Home Sweet Home

We're delighted to be home after a horrendous return trip.

Bergen in Norway threw more torrential  rain at us on the last day which delayed our flight by 40 minutes. The hour we had in Frankfurt to transfer to Singapore dwindled to minutes but we decided to make a run for it anyway. It was ghastly!!!

We had to get from A14 to Z62 - couldn't have been further apart - I don't do running and midway, trapped on a concrete staircase with 20 screaming teenage boys I wanted to opt out - but we continued running along marble corridors, pounding over conveyor belts, puffing like a grampus (me) only to get to Z62 three minutes after the doors closed.

Frankfurt airport closes at 11pm and as we arrived at the Lufthansa service out-station it closed - so back along the conveyor belts and train to A where a nice man issued us with hotel vouchers and arranged for our luggage to accompany us tomorrow. Then we couldn't get out - back to B then A again - no-one around except people sleeping in corners and the odd staff member disappearing around the corner on a bicycle. I really wanted to mug one for his bicycle. Finally we found the outside and the hotel shuttle bus - us and a hundred other cross, tired travellers, all going to this poxy little motel with no airconditioning.  Dinner was available but no tea or coffee because it was "too late".  (Travelling with Merryle spoils you for lesser hotels. )

A day in Frankfurt airport wasn't too bad and we caught the flight 24 hours later but - you've guessed it - no luggage in  Singapore. Lufthansa was very helpful and gave us cash for immediate needs and I am hopeful both cases will turn up so that I can do the laundry.
  
Our travel agent rescheduled us on Jetstar Business so it was lovely to be able to stretch our legs out and relax to Melbourne, collect the car and head home.

Fjords and Roses day 24

The rain came this morning and Bergen showed its true colours - rain 259 days per year and annual rainfall of 100 inches. We were soaked getting to the ferry then steamed gently as we rode along the fjord into watery sunshine.

It's a 2 hour trip to Rosendal, on an island, where the best rose garden in Norway is to be found at the Manor and where we had a delicious lunch in the greenhouse / photo 1.

The roses are magnificent healthy specimens making the most of their long days and short growing season. / Photo 2.  Our tour of the 1650s manor house revealed an old wooden house with some splendid furniture, an original Edvard Munch picture  and a portrait gallery of dour-looking individuals. It now belongs to the University of Oslo and is open to tourists during the summer - but our guide said sadly "the summer is almost over."

So is our holiday: last day today and early tomorrow morning most people on their flights home. We don't leave till 6.30 pm so will have to fill in the day - hope it doesn't rain. 

Public Toilets

I need to make a few awards for public toilets we have visited. 

Most efficient: 2 toilets on the Autobahn in Northern Germany. They were in huge roadside complexes selling petrol, food and tickets for the toilet - 70p!!! = AU$1 - puts a whole new meaning on spending a penny. All 38 of us surged downstairs, paid our money and queued. Having used the facilities came the problem of how to flush. I pushed every button I could see and watched in amazement  as the seat writhed and twisted and washed itself. It was so fascinating I pushed the button for a repeat performance, finally realising you simply wave your hand in front of a steel plate to flush. Then it's up the stairs and into the shop to get 70p off any purchase.  Clever - and very clean.

Most embarrassing : a stand-alone group at the tip of southern Sweden / photo 1. I entered the disabled toilet and totally forgot about waving. I pressed every button in sight and one of them was an alarm. A piercing siren erupted which continued for 10 minutes  - and no-one came so we drove away leaving it wailing.

Most expensive: NK department store in Stockholm (David Jones equivalent).
20 kroner =AU$1.67 and nothing special.

Prettiest: Raame Garden in Norway - owned by a millionaire philanthropist so perhaps that's why. Herren to the right, Damen to the left, quite ordinary but in the middle where you wash your hands is the prettiest layout I've ever seen / photo 2. 

Grieg Concert day 23

Edvard Grieg is Bergen's favourite son and his summer house at Troldhaugen is now a museum. A local guide, Inge, takes us there to a lunch time concert of Grieg played by Joachim Kwetzinski, a piano student, and it was wonderful! A concert hall has been built on the site with a huge window overlooking the lake / photo 1.
He played a delightful programme finishing with my favourite Wedding Day at Troldhaugen.

Inge took us down the hill through green and mysterious Troll Valley / photo 2 to where Edvard and his wife Nina are buried in a simple hole in a granite wall overlooking the lake and receiving the last rays of the sun.

