Europe. It took more than ... read more

First, we have another birthday to celebrate. Today is David's sister's birthday. Janel is still a couple of years behind him, but we know what that number really is. Anyway, Janel and her husband are celebrating in Mexico. Happy Birthday! Hello from Trondheim Norway. We sailed in to port this morning about 7:00. It was cloudy all morning and rained off and on throughout the morning. Luckily our excursion was scheduled during the afternoon, so we slept in until almost 9:00. Then we got up and went to the buffet for breakfast. By the time we went on our trip, the clouds had cleared and it was partly sunny with the temperature being around 65. We had a couple of questions about today's trip, so we tried but failed to find someone from Shore Excursions to ... read more

Welcome to Norway. This morning we docked in Haugesund as our first port of call in Norway. We know that we said we were going to have excursions in all but one of the ports but none of the tenders. Well this is the port we didn't have the excursion. And that was actually good. David has gotten over his head cold but seems to have given it to Janet. Since we did not have an excursion, we were able to spend most of the day in the cabin getting well for tomorrow. The ship arrived at 10:00 and David got a few pictures sailing into the harbor. Then he brought some breakfast back to the cabin for Janet. Later on he brought down some lunch as well, so Janet did not mingle with the others ... read more

Today was the day we went to Fauske to celebrate my Dad’s 78th birthday. Kristine was staying in Fauske at Eirik’s place. Shelley and I drove up to Fauske after enjoying a nice little breakfast at the hotel in Bodø. We made the drive up to Fauske which takes about an hour. Roughly another fifteen minutes to reach Eirik’s house. Shelley and I actually brought some laundry to do at Eirik‘s since the dryer at the hotel wasn’t working. That was nice of him to let us do this. We looked through some old photos, but then it was time to head out to my Uncle Jens Vidar and Tante Astrid’s house for a light lunch. Astrid had prepared some beautiful open-faced sandwiches for us to eat. We had these with coffee and enjoyed meeting “Booster” ... read more