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| Our cruise ship, the Havila Castor |
We wanted to go away for a week in August. Going south just means more crowds, so we wanted to go north. Neither of us has spent much time in Norway - I’d never been there at all. So that’s where we decided to go. After a lot of research, we worked with a travel organizer who set up a couple of nights in Oslo, then the classic “Norway in a Nutshell” journey to Bergen by train and ferry, stopping one night in the fjord at Flåm. Finally we would take a cruise along the coast from Bergen to the Arctic Circle.
It was a very enjoyable trip. Norway reminded us of Japan - very clean and correct, and it works. There seems to be a similar sense of shared social responsibility, putting society before the individual. We loved the dramatic scenery of the fjords and later the barren Arctic landscapes, with their occasional villages and hamlets. The cruise, on the Hurtigruten (coastal express) was really enjoyable and relaxing. We were incredibly lucky with the weather, with only one rainy afternoon. On our one night in the Arctic it was warm enough to sit outside without a coat even at midnight.
The only downside is that Norway is eye-wateringly expensive. A restaurant meal is two or three times more than it would be in France, and that goes for the other things we did too. Our French guidebook (Le Routard) warned us to have low expectations of food, but we ate great food throughout the trip.
Arrival in Oslo
To our surprise, there are direct flights from Nice to Oslo - lots of them, about six per day. Goodness knows who uses them. On our arrival in Oslo we ran into our first problem, which was a bit disconcerting, but it turned out to be the only one. The frequent express train into the city wasn’t running, due to a technical problem. But it was handled extremely well, with numerous guides ushering people onto a frequent bus replacement - electric, of course - which took us to the train station. We were impressed with how quickly this must all have been organized and how well it worked.
We made it into the city late in the afternoon, and set out to explore. I was a bit handicapped by a knee problem, which makes walking a long way difficult. Luckily we discovered the electric scooters which are ubiquitous there. A couple of minutes to install the necessary app on my phone and I was off, driving very slowly partly so Isabelle could keep up with me on foot, and partly because at any speed much higher than a walking pace, they are terrifying.
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| The Scooter Experience |
My scooter took me to the harbour area, with Isabelle following on foot. The seafront was full of people strolling, eating, drinking and watching the constant stream of ferries coming and going. It was warm enough that even the tiny beach was filled with scantily-clad people.
I’d had a couple of beers with dinner and didn’t fancy braving the scooter again, so we got a taxi. That was our introduction to Norwegian prices. The short ride, equivalent to about four stops on the bus, cost over €30.
Our hotel, the Clarion, was business-like, modern, and right by the station. The most striking feature was the breakfast, a giant room, packed with people, and a huge buffet. There was every kind of food, lots of fish, charcuterie and cheese, fruits and vegetables, all kinds of bread, pastries, cereals, etc. It was hard to choose.
Our package included a 24-hour “Oslo Pass”, which gives unlimited public transport, entrance to museums, and various other things. We activated that the next morning and used it to take a tram to the harbour so we could take a ferry to Bygdøy, an island (almost) with several museums. Public transport in Oslo is really excellent, there are trams that run every few minutes and a comprehensive bus system that is nearly as frequent, plus of course the ubiquitous scooters. The short ferry journey was very pleasant, admiring the city from the water, and the many, many boats including a couple of the giant cruise ships that we had studiously avoided.
The closest museum to the ferry terminal is the Fram Museum, which is all about Amundsen’s successful 1911 expedition to the South Pole. To our surprise we spent over three hours there. The centrepiece, literally and metaphorically, is the eponymous ship, around which the museum is built. The striking thing about the expedition is the amount of organization it took. If you got to the South Pole and discovered you didn’t have enough trouser buttons (the actual example Amundsen used), you were stuck. He spent two years organizing the trip before setting out, primarily making sure they had enough supplies.
The story of their journey to the pole is truly an astounding one, including the essential return journey. He was in a race with the British explorer Scott, who did get there a few days after him but famously failed to return, dying just 100 km from his ship.
