Family Trip: Norway (Bergen, a farm, and some amazing landscapes)

With a friendly troll on Mt. Floyen in Bergen

Kristine and I made a list of places we wanted to visit during our secondment in the UK.  We have mostly hit each of them (trips to Spain and Scotland are still to come).  Norway was a bit of a random find after after extending our stay gave us a chance to add more destinations.  We planned to go to Scotland in August until wiser friends pointed out that midges eat visitors to Scotland during late summer.  We decided to delay that trip until a more welcoming time of year.  Enter a passing comment from my mother that a friend of theirs from California who I'd known as a child was now living in Bergen, connecting with him via e-mail, and we had another trip with someone we knew at the other end.

I mentioned my stomach being in knots as we drove into the Birmingham airport.  Kristine kindly pointed out that despite the scars of the forgotten passport, all our other departures have been considerably less exciting.  In fact, she was right.  We had an enjoyable time in the airport waiting for our flight to leave.  No, I'm not joking about that.  Yes, the children's play area helped.  The SAS flights from Birmingham to Copenhagen, and then to Bergen went without hassle.  We even got our passports stamped at our connection in Copenhagen.  That adds Denmark to the list of countries we can legitimately claim to have visited.  We did have an adventure with lost teeth on the flight out.  Two daughters had loose teeth before we left the UK.  Somewhere they got the idea that the tooth fairy must pay in the currency of the country where the tooth comes out.  It made for fun conversation to debate what the currency would be if the tooth came out in the air (there are differing opinions on our household as to whether this means payment in the departing currency, arriving currency, or both).  Elise kindly avoided the problem by pulling her tooth out while our plane was on the runway in Copenhagen but before it had actually taken off.  Charis followed suit by pulling her tooth out a couple days later in Norway.  For the record, the tooth fairy kept up her end of the bargain.

Making splotches on a life-sized screen.

Digital graffiti with electronic spray-paint cans

I think these are AE2100 engines

They played cheerfully for the whole flight from Birmingham to Copenhagen

So did they

The farm

We stayed in a cottage on Skjerping Gard (farm), an AirBnb find on Osteroy - a large island about a half hour from Bergen.  It had several of the characteristics we've associated with favorite places to stay: quiet setting, lovely views, interesting cottage architecture.  It had several unique perks - most notedly the lambs that the owners let the girls feed, and the tunnels we had to drive through any time we went from Osteroy to the mainland.  The guide books mentioned the tunnels as feats of civil engineering.  This is true.  They did not mention the entertainment value of those tunnels for children riding in the car.

Our farm location on Osteroy

The bridge from the mainland onto Osteroy

One of the many fun tunnels we drove through

The roads are steep on Osteroy.  This requires a Land Rover.

Or two.

But not for visitors.  We got to drive this Volvo.

Our cottage had a grass roof, but no cow to keep it mowed

View from the farm

The cottage had nice large windows that provided light to knit

It had secluded nooks in which to curl up and read

The play area skyrocketed the cool factor

Daddy-daughter duet (recorder and dulcimer hammers)

Despite several rainy days, we had a couple chances to enjoy eating outside

Charis: "You can make friends with animals.  And it kind of shows how nature can be wonderful in different ways."

The rabbit, whom the girls named "Fluffy," was not as vocal as the lambs but equally happy to let them feed him 

Playing "hide from Daddy's phone" in the playhouse

Bergen 

We spent a couple days exploring Bergen.  One stop was at Gamle Bergen.  The museum is a collection of wooden houses that were moved out of Bergen city center and rebuilt to show what life in Bergen would have been like during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  The actors were in costume and character for the house they were in (one woman played a feisty photographer advocating jobs for women, and then later was a meek servant nervously letting us upstairs to see part of the home of her merchant master even though she wasn't supposed to).  They were all at least bilingual (maybe more) - flipping between Norwegian and English depending on the visitors.

Another tunnel - this one on the way to Bergen

Playing with antiques in the corner store

Attempted group photo #1 - scuppered by looking into the sun

Clerk's desk in the working area of one of the merchant's homes

A second stop was in in Bryggen.  Bryggen is the historical part of Bergen that dates to the city's founding in the 12th century and was a coastal center of commerce and trade for many centuries.  Eric and I took the girls to a medieval reenactment festival in the Bergenhus Fortress while Kristine and Marie shopped.

