The Family Farm

Last Friday we left Solvorn for Tom's family's farm, which is in Hakadal, 45 minutes outside of Oslo. It took three buses, one ferry, and two trains and a pickup from the last train station. But no complaints, because it was a beautiful trip. The first two buses took us to the town of Kaupanger where we took a ferry to Gudvangen through one of Norway's narrowest fjords - as little as about 800 ft wide and with mountains up to about 4000 feet high and snowcapped.


The walls were lined with waterfalls tumbling from the snowfields all the way down.

After the ferry (and our third bus ride) were were in the town of Flåm. By this time, we clearly were not in a remote, quiet Norwegian village - we were right on the tourist trail with tons of people fresh off their cruises. It was a bit of an adjustment, but the train ride we took out of town was well worth it. It is a scenic train that goes up and into the mountains. The train makes a quick stop at Kjosfossen, not the tallest waterfall we have seen yet, but with a tremendous flow. Dancers from the Norwegian ballet school were dancing in the waterfall's mist dressed as a Huldra.


The final train we took started high in the treeless plateau and made its way down through forest and farmland, with beautiful scenery the whole way.

Since we've been at the Døhlie Farm, we have had a wonderful time with lots and lots of great food. The morning starts with homemade buns and homemade strawberry jam, lunch is usually smoked salmon, and dinners have been feasts. I hope to replicate some when I return home. One night we had Pinnekjøtt, which translates as "stick meat" for the birch twigs used in place of a steamer for cooking. It was lamb that has soaked for weeks in a brine. The following night we had a seafood stew and tonight we had trout that actually looked and tasted a lot like salmon.

Aside from all of the great eating, we've also been active here. We've been biking in the forest and went on a hike to the top of the ski mountain across from the farm, which is also where the family has a cute hut that Tom and I plan to stay at tomorrow night.

Yesterday we took the train into Oslo with Kristina and John (Tom's sister and brother-in-law) who arrived at the farm the day after us. We walked down some beautiful streets - everyone here has such beautiful flower pots and window flowers.


We also visited some of the main sights to see, like Vigelandspark which displays 212 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland.


We walked along the waterfront and treated ourselves to lunch there (Considering a hotdog and a soda from a convenient store is about $8 US, you can only image what a treat it is to eat in a restaurant with linens... :) After meeting up with some childhood friends of Tom and Kristina, and with their cousin Magnus, we walked through the old fort,


had a beer at the Dubliner, walked to the Opera House, which has an amazing roof that slopes to the water and is more like a beach where there are concerts, then caught the train home.
As always, we've been busy, but having a great time. We have one more week here, and lots more to do :)

Into Blue Ice

After a quiet day of taking care of business (ATM [aka mini bank] & groceries) it was time to return to excitement. We had signed up for a trip with Ice Troll where we would kayak across a lake, hike to a glacier, then have a while to explore the glacier before the return hike and kayak. The glacier, Tunsbergdalsbreen, is Norway's longest valley glacier, and is fed by Jostedalsbreen, the biggest glacier in continental Europe.
We had a relatively early wake up (for those of you not on vacation, we will not specify what early means to us) and yet another beautiful drive into a wild valley

where we met our guide, Carlos. Joining us for the trip were our host at Eplet and a friend of his, a guy from Germany working here for the summer, two Dutch guests and a Belgian couple who met us there. Carlos, as you may have guessed by the name, was not Norwegian, but Argentinian, from Tierra del Fuego.
So, we headed out on two person kayaks for about an hour and a half, paddling along a glacial lake with steep walls and waterfalls everywhere.


We left the kayaks on a beach at the far end of the lake and started our walk to the glacier, first on glacial silt mudflats then up a gorge carved by the raging glacial melt.



After an hour or so of hiking, plus a lunch stop, we reached the glacier and donned ice axes and crampons. One of our first interesting glacial feature was a blue ice cave


and we continued on stopping to look at other interesting features.



Our return trip followed the same route, although we may have gone a little faster inspired by the thought of dinner when we returned to Eplet.