Amundsen didn’t stop there though. He became fascinated by aviation, and in 1925 made an effort to reach the North Pole by plane. They set out with two Dornier Wal aircraft, N24 and N25, incredibly crude by modern standards with open cockpits - to fly in the Arctic! N24 had an engine failure and N25 managed an emergency landing close by. It took nearly four weeks to hack out of the ice a runway long enough to take off, the crews of both planes living in N25 and surviving on rations that were intended for a much shorter journey. Finally they took off, massively overloaded, barely managing to climb over the surrounding terrain.
You don’t have to imagine this, because the museum has a simulator that re-enacts it, including the takeoff. The seats are animated and bounce around as you careen down the improvised runway then fly terrifyingly close to the hostile terrain.
Sadly Amundsen died in 1928, at the age of 55, when his plane disappeared on a rescue mission trying to find some other explorers. His whole life story is extraordinary and truly amazing.
In the evening we visited my friend Ole at his house in a chic suburb, where he and his family fed us some excellent roast moose and generally entertained us. It was a very pleasant evening. Horrified by the price of taxis, we took the bus both ways, which worked very well and didn’t even cost anything thanks to our Oslo Pass.
To The Fjords
The next morning saw us on a Bergen-bound train at 0812. Early mornings seemed to be a feature of this trip. For five hours we had magnificent views of the green countryside, with lakes, mountains, pine forests and everywhere red houses surrounded by mauve flowers.
At a station high in the mountains we changed onto the Flåmsbana, a separate train which drops dramatically from nearly 900 metres to sea level at its terminus, in just 20 km. It is the steepest adhesion (i.e. not rack) railway in Europe. The views as it descends are spectacular, with numerous waterfalls, and complicated spiral tunnels dug by hand in the 1930s. It feels strange to start so high in the mountains, and finish at sea level after such a short distance.
The town of Flåm sits at the end of Aurlandfjord, which is a branch of one of the most famous of all of them, Sognefjord. There isn’t a lot there: a handful of small hotels, the train station and an associated museum, and several tourist-oriented gift shops. While the big cruise ships are in port they are packed - mostly with Chinese tourists while we were there. Then the hordes return to their ships, the shops are deserted, and soon after they are shuttered closed. Our trip included a bus ride up the side of the fjord to Steingasten, an improbable giant concrete platform with magnificent views across the whole area. We saw a small boat carrying a bunch of survival-suited passengers, and found its origin, a company called Fjord Safari - and became two of the survival-suited passengers ourselves. We spent a couple of hours admiring the fjord from water level, which was fascinating. Flat land is rare in most of Norway, so when people found some, they made the most of it. We were shown one farm, high up on the cliffside of the fjord with a little flat, but steep, land around it. The guide explained that it is called “stigen”, Norwegian for ladder, because the only access from the water involved climbing a ladder up a sheer cliff. The latest owner has blasted a steep, narrow path to replace the ladder, but it is still a couple of hundred metres up the side of a cliff, with the only access being from the water. Amazingly, the property is still in use, and has even been used for a wedding. It’s really hard to imagine, nowadays, the life of the farmer, carrying all his supplies up the ladder, including presumably the building materials that the house and barn are made of. Apparently they paid no taxes, because whenever the tax inspector came round, they just pulled up the ladder. Later on we saw several more farms like this, perched precariously half way up a cliff, with no apparent means of reaching them either from above or from below. Many of them look in good shape and are probably still in use, though maybe no longer as active farms. The following afternoon we embarked on the ferry ride from Flåm to Bergen, out along the Sognefjord and then southwards down the coast. There are ferries everywhere - the fjords are wide and penetrate a long way inland, so bridges are rarely practical. The coastal roads involve frequent ferry crossings, and there are many islands which at least until recently could only be reached that way. Now, many of them are linked by a series of bridges, made possible by Norway’s new-found wealth as an oil exporter. Our ferry was fast, cruising at 30 knots. Even so the journey took five hours, initially through the spectacular fjords - Sognefjord is a UNESCO world heritage site. Eventually it reaches the sea, threading its way between tiny islands, sometimes via passages that are barely wider than the boat. We were very lucky to spot some people leaving the boat at one of its early stops, vacating the very best seats at the front. Some quick footwork gave us a magnificent view of all this in the beautiful evening light. Five hours sounds a long time but I never even opened the book I had with me.
