It was somewhere mid-March when my mum found a site advertising a week-long tour in Norway. We'd done something similar in Scotland, when we visited the castles there. This is not what you imagine it to be- the tour meant that every day, we slept in a different city and visited different sites with the same group of people and tour guide. We were eager for adventure, and my mum, being parters with the firm organizing the trip, decided to go for it.
The plan was to get to Oslo from Germany, because we have a place to live in Baden-Baden. This was different from everyone else- the rest of the group was arriving in Olso on the same plane together from Moscow. Anyhow, we talked to the organisers it was agreed that we could get to Oslo ourselves.
Because we had such long trips on the bus, the tour guide used the opportunity to get us familiar with Norway. We learnt that only 3% of Norway can be used as land for living. It's a pretty expensive country too, because of extremely high taxes. Education is free. Norwegians are fiercely protective of their country and nature, and try to preserve as much as possible, preferring not to disturb natural spots at all. At the age of 14, kids are given a choice to either keep their religion or refuse it. All in all, Norwegians aren't religious at all, and in our week there, we only saw one church. The cities are pretty much all very small, and Norwegians' definition of a city is the same as ours for a village.
So:
Day 1, July 27: My mum, small brother and I got to Frankfurt Airport, feeling excited and not really knowing what to expect. For those of you who don't know me very well, I have an irrational fear of flying. This started after the 9/11 incident, but, funnily enough, it's not terrorists I'm afraid of, but airplane malfunctions. So, on the Lufthanza airplane, I was pretty worried- I don't trust any airline except Emirates. Well, as you can guess, we DID arrive (though I almost pissed myself on the take-off), to the small, unusual city of Oslo. I fell in love the first minute we got there. My mum and I observed that all Norwegians are blonde and the men are quite good-looking. They have an interesting language that seemed to be a mix of others, and their own ancient language. Because we got there pretty late at night, we didn't get a chance to explore. So, exhausted, we got to our hotel, which was located in the very centre of Oslo. We tried to sleep, but it was Saturday, and our window was very close to a noisy nightclub. It was a long night...
Day 2, July 28: Waking up early, breakfast at 8... and then looking for our guide. Being the freak that I am, I immediately starting thinking up all these scenrios where we don't find him, or he doesn't know about us, etc. But, everything was in our favour and we soon found him with the rest of the group, of about 45 people, all Russian. The guide was a Russian guy called Ruslan with very unusual eyes (changing colour from green to blue to a weird violet colour depending on the weather) and he turned out to be a very interesting person. The first day included a bus tour around Oslo, and then a trip to a city called Lillehammer, where the Winter Olympics once took place. It was surprisingly warm that day, and after a long drive to a small city called Otta, we spent the night at a hotel.
Day 3, July 29: Another early morning, and we made our way to the famous city Ålesund. Along the road we drove up through a valley to the top of a mountain, some surrounding it covered with ice. The drive to it was extremely narrow and windy, and, being on our massive bus, it was quite an exhilerating experience, especially when we met other gargantuan buses coming down the same way. After that, back on the bus, we finally saw our first fjord. The view was so unexpected and so much more beautiful than we anticipated, that there was a an audible gasp from the group. It was an unusual dark blue colour, a "river" (but not really) between mountains. We got onto a boat and sailed along the fjord, passing huge waterfalls, the most famous of them called "The 7 Sisters". When we were done with the cruise and finally got to Ålesund, we found a city that is mostly made up of little islands. It was typical Norwegian weather- rainy, cold, and windy. Nevertheless, it felt like a genuine Norwegian experience when we finally went to bed.
Day 4, July 30: The 4th day was mostly uneventful, filled with lots of driving on the bus on roads surrounded by beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers and fields. We saw the place in the sea where all the fjords start from and had a few absolutely heavenly strawberries. All in all, day 4 was mostly preparation for what was to come. We spent the night in a fishing city called Måløy.
Day 5, July 31: The 5th day was by far the most interesting, at least for me. On our programme it was written that we were going to visit a glacier. I sort of imagine it as white and flat, and that we'd walk around on it. I couldn't be more wrong. When we were about 3 kilometers away from the glacier, which was a massive block of ice wedged between two mountains, the road was narrow and on one side a huge lake a most unusual light blue colour. Waterfalls were everywhere. Closer to the glacier, a river flowed, also that unusual light colour. We were told that it had that colour because the water had melted from the glacier. We had to walk 1.5 km before an amazing sight opened in front of us- the glacier, a light blue colour, speckled with dust from the mountains, slanting down into another lake. It was so different from what we expected (and so cold) that we all stood frozen on the spot. Then we were told that we would get boats and drift up to it! And sure enough, using about 6 inflatible boats, we paddled to this giant. It was very, very cold and pieces of ice where floating around like icebergs. After half-an-hour of tedious paddling, my fingers numb, we got back the shore. Then we walked the whole 1.5 km back. By the time we got to the coffee shop and I had a steaming hot chocolate in my hands, I was absolutely exhausted. But, nothing comes easy... and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. That night we slept in a tiny city called Sogndal.
Day 6, August 1: On this day we visited the famous town Flåm. What is so remarkable about it? It's railway station. We got into a train on a one-hour route to Myrdal. The route itself is under protection by UNESCO for its beauty, and truly, the waterfalls, valleys and mountains we passed were breath-taking. The night we spent in a (relatively) large city Bergen, which was also my favourite one.
Day 7, August 2: Our last day on tour was also an interesting one, as we spent the first half exploring Bergen. This city is home to the composer Grieg, one of my few favourites, and we had the chance to visit his museum, which was located in the very house he lived. It was truly an experience, for Grieg, rather unusually, composed significt Norwegian music. It was obvious to me now where he got his inspiration from- the surrounding nature and people of Norway. Listening to his music, you'd always hear the love of his country in it. The day was also an unusual one because when we were travelling before on the bus, the landscape was usually high mountains, fast rivers, waterfalls, forests... now, we passed through a flat land that had few or no trees, with still lakes and many rocks and stones. This road was taking us to the ski village Geilo, which stood 800 m above sea level. That night we went on walks in this cold and windy place, and finally got to bed quite late.
Day 8, August 3: The final day, and we, feeling tired and fulfilled, got onto the bus for the last time to make our way to Oslo Airport. On the way, our guide, Ruslan, told us about the place he lived in- Panama! We heard about South America and he was so good at advertising that we decided our next destination will be Brazil.
And that was our busy, tiring, beautiful and fulfilling trip!
Photos part I
Photos part II
Photos part III
