Norway: Oslo and Bergen
The extraordinary Munch Museum on the Oslo waterfront.
2024 Norway
Last week of the TOUR!
After our lovely few days in Copenhagen, we packed up the car and took the ferry to Bornholm. I wrote a little bit about Bornholm in the last blog but in case you did not read that one, here is a quick recap:
Bornholm is a small, isolated island in the Baltic Sea, closer to Sweden than Denmark but part of Denmark. It is still completely unspoiled, with small fishing villages dotting the rugged coast. The village we stayed in, Sandvig, consists of just a few houses, many of them the traditional low roofed, half-timbered style painted bright mustard yellow or red, a handful of shops and some small, rustic hotels. We were fortunate to book a hotel apartment overlooking the pretty harbor. Although the room was quite comfortable, it was up three flights of outdoor metal staircases, that were scary to me with my fear of heights and poor depth perception. Getting up and down with luggage was not fun. Once again, I learned how incredibly careful one has to be when booking accommodation: I reviewed our confirmations and descriptions on the Booking .com site and found no mention whatsoever of the staircases which, had I known, would have been a dealbreaker. I should have checked “handicap accessible” which I usually do, but I think I was lulled into false confidence because the pictures looked like we were on the beach, at ground level.
Despite the logistical hiccup we enjoyed our two-night stay and then returned on the ferry to Copenhagen from where we drove to Gothenburg, in Sweden, for an overnight to break our journey to Oslo. Gothenburg turned out to be just awful; the weather was foul, with constant cold rain and blustery winds which precluded any sightseeing. The hotel, on the other hand, was quite a unique experience. It was decorated in a style that was incredibly over the top: a cross between a grand Belle Epoch palace and a bordello. Magenta red walls, every doorway swathed in taffeta and silk, nude statues of coy nymphets on every table- top and in every corner, leopard skin patterned upholstery, pinks and purples, potted palms, floral displays, and enough art nouveau décor to fill a warehouse. The male staff, apparently picked for their good looks, were attired in suits and female staff in black hose, frilly dresses and satin aprons! The staff were very pleasant, and the breakfast buffet, included in the room price, was vast and presented like a royal feast in a fairy tale. I don’t care to eat much more than a slice of toast in the morning, so it was all wasted on me.
We had a dinner there, which was served under a small glass roof, on the “terrace” while rain lashed the poor servers scurrying around. Other people were wearing their summer finery, clearly delighted to be “outside.” The next evening, unable to face another ridiculously elaborate, expensive meal, we dined on Kentucky Fried Chicken in our small room, grateful for once for ubiquitous American fast food, even in the heart of old Gothenburg.
The drive from Sweden to Norway was pretty, as we passed through idyllic, green pastoral farmland, gently rolling hills and as we got nearer to Oslo, we passed gigantic granite cliffs thrusting out of the ground, very stark and powerful. We drove through several tunnels carved out of the mountains.
Our apartment in Oslo was very pleasant; spacious with high ceilings, tall windows looking onto a beautiful leafy street lined with magnificent stately homes and 19th century apartment buildings. The Israeli, Spanish, British and German consulates were close by. We were very shocked to see graffiti saying “juden” on a corner in our neighborhood. Really chilling, given that Norway has a very ugly history of anti-semitism both during the war and for centuries before. There is a 30% immigrant population in Oslo (many from Somalia and other Moslem countries) so I had an uncomfortable feeling during our three days there. We did not see any anti-Israel or Palestinian support signs, although there was a large police presence outside the Israeli consulate.
Just one of many beautiful, ornate and elegant homes in our neighborhood in Oslo. I found the variety of decorative styles fascinating.
Oslo is a city famous for its innovative contemporary architecture, which is unlike anything we have seen elsewhere. The famous Opera House, the DeLoit tower, the Munch Museum and more are each unique. We spent a few hours at the Munch Museum: fifteen floors devoted to Edvard Munch, with a top floor where one can look out over the bay and see an incredible vista. Public opinion was mixed when it was completed, partly because the looming bulk of the building obscures the view of the harbor for some people. We saw several galleries of his work, which like most famous art, exceeds expectations when one sees it up close. The Scream, his most famous piece, is in a special gallery where it is shown together with a lithograph of the image and one of the earlier versions (like all his work, he repeated the themes many times over the years) Each piece, quite small, is shown for thirty minutes at a time, so people have to rotate in and out. We gave up on seeing the final “Scream” after an hour and contented ourselves with the other versions. One gets a sense of his incredible draughtsmanship, powerful portraiture, and the many intensely emotional, almost expressionist scenes he painted repeatedly of death and grieving.
