Europe Trip 2014, Part 4

Stockholm

I LOVE this city!!

It has all the things I love about great European cities: beautiful architecture, good metro, amazing cathedrals and churches, plentiful gardens and green spaces, interesting sculptures and statues, good museums and lots of restaurant choices. Oh yes, and lots of shopping choices. Stockholm was all that and more. It is called the little Venice of the North. It does have plenty of water and bridges but it was a lot cleaner looking and better smelling than Venice was. Stockholm is actually built on a group of 14 islands. Each one seems to have it's own little personal history and place in society. All the people we met and talked to were very friendly and helpful.

But before we get to all of that, we had to drive from Trondheim Norway down to Stockholm, a 9ish hour drive. It was a very pretty drive. We had been watching for reindeer in Norway but finally found them in Sweden. From Wikipediea we learn,  "In most populations both sexes grow antlers and it is the only cervid species in which females grow them as well as males. In the Scandinavian populations, old males' antlers fall off in December, young males' fall off in the early spring, and females' fall off in the summer."

 There were many hillsides and areas in both Norway and Sweden that were covered with Lupine. The majority of the countryside houses and outbuildings were red with white trim but occasionally you could also find a yellow one here and there.

Now, into the city we go.

 Dennis in one of the churches the pipes for the pipe organ are up in the balcony.

 An example of interesting architecture.

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 The Nobel Museum - all about Alfred Nobel, his life and the people who have shaped our world through physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, economics and peace.

 While we on Gamla Stan island, where the Nobel Museum and Royal Palace is, there was a bomb threat that closed down half the island and prevented us from getting to the lunch cafe we had chosen. There were police, special unit forces, newscasters and a helicopter all congregated in the center of the island. Later in the day, we had to go around the detour near our hotel to get back. They were able to capture the guy and the city returned to normal.

Europe Trip 2014, Part 3

Norway

"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 the ferry ride we took a bus ride and then a train ride back to where we had started that morning.

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. 

Europe Trip 2014, Part 2

Sweden

We caught a very early flight to Gothenburg. This is the fist time I've been to Sweden. This is the second largest city in Sweden and is on the west side of the country. It is a major shipping and fishing city. We were able to drop off all the equipment for the conference first thing and then we dropped off our bags at the B&B where we would be staying. Dennis and I spent the day getting acquainted with the city by touring it using the Hop-on-hop-off bus and boat. It was an unusually hot day and we certainly enjoyed stopping at the little kiosks for ice cream. 

I spent the next day at the Museum of Fine Arts and then exploring the city on foot. There are a lot of little sidewalk cafes and parks everywhere and it seems that the people are really enjoying being able to be outside, which is very understandable if you've just gone through a winter of 6 hours of daylight each day and ice and snow. Sitting at a sidewalk caffe table is a great place to be able to people watch from. While there are plenty of blond haired, blue eyed people around, there is quite a variety of races and subcultures here as in most big cities. I wish I had been able to take pictures of all the different interesting people I saw.
It is the end of the school year for the kids and so everywhere we've been there have been large groups of kids out on their final outings of the year, whether that is a trip to a museum, a beach or an amusement park. For those that are graduating, they ride around in a "party truck." It is like a big flatbed with sides and a canopy. All the kids pile in and they ride around the town making as much noise as they can and drinking 'lite' beer. I have it from a colleague of Dennis' that by drinking lite beer they may come home smelling just as bad but they aren't quite as drunk. I guess there have been problems in the past with beer bottles being thrown and other unattractive behavior so the party truck now has a police escort as it goes through town.
Gothenburg has it's own kind of charm and personality. At first I wasn't very impressed but it has grown on me. Most everyone I needed to converse with could speak English so that was really nice.

I spent a day taking the ferries out to the Southern Archipelago. It was very windy and cool out there so I didn't stay very long on any one island but they were sure interesting to see.

The next thing I went to see was the botanical garden. Since the early '50s the garden here has been working with a garden in Japan, sharing seeds, plants, etc. This year they are doing a special highlight of how the plants are doing that they have brought in and adding a lot of annuals that would be found in a Japanese landscape. Of course it included a zen garden but as it wasn't as amazing as some I've seen, I didn't take a picture of it.

 This was interesting use of rock, wood and cement to form an unique planter box and bench.

 In some areas there were so many things tagged, mostly all Japanese little starts. It would be fun to go back in the fall and see how the area had grown and filled in.

 The gardens had their own sets of beehives spread in several places throughout the park. I don't remember seeing that in other gardens I've been in but it's a great idea.

 I'm hoping that someday my south side garden will look somewhat like this. It's hard to identify all the plants from this photo but I recognized most of them as being able to grow in our area.

My photo didn't do this little kitchen garden justice at all. It was so sweet and the little 4 year old boy walking up the path was just the perfect touch.

As soon as I get showered and packed up, we will be leaving here and heading to Norway. So, farewell to Gothenburg and my 15,000 step days and hello to long days of driving and few steps.