Then we had a ride up a mountain on the funicular to a spread-out view of Bergen below, reminding me of Daisy's and my ride on the cog railway in Wellington. 

Bergen markets day 23

Our hotel is right on the wharf in Bryggen, the Old Town of Bergen. The street leading to the market is lined with very expensive souvenir shops e.g. AU$500 for a hand-knitted jumper / photo 1 shows Bryggen from the other side of the harbour near the flower market / photo 2,3. Love those peonies!

Afternoon tea at Stalheim day 22

Afternoon tea with the million kroner view
(AU$183,639.69) 

Ferry to Gudvangen day 22

This is a popular trip and it's hard to get a seat in the shade. Some of the passengers might be from the cruise ship which anchored outside our bedroom window this morning. /Photo 1. Every single one has a camera, some have iPads /photo 2 as a cloud comes over, it looks like rain and maybe at last we can wear a jacket.

It's a huge deep fjord called Sognefjord 200 kms long and Flam is nestled right in its armpit. We travel for 3 hours, stopping at little villages / photo 3 to take on more passengers.  Where will they sit? All the wimps have gone into the saloon but it's lovely and cool on deck. Norway and all of Europe have been sweltering and they just don't understand air conditioning.
No jackets needed: just as our bus moves off it starts to rain but no wipers needed.

Cog railway to Myrdal day 22

866m above sea level,  12 waterfalls, 20 tunnels and an hour train trip takes us from Flam to Myrdal. The mountains tower above small villages in green valleys and isolated cabins high on the slopes with only a goat track to get to them, snow on the peaks.

At Kjos Waterfall the train stops and we all pile out to photograph and be photographed. A Nordic maiden jumps out from behind a rock and sings an alluring song - you can just see her orange-clad figure in photo 1. 14 appearances a day, whenever a train goes by, rather a damp job.

We do the return journey, this time expecting the tunnels and green valleys, with just time for lunch before boarding the ferry. Ann and I have a blueberry cider but it was not due to that I lost my passport. I ran around like a chook with its head cut off but phew! - Bill found it under my chair with minutes to spare. Champagne celebration tonight.

Mountains and Stave Church day 21

Bergen is 500 kms from Oslo so we are going to take two days. There's something about being in a bus: I'm asleep before we leave Oslo but wake when the mountains get higher and the trees thicker until we are so high that the trees disappear altogether and there is snow on the mountaintops. We make several stops for the keen photographers and for Merryle to pick wildflowers including wild delphiniums.

Lunch is at a folk museum where we are served poached and smoked salmon and chocolate cake with "wiped" cream.

After another snooze we wake as the bus stops for a most peculiar edifice in the middle of nowhere - a stave church, so-called because big posts or staves were driven into the ground and the spaces between filled in. /Photo 2. There are only 28 of these left in Norway and this one is the best as 95% of its interior is original: the exterior has had tiles replaced and been tarred to preserve it. It looks quite extraordinary, like something out of The Hobbit  and was built in 1108. Imagine that! We have a young man to tell us about it: it has been restored to original lack of furnishings inside and is quite small in spite if it's height - everyone stood up. / Photo 3.

There's still more excitement before we arrive at Flam (a small o over the a and pronounced Flom.) Next is a 25 km tunnel under a mountain, the longest tunnel I'm the world. It's the longest 19 minutes we've experienced in spite of the strange blue rooms every 5 km which have been put in to break the monotony. / Photo 4. People go there to get married - how weird.

Our hotel at Flam is a ski lodge in the winter and full of all nationalities.

Sunset Sail Oslo day 20

Courtesy of Merryle and her husband
David we all went on a dinner cruise around Oslo harbour on board the Johanna. It was a motor cruise because there was no wind - the wonderful warm weather continues and everywhere we went there were people in boats, in the shore and swimming; everyone luxuriating in the best night of the year.

Dinner was as much shrimp as you could eat plus bread, butter and mayo - rather a shock to Ann who doesn't particularly like shrimp. Seagulls hung around waiting for scraps /photo 2 Bill and David. Photo 3 is Merryle watching over her flock. 

We returned on the stroke of 10 to a glorious sunset - the White Night turned into a Pink Night - and still enough light to read if you wanted to. I had to think sadly of folks back home tucked in bed and facing another cold day - us in a week.

Ramme Gaarde day 20

Previously belonging to Edvard Munch, artist of The Scream, and now belonging to Norwegian philanthropist Petter Olsen, Ramme Garden is a short bus ride away from Oslo. We arrived in time for lunch - rolls and what the girl called flower-cauli soup. Usually their English is impeccable so that was a memorable lapse. Photo 2 is me sitting on an organic seat decorated with lillies of the valley. 