Apartment buildings on the waterfront in Oslo
I took a short walking tour of “Old Oslo” and “New Oslo” where we saw the old Oslo, where the immigrant families have moved in and created a lively street scene of markets and small restaurants, as well as many mosques. One literally crosses the railway tracks to the New Oslo, over a stunning bridge, and then one is near the beautiful harbor and waterfront, dotted with bars and restaurants, gardens and lovely streetscaping. Despite the size and height of the new buildings, I found the street experience pleasant and comfortable, unlike many cities where the architects seem to lose sight of how it feels to be outside the buildings on the sidewalk.
New Oslo, called the "Barcode."
On our last day we flew to Bergen in the north and took a boat cruise to see the fjords. It was a very exhausting day, but the site of the fjords was worth it. We were fortunate to have clear, bright skies which made it quite magical.
These settlements are so remote and isolated that it is difficult to imagine life there year round. I imagine that many of the homes we saw are summer cabins. It is common for middle class people to own a home in the city and a summer cabin in the country.
The cost of living in Norway was a real shock. Breakfast for two, with juice, coffee, avocado toast and eggs benedict: $70. Cost of parking the car at the airport for the day, $60. A roll and coffee at a small coffee shop, $25. Hard to understand how people live, but Norway is one of the richest countries in the world due to North Sea oil and one has to assume that salaries are much higher than elsewhere in Europe.
In general, I found that in all the Scandinavian countries, bread features prominently in all meals. In Denmark the open faced sandwiches on display everywhere, the famous "smorrebrod," are works of art, almost too pretty to eat. Breakfast and lunch seemed to always be cold sandwiches, and I only saw one or two mentions of gluten free products in the week we were there, so gluten sensitive people would have quite a struggle to find anything to eat in restaurants. I also noticed the lack of fruit and vegetables: a full salad was very rare on menus, and we never had any vegetables with dinner other than French fries. This was surprising as the produce on display in the market in Copenhagen was wonderful.
Lots of bread, fish and potatoes in various combinations
I saw no noticeable fashions, perhaps because it is almost always cold and rainy people must bundle up in puffy coats and sneakers. I also saw very little “alternative” fashion; most young people were dressed conservatively, although people are very heavily tattooed. To my eyes, some of the allover body tattoos made people looks like another species entirely! We saw little obesity perhaps because most people cycle everywhere, parents with kids in carriers, older people, people with dogs in carriers. There are more bicycles in Denmark than people! Cyclists were respectful of pedestrians, unlike Amsterdam where the cyclists are terrifying, speeding in huge phalanxes without regard to pedestrians.
View from our cabin on the cruise back to Kiel
Waking at 4 am to see these breathtaking clouds over the ocean
From Oslo we took a ferry to Kiel in Germany, which was an overnight trip on a cruise ship, complete with restaurants, casino and very attractive décor. We had a beautifully appointed suite with views of the ever-changing skies, as well as some islands that we passed. We disembarked and drove through Bremen Germany, back to Amsterdam. Bremen was really unpleasant; the entire city seemed blighted. Their famous Medieval and Gothic architecture is dirty and uncared for, hemmed in by truly hideous, randomly placed buildings, some built right on top of once stately architecture. Both old and new buildings are coated in black grime, the streets are dirty, and even the one Starbucks in town was a mess and the server was very rude. The famous statue of the four musicians of Bremen, from the Grimm Brothers fairytales, is poorly placed in a corner of the market platz and is actually a rather bad sculpture in my opinion. The cat looks like a ferret. It was dissapointing and sad to see and we were glad to leave it behind us.
The "four musicians," the donkey, dog, cat and rooster.
Now we are back in Amsterdam for two days, and we fly home tomorrow, Monday 17th. It’s been an extraordinary adventure, and we are both grateful for the opportunity and for our good health throughout. Having a car was a big plus as we could throw luggage and extras into the back seat without battling to close suitcases or lug baggage on and off trains, buses and planes. Of course, we could not have done the trip without a car because I had my paintings to bring home. My rolled- up canvases are in a long sports bag, and I found a flat portfolio to hold my paintings that are on Masonite board. We will check both of those items at the airport on Monday and hopefully they will find their way back to Cary!
On this trip we saw almost no street people and certainly no tent encampments, both of which we saw a lot of in previous years. We did not see drunks on the street, or obviously mentally ill people, all of which one sees in cities in the US. Despite the influx of immigrants and refugees to Europe, society seems to function well at least from a tourist’s point of view. Service people are friendly and efficient, and no-one is tipped for service. I felt safe everywhere even in Spain where we had been warned about pickpockets.
Our most important advice to anyone planning to visit Europe, is to avoid June through August. The volume of tourists everywhere, as learly as mid May, is quite overwhelming. If traveling in Northern Europe, even France, take a couple of warm but lightweight sweaters that you can layer over t-shirts, a warm, water proof coat and only sturdy shoes. I didn't take out my one pair of sandals in the entire 10 weeks and I still have two unworn short sleeve tops, in the single roll-on suitcase I have used for this trip!
Looking forward to being back in sleepy, boring and sunny Cary!
Jillian