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Bergen
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Bergen is renowned as the wettest town in Europe. Miraculously, during our two days there it was sunny - I even got a touch of sunburn. For centuries it was one of the principal towns of the Hanseatic League, the international trading organisation that dominated marine commerce in northern Europe. The waterfront consists entirely of buildings from that epoch, painted in bright colours and also a UNESCO world heritage site. Our hotel was nestled among these, an old and very characterful wooden building. Before we even got there, we passed through an incredible fish market, packed with every kind of fish imaginable including some crabs that put the Alaskan king crabs to shame, with enormous legs over 60 cm long. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to buy everything you can see, though sadly there wouldn’t be much point for us. The Hanseatic area is entirely given over to tourism. We visited the cathedral there, and did a guided tour which explained the daily life of the young apprentices to the League. Summary: it wasn't much fun. The old town of Bergen is in a narrow, steep valley. Later development has gone up the valley slopes, and there is a funicular that goes from a few yards behind our hotel, to the top of the ridge. We even had a ticket for it in our collections of vouchers and whatnot, so up we went. The cafe and bar at the top was packed, as people enjoyed the spectacular view over the harbour and the city. We joined them, and Isabelle even walked down the twisty path back to town, wandering through narrow streets that haven’t changed in centuries. Diner that night was at the Enshjørningen (Unicorn) fish restaurant, reputed to be one of the best in Bergen. It was very good, but like all eating in Norway, eye-wateringly expensive. Most of the time in Norway we drank beer, but at such a chic restaurant we felt obliged to drink Chablis - which was very good, though didn’t help at all with the bill. The next day was our departure on the cruise, but that didn’t leave until the evening. We walked - well, I scootered - to the Kode Museum, which contains many works by Norwegian artists, including a section dedicated to Edward Munch, of “The Scream” fame. It showed his progression from enjoyable, strictly pictorial work through to his more surreal works, called “expressionism”, leading via some enjoyable pictures to the universally-known but challenging “The Scream”. There were many other works showing Norwegian life, which we really enjoyed. Isabelle particularly liked Nikolai Astrup, which she found full of poetry. We’d noticed a seaplane flying very low over the town, and a bit of Googling showed that there is a seaplane doing “trips round the bay” from the harbour. We managed to get a booking, and spent an interesting half hour flying into the fjords and then a tour of Bergen itself, in a Cessna 206 on floats. From there a taxi took us directly to the cruise terminal.
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The Cruise
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| What I thought our ship would be like |
The cruise route is still called Hurtigruten, which translates roughly as “coastal express”. It has been running since 1893, when it was launched as a way to connect all the remote coastal towns and villages with rest of Norway. It runs from Bergen in the south all the way up and round the Norwegian coast to Kirkenes, a few kilometres from the Russian border, taking 6 days and making about 30 stops. I envisaged a kind of coastal tramp steamer with half a dozen cabins for the intrepid, a bit like the picture on the right - the MS Salten which indeed did operate the Hurtigruten during the 1950s.
I was wrong. Our boat, the Havila Castor, was very modern and very luxurious. Our cabin was like a decent-sized hotel room, with its own bathroom, a good sized bed and a window giving us a view of the passing coastline. A restaurant served three meals a day, with table service rather than the buffet which seems to be universal on cruises. The food was excellent. At the front of the topmost level was a bar with huge windows looking forward and sideways. For the intrepid, a terrace ran all round the outside of the boat, perfect for taking pictures or just enjoying the sea air. We were incredibly lucky with the weather - it was never too cold or wet to stand or sit outside, though sometimes it was a bit windy.
As we sailed away through the night we couldn’t help noticing the navigation lights. Seen in daylight these are like miniature lighthouses, a couple of metres tall and perched on rocky outcrops or the tips of islands. What struck us was the way they change colour at night, going from red to green to white and back to red as we progressed. Thanks to openseamap.org and some googling, we understood. They don’t actually change colour, they shine in different colours at different angles, a bit like a water-borne VOR (aerial navigation beacon). The picture shows the first one that got our attention. The dashed blue line is the boat’s course, so the lights shows red, green. white, green red as the boat sails along.
