Tag Archives: norway

Hi folks!

Ok, you’ve had your fun and games, now for some detail on my recent North Pole trip…

Now, unlike some, I wasn’t skiing to the North Pole. I consider myself sporty and adventurous… but I know my limits ). No, I was going the lazy man’s route:

Oslo > Longyearbyen, Svalbard > Barneo (on an An-74) > North Pole (in a chopper).

Ok, so where shall I start? Since we didn’t have much time at all in Oslo, I’ll start in Longyearbyen (the ‘Longyear Town’!).

We arrived there on a scheduled commercial flight from the Norwegian capital. There are several of these per week (there are also charter flights sometimes), but the exact number can change due to cancelations, in turn due to the extreme weather conditions. We were lucky – our flight was on schedule.

Read on: Mines, hills and country houses …

No, not Fog on the Tyne, but Sun in Trondheim! I could hardly believe it either!…

And, in anticipation of the ‘inevitable’ rain before getting here I’d gone and prepared a quote from my fave authors about the stuff! Oh well, you might at well still hear it…:

 “It was getting dark, and still pouring with rain. Large, heavy droplets of unhurried rain, in no rush at all. The rain will fall on an empty city, washing pavements and trickling through rotten roofs… Then it will wash everything away, dissolving the city to reveal virgin land again. While the rain keeps falling, falling.

All over the world it’s raining. Over steepled roofs – rain. Down hills and ravines – rain. One day it will wash everything away, but not soon…”

So, like I say – the sun came out to play that day :)…:

When I looked out the window of my hotel room after waking up I had little trouble noticing this temporary guest in the port. It had more than double the number of floors of our hotel (in the pic after it):

Read on: Impressive from all angles…

 “The rain fell for no particular reason, sifting from the roofs in a fine water spray. In air drafts, the rain accumulated into misty white columns which dragged from one wall to another. The rain roared through and splashed down from rusty rain-pipes. The rain spread over the pavement and flew along the watercourses that had eroded between cobblestones. The heavy black-and-gray clouds crept slowly just above the roofs. The man was an uninvited guest in the streets, and the rain showed him no welcome.”

© “The Ugly Swans” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

“The man was an uninvited guest in the streets, and the rain showed him no welcome.” – This is a spot-on description of me and my travel companion A. Sh. while in the lovely city of Trondheim, Norway.

The view from the window holds no promise whatsoever of sunny pleasure-beaches –

either by day…

…or by night.

In this sort of climate, shells end up growing on your ears. Or do ears grow on shells?

Read on: A heroic walk along the embankment…

I’ve made up a list of what I feel are the Top-100 Must-See Places in the World. Number 45 in that list is ‘Norwegian fjords’ – and the entry under it says ‘Haven’t been’. But that was before last weekend. Now it needs amending to ‘Been there, done the akvavit’.

Read on: Turquoise water running down the cliffs…

According to various sites on the Internet, Bergen is the wettest, rainiest city of the European continent. Don’t believe a word of it! Me and some pals were in the city just recently and in all the three days there not a single drop of rain fell on any of us. In its absence was a preponderance of sun – so much so that our cheeks became redder than the king prawns on offer in the Bergen fish market (see pic further below).

And probably up to 200 kilometers away there was nothing but clear sunny skies too, save for a few fluffy clouds. Only on the horizon did there sometimes appear something reminiscent of light rain. The locals were also fairly amazed too – they’ve never known such rain-free summery days here ever!

Read on: fish appetizer, fish main dish and a desert …