A guide arrived to take us around the garden: I got the impression you can't go without a guide which is a shame. It's a splendid garden, full of rolling vistas, beautifully kept velvet green lawns, statues and colourful borders - maybe Merryle has saved the best till almost last. There is an outdoor theatre for regular productions of Shakespeare's romantic comedies and the final view takes in the sea.

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Lunch Amongst the Perennials day 19

Ham and cheese sandwiches!  Lunch was made more Norwegian by little pancakes with jam and cream, served in the courtyard of a perennial nursery and new garden.

Photo 1 is our new bus from the garden with hills in the distance - strange to see hills after so long on the flat. 

Farm garden near Oslo day 19

Cases out at 5.30! It's a cruel and unusual punishment for Country Farm travellers but it's the only possible flight for us from Stockholm to Oslo - and it leaves us time to fit in a garden before lunch. We've got a new guide Albert and bus driver Gunnar and a whole new country which already looks different - green fields,  more conifers and distant mountains.

It's a 3-generation farm with our hosts Michael and Astrid who are not confident of their English so have brought in Liv to speak for them. They could have used the lovely grandchildren Olmichael and Marte who are on 2 months summer holidays. /photo 1. 

David was captivated by the stabbur, a root cellar and summer dormitory now a museum for old tools and implements. I loved the setting of immaculate garden around the farm buildings with a path leading down through a barley field to the lake sheet the children have boats. /Photo 3

There were peonies and blue poppies, meconopsis grandis, a beautiful vegetable garden and a wildflower meadow. (I understand about them now - how they have to be let go to seed so they can grow again next year. ) There was tea and cake in the summer kitchen and everything was idyllic in the warm sun: then we heard last winter it was MINUS 30 degrees C for 3 weeks. 

Farewell to Stockholm day 19

Some of the group are not going on to Norway so last night was a farewell dinner at the hotel - excellent food and wine chosen by Merryle's husband David  (who is at home minding the nursery. ) First we celebrated Bill's birthday with champagne on the patio. /Photo 1

David B asked everyone what summed up Stockholm in one word and got the answer he wanted: water. With 30,000 islands there's a lot of water in, between and you're never far from it. We have loved Stockholm and are sorry to leave. Our run of good weather continues and I wish hadn't brought heavy shoes, jumpers, rain coat and umbrella. However the gardeners David met yesterday are beside themselves at the lack of rain: it hasn't rained since June 13th.

Day in the Country Sweden day 18

I had serious shopping to do so David went in his own for a day in the country on the bus, destination Enkoping (pronounced Ensherping) famous for its 19 civic parks - population 40,000. A train and a horse wagon carried them on a tour of most of the parks.

Highlight was the biggest one, Dream Park, commenced in 1995 as a collaboration between head gardener and a famous Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf with a focus on perennials in small blocks of colour. An exception is the meandering Sage River, a large block of colour / photo 1

Plantings appear in all public spaces e.g. Kings Bridge, /photo 5, Fountain Park and the strip along the river where quirky student displays catch the eye, including one with birch trees planted upside down. / photo 4

My shopping was productive and involved lots of walking. For lunch I bravely ordered Ost & Skinka Smorgasar and got ham and cheese sandwich! - then came back to the hotel to be one of those people sitting in the deck chair. 

ABBA day 17

Optional extra tonight was a trip to an outdoor museum featuring country life of yesteryear. Not for us: Ann, Bill, Judy, Reg, David and I decided we'd sooner go to the ABBA Museum which opened four weeks ago and has averaged 500 visitors per hour and requires online booking.  Following advice from hotel reception we just went, over on the ferry, a short stroll up the street past the Tivoli amusement park and we were there with instant entry.

It is fantastic!!! All about their childhoods and how they got together, lots of costumes and recording equipment, chances to sing along if you are totally deluded, souvenirs from their around the world tours and a re-creation of a room in the country where they used to record songs. Ann, Judy and I spent ages watching a film about ABBA's Australian trip - I was hooked when I heard a character say: "We have to go to bloody Adelaide" but I was the only one who laughed. They were big in Australia which I remember well.

Then - total bonus - I got David, Ann, Judy and Reg to pose in the cutout ABBA figures. The ferry had stopped by the time we emerged so we caught the tram back to town - never worked out how to pay for a ticket and got off before it became necessary.