Today was another quiet day, partly due to the expectation of bad weather. We also hadn't spent much time looking around town, so we wanted to see some of the old port buildings.


We made our way to a beach a bit outside town and rested there for a while, hoping the rain would stay away. When we got back to town, we sat down for lunch at the cafe, and the sun came out, and would remain that way the rest of the afternoon, which we spent reading on the grass of Eplet. A nice way to spend our last day in this beautiful part of Norway.

Relaxing the Tom Way

So, as many of you know, vacation with Tom does not always equal relaxing, but it does equal fun and exciting. Yesterday we took the ferry across the fjord to the town of Ornes where we biked 26km round trip on a road that is along side the fjord. We biked out to a waterfall that is the second tallest of its kind in Norway (only we don't know what kind it is...). We walked pretty close to it and could drink straight from the stream. Back where we started (but up a hill) was Urnes stave church, one of the oldest of its kind left in Norway. It was built around 1130 when Catholicism had made its way to Norway.


After taking the ferry back, showering, and eating, we went out for a night walk; however, it was still totally light outside. Our hike took us up the road out of town a little, through a cow farm, up through the trees (no switch-backs here) and to a point where we realized that we probably wouldn't summit. We did go just a bit higher to get a view

and were greeted by some curious sheep. I wish I could say I was all cool with it, but when I had sheep bahhing at me, staring me down, and walk right towards me, I turned to Tom for protection.....but he thought I was ridiculous and assured me that sheep are herbivores (which I knew, but they could still be biters...). Another thing is that Norway apparently doesn't have sheep dogs, which is good because we've had run ins with them before, and that really is scary! Anyhow, after escaping the sheep unharmed we returned back to Eplet and were back by 12:20, with plenty of light left.

Yesterday was just a warm up for what we did today. Our day started with biking up the road that comes down into town. It is not super steep, but it is alllllll up. Normally, I probably would have walked my bike a little, but the night before one of the couples here was talking about how they made it to the top without walking their bikes at all, so I guess my competitive streak came out. Once we were at the top of that road, it was more biking, still uphill generally. We then got to a dirt road, and I will admit, we pushed our bikes up those hills a bit. At the top we stopped and....climbed a mountain of course! We climbed to the top of Molden, at 1118 masl (3667 ft above sea level). We know that doesn't sound like a ton to our Denver friends, but starting at zero, it's still a climb!! We were rewarded at the top with beautiful views of the area and the fjord.

When we got to the bottom, we still had the second half of our bike ride to do. As described by the guy who runs our inn, it was "rolling" which we knew now meant more "up" than "down" (at least it felt like that at this point). We rode along the fjord again and though beautiful farms and pastures. At one point though, I saw Tom, who was ahead of me, being stopped by about four kids all under the age of six stringing a rope across the road so we couldn't pass. I could only image what was going on. It ended up that they were helping to move cows up the road and had to block were we were coming from so the last cow didn't walk the wrong way. So after the cow passed, we were back on our way. We rode on to a farm at the end of the road, perched right on the cliff above Solvorn. The owners let you walk across their field to the edge where you have a bird's eye view of Solvorn. We got finally got our payback for all the uphill we'd done with a long descent back to Solvorn to end the day (following a bit less direct route than the potential route shown above!)

And, tomorrow, the itinerary is to RELAX!

Ahhhhhhhhh... (said with a sigh of relief)

After a couple days of stressful travel, we have found our happy place. We have made it to Solvorn, Norway.


And they even welcomed us with a parade!


When we left off in Madrid, we were headed to the airport with standby seats on a flight to Copenhagen, and no plans for onward travel. We made it to Copenhagen, and on the way decided we would take the night bus to Oslo, then a bus all day the next day (Saturday) to connect with a quick local ride to bring us to Solvorn, Norway, home of Eplet Bed & Apple. Well, in our case, tent and apple, as we've set up camp with the view seen in the picture.

