"I love this country! It's so beautiful." I think I must have said this about every 15 minutes for two days. There is only one place I didn't "love" but I'll get to that later.
We arrived in Oslo Saturday night. Sunday morning, we got up and got ready for church early and then did a driving tour around the major sights in downtown Oslo. That was the perfect time for foreigners like us to be driving around what would normally be a very congested area. I was most excited to see the Nobel Peace Prize building.
We drove up to the church and got there early enough that Dennis could use the internet to work on getting some more accommodations lined up. We were short a couple of hotels for this week. I got to visit with members of the ward. They were wonderfully friendly. There were 7 other Americans there so it was an unusually big group in the English speaking Sunday School class which was taught by a sister from Ethiopia. It would have been very intimidating but she did a great job.
After church, we headed North. We had about a 6 hour drive.
We went in search of this famous stave church.
Wikipedia reports, "Borgund Stave Church is a stave church located in the village of Borgund in the municipality of Lærdal in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. It is classified as a triple nave stave church of the so-called Sogn-type. This is also the best preserved of Norway's 28 extant stave churches. It is no longer used regularly for church functions. Borgund Stave Church was built sometime between 1180 and 1250 AD with later additions and restorations. Its walls are formed by vertical wooden boards, or staves, hence the name "stave church". 
We arrived in Flam at about 9 PM it was still very light outside. When I went to bed at 11:30 it was just starting to look like dusk. It was so cool to set in the lobby of our little hotel and look out over the fjord that late in the day. It was so beautiful!!
The next morning we got up early and got to the ferry and train station early. We took a cruise down the fjords from Flam to Gudvagen. The water was so green and clear. It was so interesting. With all the snow melting there are lots of really great waterfalls. It was such a beautiful day sunny day. Dennis had gone up and talked to one of the ferry pilots and she came down an visited with us for about 15 minutes during part of the cruise.
After we collected our car, we headed North again. We spent hours traversing up and down mountain sides on narrow little switch back roads. The views were spectacular even if it was a bit nerve racking.
We climbed to high mountain tops only to have to drop back down to see level again.
We didn't have very many miles to travel but when you can only average about
25 miles per hour it takes a long time to get anywhere.
As I said earlier, there was one area that I didn't really love. It was the high glacier mountain tops. It was so different from the lower altitudes. It was interesting to be so high and see actual glacial fields but there was nothing growing, nothing green, nothing warm and cozy-except our little Peugot.
This is a photo of a place we stopped. We walked out on the viewing point but my photos didn't turn out very well because it was foggy when we were there. The platform is hanging out over a huge waterfall. That winding gray line is the road going down the mountain.
It was a very quick four days and there were so many places we weren't able
to get to so I hope to be able to return someday.
1 comment:
Those are beautiful pictures which means it must have been at least 10 times more beautiful in person. Can't wait to hear more. Love you!
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