Curious-looking wood sculpture that's large enough to climb on and is mounted on springs.  What's not to like?

I think this was a contest to see who could shoot the farthest with their bow and arrow

Eric kindly played a game (or two or three) of Norwegian chess, called hnefatafl, with the girls

Archery lesson #1 - the bow is sized about right

Archery lesson #2 - it's getting a little big

Archery lesson #3 - child thinks she participates while adults do most of the work

Recorder and mandola - plus a couple other instruments added for show

When sisters fight

Attempted group photo #2

We took the Floibanen funicular railroad ride 320 m up Mt. Floyen.  It was an impressive ride up a steep gradient that provided lovely views of Bergen and the surrounding fjords.  The key was the playground at the top and the ice cream which a kind and gracious father bought for his daughters.

View down the track while climbing

Panorama of Bergen (note daughters in the foreground)

The real value of the trip - the playground

Traffic jam on the way down

A bit of a family milestone - we ate out as a family with Eric and Marie, and the girls played (mostly) cheerfully while we chatted

At the Bergen waterfront.  Bryggen is across and behind the girls.

This brass band kindly went on parade while we were eating lunch

Whale for sale in the fish market

This crab (and others like it) elicited several squeals from the girls

Statue in downtown Bergen

Walking from the fish market to the Kunstlab

Our last stop in Bergen was the Kunstlab, or Children's Art Museum.  Our art-loving friends from Indianapolis should be proud.  It was a Charis find.  She was looking over my shoulder as I browsed the Bergen pages in our copy of Lonely Planet's guide to Norway, and said "Daddy, there's a children's art museum!"  The museum had the standard fare that keeps Collins daughters busy and cheerful - paper and colored pencils.  It also had several things we hadn't expected that kept them even more busy and more cheerful.  Put hooks on a wall.  Then make stretchy bands of different lengths available and tell people who come to connect them through the hooks.  Now make a whole room with the same premise.  Or make an exhibition of art from children's literature.  Tell the adults that you're doing this because children's literature is almost always the first exposure that children get to serious art.  Then put small clues on a wall and ask children to find the clues dispersed through the rest of the exhibit.  Parents are impressed by the educational value of the exhibit, and girls spend a good hour searching for clues.  To be fair, they did require paternal help to find one of the last clues (my extremely clever eldest daughter who knows everything and is never wrong disputes the part of this sentence not between parenthesis).

It's a wall.  With hooks and elastic.  And it sparks creative expression (with associated poses).

The thrill of building in 3-D: trying to get out afterwards

Guidelines (and magnifying glasses) for the scavenger hunt that occupied the older girls for a good hour

Artists at work (or play)

To draw, or not to draw, that is the question.

Note the floating squirrel

Learning about primary and secondary colo(u)rs.  Or playing with the window.

Not sure why the looks of alarm.  Maybe the star on the wall to Elise's left.

Don't take the facial expressions too seriously. They were enjoying the goodies on the train from Bergen to Arna.

The goodies

Oleana

Kristine's browsing of Bryggen's shopping district exposed her to garments from Oleana.  Oleana's operating model is an interesting one in that they are very clear about insourcing textile production into Norway, making garments using Scandinavian designs, and maintaining a supply chain that is both sustainable and humane.  I found this all out while reading the book about Oleana as Kristine and the girls explored the actual Oleana products.  Cue the value of having someone who lives there and knows the ropes.  "Why don't you ask them if they have any discounted items at the factory?  It's about half way between Bergen and Osteroy, so you could get to it quite easily."  Not only did they have discounted items available, Oleana's philosophy includes an open factory that welcomes guests.  What more is needed to entice a visitor (and her family)?  To be fair, the people at the factory were very friendly and accommodating as we explored the different operations.  

Oleana is Norway's youngest textile factory.  It's in a restored warehouse of Norway's first textile mill, which ran from 1846 to 1978.

