Norway is the most mountainous and probably the most prosperous of the Scandinavian countries. It is about half the size of the state of Texas in area. It is a very long country. For a comparison, if you were to place the northern tip of Norway at Chicago, the southernmost point would touch the Texas border south of Houston! Norway is also noted for its Viking heritage.

Our first stop here was the capital city of Oslo where about 1 in 5 Norwegians live. One of the highlights in Oslo was a visit to Vigeland Sculpturer Park. In 1921 the Norwegian sculptor, Gustav Vigeland, made a deal with the city. In return for a great studio and state support, he would spend his creative life beautifying Oslo with this sculputure garden. From 1924 until his death in 1943 he worked on-site designing 192 bronze and granite statue groupings - 600 figures in all, each nude and unique. The general themes revolve around the cycle of life and human interactions. The Oslo opera house has a modern architecture with a roof that one can climb up to and walk around. Barb and I found that to be a fun adventure and have several photos we took from there.

From Oslo we drove north to Lillehammer where we went to the Maihaugen Open-air Folk Museum. The museum has a collection of about 200 buildings. Some of our time here was participating in local life as if we were school children and attending a church. An excellent guide was our “teacher” for this exercise. It was an instructive and fun way to get the flavor of life “back then”. We were all glad it was all pretend! We then continued into the mountains, making a short visit to Heidal Ysteri, a cheese making operation in the village of Heidal. Here they make the traditional Norwegian brown cheese. We have only encountered that cheese in Norway, and usually at breakfast. Our drive then continued to our overnight stay at a delightful family run lodge.

From there our journey took us through very scenic, snow covered, mountains down to the famous fjords and the coastal city of Bergen. Part of that journey was on a ship on a fjord.

Bergen lived up to its reputation of a rainy coastal city. Bergen averages 80 inches of annual rainfall. Oslo averages only 30 inches by comparison. Bergen is rich in shipping heritage with a relatively small, and touristy, central area.

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