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Even at midnight it wasn’t dark. Finally we persuaded ourselves to go to bed. When we awoke in the morning, it was delightful to watch the coast passing by the window. Later, the boat passed into Geiranger Fjord, very narrow and steep and another UNESCO world heritage site. The sides are near vertical, yet once again there are farms with their white houses and red barns perched way up on the cliffside, often with no visible means of approach from either above or below. While few of them are still active farms, they are mostly still in use as second homes. They must be very fit, the Norwegians. At Geiranger we had elected to take an excursion. We were duly herded off the ship and onto a bus. This was the only time when it got a bit claustrophobic, all packed into a small space in the bowels of the ship waiting for a tender to join up with it and take us ashore. The goal was to see the magnificent views from the mountain roads, including the famous Trollstigen (Troll road - the Norwegians are very fond of trolls) with its eleven hairpin bends, pretty challenging in a bus. Unfortunately though, this was the one day when we had bad weather - really bad. As soon as we got high enough to have a view of anything, we were inside the cloud. We spent the afternoon being told about the magnificent views we would have - if only we could see anything at all - by a very friendly Italian guide whose French was as badly mangled as his English. We would rejoin the ship later in the day after it had made its way northwards to Molde, the city of roses. The mild climate means that roses grow readily, and every building in the town is surrounded by thousands of them, and even the roof of the city hall. We stopped at the town of Åndalsnes on the way for dinner. A brand new funicular took us to the top of a mountain, where a very light meal was served in the restaurant. As you may have guessed, we could see absolutely nothing at all. The bus ride was interesting though, enjoying the Norway coastal road experience, with a couple of ferries and a huge new bridge and tunnel in the 140 km drive. Our next excursion was at Trondheim, where the ship stopped for three hours. The city used to have a tram system, but in 1980, like many places, they abandoned it. The longest line, which is more like a suburban railway, was taken over by enthusiasts. They did such a good job that later, it was bought out by a private company and now runs a regular tram service. In cooperation with the tram museum half way along the line, they also operate vintage trams as private charters, which is what we did. Our tram was built in 1958 and steadily rattled its way along the line, showing us the suburbs that rise on the hills above Trondheim. Back in the city, we stopped at the cathedral. Unlike southern Europe, Norwegian churches are very austere, with very little decoration. This is the most famous cathedral in Norway, huge and built from grey stone in an elaborate Gothic style. Among the numerous altars, there is one to the Sami people, the eskimo-like natives of northern Norway. The organ is absolutely amazing, I would love to hear it played, with pipes long enough to make your bones rattle. That one is quite recent, but there is one from 1793 as well. It’s beautiful, but it’s not clear whether it ever gets played. North of Trondheim the boat wiggles its way through a tiny passage between the islands near Stokkøya. It’s an amazing feat of precise navigation - they only do it in perfect weather. At times the passage is barely wider than the boat, and the navigable channel surely even narrower. The boat has a relatively shallow draft, about 5 metres, but you have to know where that depth is. I had the chance of a brief conversation with the captain. The boat has an autopilot, every bit as capable as on a plane. But he explained to me that where things are delicate, everything is done by hand. |
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The Arctic Circle
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| Crossing the Arctic Circle at 66° 33' N |
Nothing dramatic happens when you cross it, of course. The sun doesn’t suddenly spring out. In fact, we were a couple of weeks late for “midnight sun” as these relatively southerly latitudes, but the night never gets dark. In winter it’s the opposite, and for several weeks the sun is never seen and it never really gets light. This doesn’t deter the courageous Hurtigruten - our boat and its ten companions make the journey day in, day out, summer and winter, light or dark and regardless of rough seas and storms.
By then it was time for breakfast, celebrated with champagne. Afterwards there was a deck celebration for the winner of the sweepstake, and then an ancient tradition (recently invented, we suspect) of having ice poured down your back by a mythical snow monster. We didn’t volunteer.
Our next call was at the arctic town of Bodø. We’d discovered that it is home to Norway’s principal aviation museum, so we arranged for a freelance excursion to see it.
Surprisingly, that was not one of the tours offered by the ship. It seems odd for the museum to be there rather than Oslo, but there is history behind it. During the Cold War, Bodø was a forward base for the U2 spy planes that flew at extreme altitudes over Russia. Bodø was Gary Powers’ destination when his U2 was shot down over Russia in 1962, creating a major diplomatic incident.