Almost everyone thought the knitting machine was interesting

In which the plethora of lovely knitted garments gives the mother (not pictured) rapturous, ecstatic delight.

One of the interesting (for Shawn), old knitting machines in the waiting area outside the shop

There was no sign about this wheel, but it gets a  photo because it's huge and old

I thought the scooter was cool.  The girls were a little worried it might be too small.

View of the fjord near Oleana

The bridge to Osteroy again

The fjord from the bridge

The hike

Our favorite hiking excursion was to a path on Osteroy called Kossdalsvegen (way of historical value).  It was built by hand, finished in 1897, and boasts 17 hairpin turns with a gradient of 27%.  On our first visit, Clare made it part way down before asking to turn around.  Kristine took the other girls the rest of the way to the bottom.  Which meant they also had to make it all the way back up to the car.  They did.  Boy, do things change with age and lots of practice walking.  On our second visit, Clare made it all the way down on her own.  She needed a ride for part of the way back up, but handled most of it on her own.

 

 

Hero pose at the bottom of the climb - in anticipation of making it back up

About half way back up - Clare is walking but wondering if she's there yet

Having received a piggyback ride, Clare is ready to keep walking

Norway in a nutshell

Our final major activity was the Norway in a Nutshell tour.  We rode the normal passenger train from Arna up into the mountains, changed to a steam train at Myrdal that took us down a very steep (yes, it's a theme) track to Flam, where we road a boat through the fjords to Gudvangen, then took a bus back up the (steep) mountains and caught the train from Voss back to Arna.  The transport experience had some interesting moments.  Tickets for each leg of the journey do not come with assigned (or guaranteed) seats.  So on the train you might be at the mercy of kind passengers moving to a different seat so that a parent and child can sit together.  And on the bus you might elbow your way to the front of the line when you realize the there are more people in line than there are seats on the bus.  And you might do this with no sympathy for the folks left standing on the sidewalk as your bus pulls away (in defense of my elbowing and to the credit of the bus company, they called a second bus that was pulling into Gudvangen as ours left).  It was a long day with lots of sitting looking at amazing scenery.  The girls were good sports. Charis and I counted tunnels that we went through between Arna and Myrdal. It was in the 60s.  Please forgive the lack of clever captions.  The scenery speaks for itself.

Here's the overview of Norway in a Nutshell

Here's our train from the platform in Arna.  Bergen is on the other side of the mountain through the tunnel.

Beautiful scenery without clever caption

Look - another tunnel!  Note the steam train in the foreground.

Find the girls please (don't pay attention to the scenery)

One of the unique things about Norway's landscape is how sharp the valleys and mountains are.  This is a good example.

The waterfall received excited comments from the girls.

As did the singing, dancing maiden in the mist

Redemption of the trip - there's a playground!

Hero pose in the redemptive playground

We think this mask is placed on the path to frighten young children.  It didn't work.

We think this water is there to get squeals about how cold it is.  That worked.

Clare was on a funny face roll during this walk

Knitted garments from Oleana (Kristine controlled herself admirably and did not buy any)

View of the steam train getting ready to climb the mountain as we left on the boat

Cheerful daughters on the boat

Tired daughter on the boat

Note the seagulls - they followed the boat from Flam, hoping someone would give them a treat

Charis - Mommy, water is kind of like a piece of art!  Oaks Academy and Harrison Center patrons everywhere cheer.

Water (again)

Even more water

Hey look!  It's water!

Time for a change of pace.  Under firm warning that ponies dropped overboard would receive no sympathy.

At Kristine's request, Elise decorated the picture of lovely landscape and (yet more) water

Off the boat, on the bus, imagining driving up this hill in winter (Shawn breathes a sigh of relief that we are driving down it in summer)

One more waterfall

 

And a sunset to greet us when we got back to the cottage

To sum up

Clare put it best: It was really good in Norway.

Dutch Blitz in the Bergen airport (despite claims to the contrary, I clearly won all games played)

SAS served decent coffee.  That deserves a photo.

The camera on the bottom of the plane that gave a live-action view kept the girls (or maybe their father) occupied during takeoff from Bergen and landing in Copenhagen.