Joanna’s trip to Norway is full of memories, of Bergen and more
The panorama above shows the city of Bergen, taken from the top of the Fløien hill which is reached by a funicular railway. Bergen residents will tell you, with some pride, that it rains there every day. But, as you can see from my pic, it wasn’t raining while we were up at Fløien. It did rain later, though, so the Bergen residents were right.
Fløien is a great spot for viewing the city of Bergen. You can see everything. So loads of tourists go up there on the funicular.
My images of it aren’t great, but this is the passing place in the middle, where the up car balances out the down car on the right of my pic. For the rest of the trip, there is only one set of rails. And if you look closely, you can just about make out the cogs between the rails since it’s very steep.
It felt like we were going up and down at an angle of about 45°. There were railings dividing off sections inside the car so that we didn’t topple into other standing passengers. Very practical, these Norwegians.
Troll at Fløien above Bergen
And of course there is an enormous troll at the top.
The tourist in the background gives you an idea of just how big he was. As I said in my last Norway post, many people had selfies with him but I wasn’t one of them.
Spoilsport, eh?
You can also see how verdant the scenery is up there. Full of majestic trees, as is much of Norway. Locals were up there exercising in the forest, often with their dogs.
There are lots of similarities between Norway and my native Scotland. Lots of lochs/fjords. Lots of mountains, though Norway’s are higher than Scotland’s because they’re a fair bit younger.
This image made me smile. I remember just such a signpost at John O’Groats.
You might need to [click to] enlarge it to read the various destinations. But to save you the trouble, the sign says that the South Pole is 16,700 kms from Bergen. The North Pole is a lot closer, at 3,304 kms. And Rome is a mere 2,117 kms. Easy peasy.
Bergen’s links with Scotland
This is Bergenhus, a medieval fortress dating from the 13th century.
Bergenhus was, at one stage, the royal residence when Bergen was the capital of Norway. The grey building on the left is Haakon’s Hall (Håkonshallen) built for the wedding of the King in 1261. Our guide told us that, at the time, there were no skilled stonemasons in Norway, since everything was built of wood. So King Magnus Håkonsson brought in masons from Scotland to build his great stone hall in Bergen, using materials also imported from Scotland. The magnificent interior of the hall is shown below, though the roof is not original.
I don’t know if the Scottish story is true. And it’s not what Wikipedia says. But there was certainly plenty of fine grey stone on the east coast of Scotland that could have been used. Aberdeen isn’t called The Granite City for nothing. And it still has strong links to Norway, especially to Stavanger, Norway’s oil capital.
Rosenkrantz not Guildenstern
The grey building on the right of the Bergenhus is the Rosenkrantz Tower. (You’ll remember the name Rosenkrantz, I’m sure, from Hamlet. But this tower isn’t named after the Shakespearean character, I’m sad to say. Nor is there a Guildenstern Tower.)
The tower is later than Haakon’s Hall. It has a 13th century base, but most of it was built in the 16th century for the then Governor of the Fortress whose name was, ahem, Rosenkrantz. Apparently there were a lot of them about among the Danish nobility.
There was originally a royal apartment at the top of the Tower, but it was later used for purely defensive purposes. That’s obvious from the fact that there are almost no windows at the lower levels. It was used as a gunpowder magazine right up until the 1930s.
Nowadays, the Bergenhus is under the command of the Royal Norwegian Navy which still has personnel based there, though the Hall and the Tower are administered by the Bergen City Museum. It is all open to the public and used for large events, like concerts and grand dinners. That interior looks just right for a glittering royal banquet, doesn’t it?
Waterfalls have stories too
Norway has masses of waterfalls, many of them absolutely stunning. I note that, when cruise lines are advertising Norway cruises, it’s usually a waterfall that they feature. In the first episode of this Norway blog, I featured a whisky waterfall. Better than we have in Scotland, I think? At least, I don’t know of one.