The museum has lots of aircraft, military in one wing, including a U2, and civilian in the other. The civilian part also includes the history of civil aviation in Norway, including a huge-looking Junkers three-engine floatplane - though in reality it is tiny compared to modern airliners.
From Bodø we set sail for the Lofoten Islands. This was the only part of the voyage that was how I’d imagined it, cutting an angle across the open sea with little to see on either side. I even managed to read a few pages of the book which I had been carrying round unopened since our arrival at Oslo airport. Our first stop was at the tiny port of Stamsund, where we got to see - one more time - the incredibly slick procedure at these ten-minute stopovers. First, a little door opens way up on the bow. As the ship approaches the quay, a sailor throws out a ball attached to a line, which in turn is attached to the thick mooring ropes. A quay-hand pulls the line and prepares to tie them up. Meanwhile the two ramps that will give access to the ship start to emerge through giant doors that have already opened. By the time the ship is close, they are fully extended. The movement of the boat is exquisitely controlled, so that 16,000 tons of boat come to a halt millimetres before touching the edge. Then the ramps are lowered to reach the ground. Instantly a little fork-lift appears from a corner somewhere to drive up and down the rear cargo ramp, loading and unloading a few palettes. Then the few disembarking passengers emerge, trundling suitcases. Often they are welcomed with big hugs by their friends and relations waiting on the quay. Meanwhile other little groups start to break up, with tearful farewells and waves as one or two people leave the others behind. And then, just a few minutes later, everything goes into reverse. The mooring ropes are released and pulled back into the boat, and the ramps are lifted clear of the ground. As soon as that is done, powerful thrusters move the boat away from the quayside and the ramps start to retract back into the boat. Often this is followed by a complex manouevre to extract the ship from the confines of the port and turn it around to leave in the opposite direction. At the smallest ports the whole process, from beginning to end, takes less than ten minutes. In nice weather it’s a pleasure to watch. In the depths of winter it may be nicer to stay inside in the bar. And all this happens a total of 34 times on the six-day voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes. |
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Lofoten Islands and Svolvaer
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The Lofoten Islands are famous for their beautiful rugged scenery. The final part of our journey was to Svolvaer, considered to be the capital of the islands. The town isn’t very interesting, consisting mainly of hotels, but it is the capital and tourism centre of the islands. A taxi took us to our hotel on a tiny island. Unlike the modern structures close to the quay it was very charming, consisting of wooden cabins painted the dark red of the barns and fishermen’s cabins we had seen all along the journey. We’d eaten dinner on the boat, but there was a pub close by for a final drink. Although we had missed the midnight sun, it never got dark. At midnight the tables outside were packed with lightly-dressed visitors making the most of the exceptionally warm weather. The island was directly opposite the quay, with a great view of our ship - though it was no longer our home (sniff). It had to wait for a long time, because there were excursions that had started at the previous port so it had to wait for the small boats and the buses to arrive. Eventually we were able to watch it manouevre its way out of the very tight space in the harbour, simultaneously distancing itself from the quayside and turning through 180 degrees before departing even further north, eventually to arrive at Kirkenes three days later. In fact our itinerary didn’t really show us anything of the Lofoten Islands. We’d considered trying to extend by a day and disembark at Tromsø, the next major stop. But it would have been too complicated as a last minute change. That will be for next time - we already have it worked out. Fly to Svolvaer, rent a car and explore Lofoten by road, take a boat ride to yet another exceptional fjord, Trollfjord, then take the Hurtigruten to its northern terminus. Next year, maybe. All that was left was to fly home. A taxi took us to the tiny Svolvaer airport the next morning, where a 39-seat DHC8 turboprop showed up to take us to Oslo. With them, the company Widerøe runs a complex network of short flights to tiny airports on islands and in isolated towns all over Norway, the modern equivalent of the Hurtigruten's mission in 1893. But Widerøe's origins were very different. Mr Widerøe started his aviation career in the 1930s taking pictures of Norway's numerous isolated farms and homesteads, and selling them to the proud owners. Only after the war, he moved into carrying people. Our flight was mostly over the centre of the country, and while clouds obscured a lot of the view, there really isn't much there except mountains, more mountains and the occasional glacier - certainly no farms or people. At Oslo our connecting flight too us back home. Good bye Norway, we liked you a lot. We'll be back.
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