So we had a few hours in Copenhagen, enough to take a quick look around and get some dinner and a couple Tuborg beers. The bus to Oslo started off crossing the Øresund Bridge, the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe connecting Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden. We rode through the night, sleeping occasionally. It got dark after 11, and by 3, things were starting to brighten up again.

We arrived in Oslo with just over 3 hours until our next bus to Sogndal, in the middle of fjord country. We spent the time waiting for a breakfast place to open up, and watching the antics of the survivors of a Friday night in Oslo. The bus took us through idyllic and increasing dramatic scenery, gradually up into the mountains above tree line before plunging down to the fjords. When we arrived in Sogndal we quickly got on the local bus to bring us to Solvorn, where we really were greeted with a parade. As the bus rounded the last corner into the center of town, we were confronted with a mass of marchers dressed in traditional Norwegian dress. They were celebrating Norway's National Day, May 17th. Except it was all in show for a German tv show they've been filming here for the last few weeks. We were actually lucky to see what we did, as today's filming was the climax of the film.

Katie here...just wanted to also include a picture of the cutest little girl ever in the parade.


So, we plan to stick around here a few days. We'll do some hikes and bike rides in the area nearby, then hopefully head out for a few days on a hut to hut hiking trip.

Airlines 1, Tom & Katie 0

Or How We Ended Up With a Night in Madrid

All was going well until we hit the immigration line in Madrid with 40 minutes until our flight and a sign that said it would take 25 minutes just to get to our gate area, not counting immigration. Got through immigration and ran to the train to the other gates, ran from that and hit a security check. We're done. But got through. Still showing 'Last Call' on the departures screen. Running. We can see the end of the concourse. And a woman walking the other way says to us 'Copenhagen? Too late.'

So, a visit to the Iberia info desk says we need to collect our bags which have now been diverted from the plane. A visit to the Iberia baggage office says we need to pick up our bags on the other side of this glass wall and then go to Iberia ticket sales. A visit to another Iberia baggage office confirms this and that our bags will be out soon. A visit to the Iberia ticket sales office says we need to talk to American (through which we had gotten the frequent flier tickets). A visit to the American ticket sales office says it was Iberia's fault their incoming flight was late and they should take care of it. Another visit to the Iberia ticket sales office tells us we didn't run fast enough and it wasn't their fault we missed the connection and the best they can do is get us standby seats on tomorrow's flight to Copenhagen. A visit to the SAS ticket sales office (in another terminal) says it will cost about $500 each to change our tickets from Copenhagen to Bergen to one day later. It's now about 4 hrs after we first missed the flight and we haven't gotten very far. A few more minor frustrations later, and we're at the hotel booking kiosk in the airport.
Ok, we'll get a room in Madrid, have a bit of time to walk around and have a good Spanish dinner, then hope for the best tomorrow...Assuming we reach Copenhagen, it seems flying there to Bergen is out. But we'll make it to Norway one way or another. And this is the part of the trip that's supposed to be smooth.
And good Spanish dinner we had. Paella, ham, chorizo, potatoes, olives. All on an active street, great for people watching. Then a bit of a walk through central Madrid to work off the dinner, wandering down side streets. Although our tiredness from an overnight flight and the airport saga prevents us from getting too into anything that looks like a lengthy diversion.


Recommend: Hostal Monte Carlo
Don't Recommend: Iberia Airlines

On Our Way

Hi! We're about an hour and a half from boarding our flight for the start of our long summer vacation. We decided to try our hand on this blog thing to keep in touch with friends and family while we are gone, and to document what we're up to. The first step entails a flight to Madrid, then Copenhagen, then Bergen, Norway. After about three weeks traveling and visiting with family in Norway, we'll be heading to Southern Africa, which is where we've been been particularly interested in visiting. So, for all those people who have wondered why Norway and Africa, that's basically why.



Tom here. My job on the blog will be to insert the cool pictures and the occasional smart-ass comment to supplement Katie's entries.

Tom really here. That was Katie. It's gonna be a long flight. (Actually, Katie just said that). I'll have more to say when we're doing more than sitting in the airport about to get our (probably) last good burger for a while...