Norway, 2014: Part I – Bergen – Sognefjord -Lærdal – Borgund
- by anna
- 19 August, 2014
Bergen
Bergen form above
The decision to go to Norway came as a second thought – initially, we were going to go to Sweden, where one of our children was based, but unforeseen circumstances meant that we were not going to be able to see him and his partner and we changed our mind, deciding to go to Norway instead.
Bergen and suroundings
The country had always been on our list of destinations to travel to, due to the fact that Chris had lived there for two years, teaching for the British Council and had lovely memories of that time. He had learned Norwegian as a result of living on a farm, while working in the local secondary school and wanted to go and see how things had changed 40 years later in the village where he was based. I had never been to Norway and also wanted to see the places, on which all the stories I have heard were based.
So, we landed in Oslo airport with a suitcase, full of bad-weather clothes, then took an internal flight to Bergen, where a couple of friends were already waiting for us! The decision to start from Bergen came as a result of the fact that it was situated between the Hardanger Fjord and Sognefjord, had a reputation of a beautiful town and this made it a convenient place to begin our tour.
Bweergen from above
The train going up
The weather, contrary to my expectation was as warm, as in Bulgaria – hats and sun lotion weather – temperature of 28C! We left the luggage in the hotel in Bergen – at about 7 pm and walked to the fish port, where we were hoping to find our friends. There was no fish port as such, but a lot of boats anchored at the fjord and a market, selling freshly prepared fish foods and Norwegian hats, cardigans, scarves, dolls and other tourist goodies. After we found each other, we had a fish meal – fantastically fresh fish, cooked in front of us and beer – all extremely expensive! We walked around the centre and the port – at about 10.30 pm, the sun was still in a position of 4-5 pm in Europe – a beautiful and slow sun-set, people were walking everywhere – an invigorating set up. However, we were tired and decided not to wait for the sun to come down and went back to the hotel.
Bergen form above
After breakfast on the next day we decided that the first thing we wanted to do was to get on the funicular railway and climb to the top of one the near-by seven mountains, from where the guide book promised us exciting views of the town and the fjord. We wanted to do this in the morning, so that the sun was at our backs, to accommodate photographs, but also so that is was not too hot. The funicular rail was a great fun, but the magnificent views form above took our breath away. We could see not only the city underneath us, but a large section of the fjord, and the hills of the seven mountains, surrounding it, beyond which other fjords could be seen meandering.
A lady troll
Having decided to come back on foot, we discovered the Troll Park in the vicinity of the road, where wooden Trolls were sculpted, painted and positioned in the woodland, possibly inparticular places, so that children could discover and play with them.
The spaces between the houses
The steep path ended in an old part of the town, full of wooden houses, beautifully painted in serene colours. We had lunch at the fish port again and then went to walk round Bryggen – the old Hanseatic Warf, to the right of the port, in the hot sun. Although houses were built there for 900 years, the present ones are from the 1700-ies, rebuilt after a fire.
The old houses of the Hansiatic port
The large wooden houses were attractively restored and painted in red, yellow and white and currently they are used mainly by shops, restaurants, pubs and coffee-shops. Took many pictures and then went back to the left side of the Fish market, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage list, to look at some of the fish shops. It was interesting to observe a great variety of fish, we don’t usually see in our shops.
Some of the fish available
In one of the restaurants we heard waiters, speaking Bulgarian to each other – one of them was from Burgas. In the market, most of the sellers appeared to be of foreign extraction. I spoke to a Spanish woman, from whom I bought a wooly hat, who said that she comes every summer here to sell. It seems that the 4 million Norwegian population need foreign help in the summer to cope with tourism!
Museum exhibits
In the afternoon we went to the Bergen Museum and enjoyed the collections of Church art, history and folk art – inevitably, I found great similarities between the motifs of their folk costumes with those of Bulgaria! Having massive quantities of wood and log nights in the winter, meant that the wooden artifacts produced were of great quality and very beautiful.
In the later afternoon, we walked round the centre, enjoying the good music played by buskers
Old houses in Bergen
and looked at the shop windows. We went back to the hotel for a little rest and decided to go to a bar in the town centre, called “The Library” in the evening, after supper – it opened at 8 pm. Not many clients were there immediately after opening – be bought a bottle of ordinary white wine to share at the price of 48 British pounds! Believe me – we enjoyed it! Also, we planned the next day, when we were going to get the car we had hired and move towards the next stop on our itinerary – Laerdal.
Here are some views form the Sognefjord and the mountins on the way to Laerdal:
Sognefjord
Waterfall
Lærdal and Borgund
We departed in the direction of Laerdal, with the view of first of all visiting the small village of Borgund, where we were wanted to view the famous Borgund Stave-church. On the way we passed by the Sognefjord and Flåm, but didn’t stop. We passed the largest Tunnel in Europe – 27 kilometres long and finally reached the Borgund Stave-church.
Borgund Stave-church
The church is made of wood, felled in the winter of 1180 and built at the time, when the Catholic Pope had established a separate Bishopric in Norway. Many other similar wooden churches existed in Europe, but they were all lost due to fire, wars, etc and from the 1000 Norwegian ones, only 28 stave-churches have survived to his day. Most of the others were built between 1130 and 1350. Other churches were not built – the assumption was that the plague epidemic killed all the travelling craftsmen, who were building these churches. However, the one in Borgund is the one with least alterations and the best example existing c
urrently.
We reached the Borgund Stave-church in the hot afternoon and looked around, also visiting the exhibition in the Tourist centre. It is an exceptional structure! Built with the know-how of the sea-faring Vikings, it is cleverly designed not to rot, despite the fact it was made of wood, as it rests on stone foundations, which prevent the rotting. Also, the wood is heavily tarred for protection. The inside is quite dark, as light can only enter through small and high port-holes. The side pillars of the gates have been decorated – wood-carved with vine leaves, mixed with dragons and sea-monsters; the roof is decorated with protruding dragon heads, similar to th
Borgund Stave-church – roof
e ones we have seen in Vietnamese, Thai and Laotian churches. On the top of the roof there is a turret with bells. The wooden tiles resemble dragon scales.
In the late afternoon, we returned to Laerdal, where we found the hut, we were going to stay the night. Leaving the luggage there, we went to the town to get some vegetables and fruit form the supermarket and to see the old part of it.
Laerdal is located on the south side of the Sognefjord in the county of Sogn. It has about 1000 to 2000 inhabitants and about 161 protected wooden buildings. The first thing, which struck me when we got to the centre was, how similar it was in architecture and appearance to any small American town. It appears that the Norwegians were one of the first settlers in America, whichaccounts for this similarity.
The old houses of Laerdal
Some of the houses in the old part of the town apparently date back to the mid-18th century. We were told that unfortunately, in January 2014, a large fire destroyed at least 30 of the old buildings. There were no signs of this now, 6 -7 months later – the old buildings were all nicely painted in lovely pale colours. The town was full of Japanese tourists. We enjoyed our walk though the attractive houses, lovely gardens with roses, flowers of all kinds and took many pictures. Later, after supper we took 
a walk on the side of the Sognefjord – the reflection of the light in the water was amazing!
Hotel in the old part of Laerdal
Sognefjord