This is the glorious Vøringsfossen waterfall. It’s a great tourist attraction, partly because visitors can get above it and have a wonderful view. My picture doesn’t really give a sense of scale but the total drop is 182 metres (just under 600 feet in old money).
It’s quite high up in the mountains and was pretty inaccessible until the 19th century. But then tourists started to visit, travelling on horseback.
An enterprising Norwegian called Ola Garen decided to build a hotel there, the Fossli. Quite an undertaking as there was no road to get there. All the construction materials had to be carried up to the site. Shorter planks could be carried by pack animals but longer ones had to be carried up by men. Along with almost everything else.
But Garen was determined. And he succeeded.
The Fossli hotel opened in 1891 and this is what it looked like then. Doesn’t look like much, does it? But this is how it looks now, as shown on the hotel’s own website. The location is amazing, isn’t it?
Norway’s national composer, Edvard Grieg, stayed at the Fossli Hotel and composed there, too. The hotel still has the piano he used.
Green roofs at Fossli and elsewhere
Lots of buildings in Norway have green roofs. They are eco-friendly, but they have to be maintained. Usually they are mown. Or animals like goats are put up there to chew on them.
It’s not a good idea to let green roofs get out of hand, we were told, because then you get invasions of trees and the like. I’m afraid the one on the little shed in the grounds of the Fossli Hotel had definitely got out of hand.
Christmas trees on the roof, anyone? (But I think they’re rather endearing.)
Below is a rather more civilised green roof on a building in Ulvik (in another side arm of the Hardanger fjord). Ulvik has a microclimate that’s ideal for growing apples and orchards are everywhere.
What you see is actually built into the side of the hill. It is the “cellar” at the apple and cider farm we visited. The way it’s built keeps the inside temperature constant and ideal for maturing barrels of spirits like cider brandy. The flat-roofed section houses the still; the vaulted-roofed section houses the barrels, as you can see.
The apple brandy was delicious but, sadly, it was not possible to buy any from the farm, nor any of their liqueurs. Those are available to buy only from Government-run liquor stores. In fact, it’s only relatively recently that the farm has been permitted to sell even its cider to tourists like me. I had the impression that Norway is a very law-abiding country in that regard. (Though it wasn’t, apparently, in the days of the whisky waterfall.)
Ulvik’s amazing location
This is the fantastic view from the apple/cider farm, looking down across Ulvik bay. If you look hard, you can see a white cruise ship out there, waiting for the tourists (including me) to return for lunch. Most of us (also including me) were carrying bottles of cider or apple juice or both.
Yet another waterfall?
It was a long bus ride to get to the waterfall of Tvindefossen. At 116 metres high, it’s not one of the highest of Norway’s waterfalls but it is much visited by tourists.
And it is rather splendid, as I hope you’ll agree. The name suggests twin falls and you can see why.
But that’s not why thousands of tourists visit it. Or so we were told.
Sometime in the late 20th century, the waterfall gained a reputation for reviving sexual potency in those who drank its waters. And guess what? Lots of tourists began arriving to fill containers with the rejuvenating water. And they still do, in their hundreds of thousands. There no such thing as bad PR, is there?
Our Norwegian guide was very canny. Since she didn’t want a delay, she didn’t tell us about the supposedly potent waters of Tvindefossen until after we were on the bus and on the way back to our ship. Mind you, ours was a Saga cruise, so everyone was at least 50 years old. Does that make it more or less likely that the passengers would want to sample the waters of Tvindefossen??
I couldn’t possibly comment…
PS A request. The cover of our new anthology, Hauntings at the Black Cat Inn, has been listed on the AllAuthor website for Cover of the Month for October.
If you like the cover, could you please go to the AllAuthor website here and register a vote for it? There are three rounds of voting before a winner emerges.
We’d really love it if we could win. And your votes might make all the difference. You can even vote anonymously if you want…
Fascinating place, Joanna. Shame about the rain!
Yes, it is fascinating. And it rained less than on our previous visit.