Norway Neglected

Hor­rors.  After spend­ing two weeks in the coun­try, back in August, not a single word has been said. So — a major task here.

Ferry from New­castle to Stavanger / Ber­gen.  This is such a won­der­ful way to start a hol­i­day — yet appar­ently not enough of us do it so DFDS has stopped the route from Septem­ber.  There’s been a dir­ect ferry from the UK to Nor­way for at least 150 years so this is an his­toric dis­aster.  The voy­age from Stavanger to Ber­gen is a delight — weav­ing our huge ship between islands, look­ing down on people sit­ting on their ver­andahs, watch­ing the speed­boats leap­ing our wake, moun­tains in the dis­tance, with still some snow in hol­lows on the North side.

Ber­gen — and a taxi driver who couldn’t find an address on a street right in the middle of town, who couldn’t cer­tainly read a map and maybe couldn’t read.  But that aside, a nice flat just above the Floy­banen sta­tion, and imme­di­ately above the best cof­fee bar in the world.  It rained, as it does Ber­gen, but stayed fine for a con­cert at Grieg’s house — Nils Okland, violin and a young piano player whose name I did know at the time.  Grieg had the most mag­ni­fi­cent view from his house — west facing across a lake. The con­cert hall was set on a hill­side and behind the stage a huge glass win­dow gave onto a beau­ti­ful calm even­ing inlet of the lake. Magical. Music by Grieg, Olé Bull, and Okland.

Begen — Olso by Train. This is one of the great rail­way jour­neys of the world, a line con­struc­ted across the track­less wastes of the Hard­anger­vidda and not fin­ished until into the 20^th cen­tury. It winds up from sea level at Ber­gen, through Voss to the junc­tion with the pre­cip­it­ous Flams­bana at Myrdal and then over the top.  The trouble is that Nor­we­gian Rail­ways take the per­fectly under­stand­able view that it’s more import­ant to keep the trains run­ning than to provide dra­matic views. The res­ult is more snow tun­nels than one would like, and a par­tic­u­larly long tun­nel around the sum­mit at Finse.  So it’s tan­tal­ising glimpses of bleak upland, sedge, tiny lakes, and gla­ciers.  Sorry to be ungrate­ful, NSB !

Sel­jord.   The pur­pose of going to Nor­way was to see friends, and our daugh­ter.  After a couple of hours on Dram­men sta­tion (NSB really has not got its con­nec­tions right — in Ger­many the con­nec­tion would have been 6 minutes) we trav­elled on to our friends on the banks of Sel­jord lake.  High­lights were an open air con­cert in the rain by the very accom­plished Hard­anger fiddle player of the fam­ily, umbrel­las for per­formers, audi­ence in the rain in the yard of a beau­ti­ful old lakeside farm.  And then the art barn in Sel­jord — my favour­ite exhibit a very cross young woman smash­ing bottles on an end­lessly looped video. Trips through the moun­tains to the Dalen hotel (all wood) — still liv­ing in its glory days but tak­ing half an hour to pre­pare a simple salad.

Around Tons­berg.  Enjoy­able jour­ney by car to a vil­lage near Tons­berg, where our daugh­ter lives. A house in the middle of a forest of sil­ver birch.  Excur­sions from here to Tons­berg — ancient Hansa port — mod­ern glass lib­rary, most over­stuffed second-hand book­shop in the world. Then to Ver­dens Ende — a promon­tory stretch­ing into the Oslo fjord where there used to be a light­house — wind and rain, rain and wind — but very stim­u­lat­ing. Found a won­der­ful posh hotel that wouldn’t serve us cof­fee — but they did recom­mend a res­taur­ant in a small fish­ing vil­lage which proved to be excel­lent, if with a most eccent­ric selec­tion of music includ­ing hearty sea-shanties.

Oslo and the Jazz Fest­ival. Oslo weather was on its best beha­viour, so one could sit in the park on Karl Johann’s Gata and listen to New Orleans Jazz. Karin Krog and John Sur­man in the early even­ing — a delight to hear the grande dame of Nor­we­gian Jazz and to watch John Sur­man really enjoy­ing him­self as a back­ing musi­cian (with some solos, of course).  Later on, in a pub, the Ralph Alessi Quin­tet.  Too much waily waily sop­rano sax here — some nice phrases but no tunes, so not so much my cup of tea. Not my pint of beer too, at almost £6 a pint !  (And Tons­berg sta­tion charges you £1 for a pee). Next morn­ing time to see the new Opera House — lots of external inclined planes so you end up on the roof — great views over the fjord and har­bour.  Foyer res­taur­ant looked really tempt­ing but I really needed to go and sit in the Jazz café — so I did.

Stavanger.  So, by train to Stavanger (another hour at Dram­men on the way).  Woods and lakes — and some sea views on the final sec­tion.  Stavanger is a European City of Cul­ture this year but we were there on a Sunday so there wasn’t much cul­ture on offer.  We did want to go to the art museum but a bus driver didn’t want to take us and a taxi driver had to have some coach­ing to get him there. It was actu­ally only just over a mile from the har­bour so we walked back.  Real high­light was the Her­men­eutic Museum (fish can­ning) which revealed how massive the industry was in the 19^th and early 20^th cen­tur­ies, with exports all over the world and most of Stavanger engaged in the business.  

And so, back to New­castle. Apo­lo­gies to any where that feels left out.