Joanna is just back from a trip to Norway where she found trolls and more…
I’m just back from a seven-day cruise to Norway. I’d been before, back in 2016, but this cruise called at different places, mostly. You may remember my pet troll, Olaf, brought back from my previous trip.
And yes, there were trolls this time, but fewer than last time. This one lives at Fløien, overlooking Bergen, at the top of the funicular railway. He’s big enough to embrace tourists for selfies.
And no, there isn’t one of me with him. Selfies are not my bag.
Starting in Stavanger
We started in Stavanger which is a gorgeous little city.
Norway was still in mourning for their late king, Harald V, so all the flags were flying at half-mast. It was a restrained type of mourning, I thought. (And the King’s funeral, a few days ago, confirmed that opinion for me.)
Outside the cathedral in Stavanger, we saw heaps of flowers, laid in honour of him. He was much loved, we were told.
(This pic was taken from a moving bus so isn’t great. Apologies for that.)
Our guide in the bus was a Scot, living permanently with her family in Stavanger, and she had nothing but praise for the city as a place to live. It certainly looked great. If you like waterfront living, preferably with your own boat, this looks ideal, I’d have said.
It is, of course, all very well kept. Norway, these days, is a very rich country. It has a lot of oil which is exported because almost all Norway’s electricity comes from hydropower. Stavanger is Norway’s oil capital.
The revenues from the oil exports go into Norway’s sovereign wealth fund which has grown to an enormous scale, over US$2.2 trillion. To put that in context, it’s over US$390,000 per Norwegian.
Coming from a country and a county with potholes everywhere, I didn’t notice any at all on Norwegian roads. But then, I’d say the UK squandered the revenues from North Sea Oil in a way that Norway did not. You may not agree on that, of course.
Stavanger’s history
Stavanger is an interesting mix of architectural styles. Many of the older houses remind me of the Hanseatic League houses. The ones shown here were on the harbour side, right next to where our ship had docked. The merchants used those big central windows to lift cargoes up into the house/warehouse. If you look at the very narrow house on the left, you can see that the windows are more door-sized than window-sized. And in the image of Stavanger’s harbour, above, you can see a similar Hansa-style building in the middle of the more modern ones.
Stavanger has a lot of quite narrow streets and some of the old wooden houses have been preserved. And there are lots of bicycles too.
I was interested to learn that, for the Hardanger suspension bridge, one of the longest in the world, a special lane was provided for pedestrians and cyclists. You can see the bridge in my pic below, though the cycle lane isn’t obvious. The calm surface of the fjord is amazing, isn’t it? We were blessed with much better weather than I’d expected.
Norway’s Independence
Norwegians are very proud of their heritage and their (relatively late) independence from Sweden and Denmark. There is an impressive monument in the southern part of Stavanger to commemorate this aspect of Norway’s history.
It takes the form of three enormous bronze swords planted in the rock next to the fjord. They’re 10 metres high, over 30 feet in old money. And against a blue sky, Sverd i fjell definitely makes an impact. The three swords commemorate the Battle of Hafrsfjord, in 872, when Harald Fairhair united Norway to become its first king.
I must admit that I love the way Norwegians named their kings. Harald Fairhair has a real ring to it, I think. His successor was his son, Eric Bloodaxe. That name also paints a picture but a slightly less enticing one. Of course, Harald Fairhair won his kingdom through victory in battles so he was probably no better than Eric. He just had a slightly more attractive name.
A trip into Lysefjord
Not far from Stavanger is the long, narrow Lysefjord. Its name means “light fjord”, supposedly because the granite cliffs that line it are light in colour. The cliffs are so steep that there are no roads along the side of the fjord although there is a suspension road bridge across the entrance to the fjord. Like so many bridges we saw in Norway, it was light and airy to the point that it almost disappeared into the landscape.
We took a boat trip to see Lysefjord from the inside, so to speak.
The cliffs are certainly daunting as you can see from these images.
There are tales of people climbing them, some of them fugitives from justice. An incentive, possibly?
The other really interesting thing is how trees and shrubs manage to anchor themselves in sheer rock and somehow survive there, even though there can’t be much soil, if any, to root into.
By way of light relief from all that sheer rock, there are goats in the fjord. Just two of them.
We were told that the farmer puts them onto the small grassy patch alongside the fjord at the start of the tourist season. All the tourist boats come alongside and the crew throw food to the goats. Over the months, they become very tame and also pretty fat. They don’t have a lot of choice. You can see that, behind them, there’s only a sheer rock face so they graze where they are or they swim for it. Better to become tame and fat…
Pulpit Rock, Lysefjord
The most famous part of Lysefjord is Pulpit Rock or Preikestolen. For those of an adventurous nature, it is possible to hike to the top of the rock which towers 604 metres above the fjord. Some of the passengers on our cruise did take on the hike. It’s supposed to take two hours each way but they told us it was more like three and a half. I was glad I’d opted for the boat trip even though I missed out on the amazing views from the top of Pulpit Rock.
But my picture doesn’t do justice to the height and the impressive nature of Pulpit Rock so I’ve imported an image from Wikipedia that shows the rock from above. You can see the enormous (25 metres across) flat top of the rock. There are loads of enterprising tourists on it, looking down onto the fjord. (I suspect they are mostly a lot younger than I am, though.)
Lysefjord’s Whisky Waterfall
I cannot vouch for any of this story, but it’s entertaining, so I’m going to share it.
T
his is an impressive waterfall in Lysefjord. According to our guide, a non-Norwegian came to Lysefjord and partnered with a local lass to farm on top of the cliffs. The man began to distill whisky, even though it wasn’t legal to do so. But people liked his whisky and bought it. However, the local sheriff wasn’t impressed and forced the distilling to close down.
And it did, sort of.
But, apparently, the whisky is still there somewhere, because you can taste it in the water of the waterfall. The locals call it the Whisky Waterfall.
Is that only to please the tourists to Norway? Possibly. But it’s a good story. And I have more to tell you in a future blog. With more waterfalls. There may even be trolls…
