Norway and Denmark

While the cat's away...or the children in this case...the parents will play. We followed up the previous week's 4 country tour with a trip we had planned for some time with our good friends Marj and Randy "Hacker" Haskin. We flew to Oslo, Norway out of Dusseldorf, Germany, about 2 hours from home. Jena and I arrived the night prior and had a day to ourselves. We toured around and the highlight of Jeff's day was the City Hall. It is a huge building with murals on the interior walls and is the presentation location for the Nobel Peace Prize each December 10th. The building is topped by a huge naked bronze statue known as the "Oslo Girl." The interior wall has a huge naked woman laying at the kings feet...not exactly P.C., but God bless the Norwegians!

Jeff in front of the Royal Palace in Oslo

Jena going on a Viking voyage:

Marj and Hacker joined us and we saw the town, drank some $14-$20 beers, and took a great dinner cruise on the Oslo Fjord. The cruise was on an old sailing ship for 3 hours where we drank beer and had a buffet of the sweetest boiled shrimp and bread and butter. Jeff gorged himself and followed the European tradition of making open-faced shrimp sandwiches. He also had fresh shrimp right off the shrimp boats in the harbor for lunch. For those who know what "reds" are, these shrimp were that good. The cruise was great, from 7-10pm, but remember, it never gets dark, so it was good sightseeing time. We boarded the train to Flam the next day for a visit to the deep inland waterways amongst the mountains, called fjords (Fee-yords). The railroad took us over the top of the mountains, and seemingly the top of the world, before plunging thousands of feet deep into the fjord. Amazingly, the ocean liners Grand Princess and the Queen Elizabeth II (QE-2) were docked at the tiny village of Flam, almost 100 miles inland along the fjords.

On the top of the world? Maybe not, but it felt like it:

We got out for about 10 min to stretch our legs...beautiful:

This is a view of the fjord we kayaked, from the water's edge in Flam. Down on the left a ways, about a 45 minute paddle, we hiked inland to an awesome waterfall and drank the coldest, freshest glacial melt you can ever get. We stayed in a hotel overlooking the dock/harbor/fjord and it was absolutely magical.

Looking out the hotel window at 11:58pm...Hmm...when is it going to be night? Oh yeah, now I remember--Fall!

After an amazing boat ride through the fjord, complete with hundreds (NOT an exaggeration) of waterfalls, we trained on into Bergen, a quaint, old seaside town on the coast, set back in a fjord. Jena loved the waterfront with its old row of crooked wooden buildings from the Hanseatic era (Germanic trading league). Jeff could have lived in the fish market. There was crab, salmon, halibut, eel, stone crab, shrimp, and whale. Jeff had some whale, just to try it. It was good...a bit oily.

It rained most of the time but we took the sightseeing train and had ice cream anyway. We parted with Marj and Hacker, who went home.

On to Copenhagen, or Kobenhavn, as it's Danish (Danske) residents call her. The city is amazing with an old European feeling and 1 million bikes riding everywhere. We absolutely fell in love with this city and will be going back. Here is Jena with HC Anderson's "Little Mermaid," the inspiration for Disney's story.

This is a typical view of the downtown from the city tour bus. The city is clean, the people friendly and the food is above average. Jena loves the bikes.

We spent the second day at Tivoli Gardens, the amusement park from the 1800's. It was quaint, pretty and had enough rides to keep you entertained for an afternoon. There are dozens of restaurants and we picked one by the water and had a traditional Danske meal of an open face roast beef sandwich with shredded horseradish on top--good.

The last 2 photos come from Jena's new favorite restaurant, the Sommerhuset. They have a grill and the grill master makes baby potatoes, grilled onions, grilled tomatoes and the best steak either of us have ever had, anywhere (except Jena's Daddy's, of course). The beer, a Carlsberg variation called Jacobsen Saaz Blonde was the PERFECT accompaniment the next day to our open face roast beef and horseradish. The restaurant sits near an old (still in use) fort with a moat and a nice field in the shadow of an old English Church, where we laid on the grass and just enjoyed the blue-sky day.

See the grill? The blond Viking looking chef is Jena's next boyfriend...she wishes! What a great trip. We still have Sweden and Finland to complete Scandinavia, but will have to save up for another time.