Norway - an original and unique country (part 1)
Road to the north
Here the summer is over. And along with it, that unique thing that happened to be seen, realized, felt in that short time, which has the name "annual vacation", goes away. After all, how it turns out: the year passes by following some rather monotonous routine - work, family, everyday life. And the best way to deal with negative emotions, extra pounds and the dullness of life is to go on a trip! So, I will start from the very beginning of my journey, which began ...a year before the trip itself. For a long time I dreamed of visiting the corners of the planet, not so trodden by tourists from all over the world, to escape from the stuffy noisy city and enjoy untouched nature. So, it was decided: I'm going to spend the winter in the very north of Europe in Scandinavia.
Having pretty much "looked" on the websites of travel agencies and listening to the opinions of experienced tourists, I finally chose the Nordkapp - Magic of the North tour offered by the Feeria travel company. Why him? Yes, because this is the only tour in which, unlike other tours in Scandinavia, there is an opportunity to visit not only the four Scandinavian countries and their three capitals, but also cross the Arctic Circle twice, and most importantly, visit the northernmost edge of Europe - Cape North Cape! But the main thing is my old dream to visit Norway - one of the most untouched corners of Europe, where virgin nature is still preserved.
A whole year in anticipation and preparation for the journey, and finally the long-awaited day July 16.2010 16 hours 32 minutes: our train "Kyiv-Warsaw" started, leaving behind my hometown of Kyiv.
Ahead is acquaintance with a guide and fellow travelers, a 7700 km long journey along the roads of Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and ferry crossings.
A lot of interesting things can be said about the journey along the entire route, but I want to devote the topic of this essay to Norway, the route along which fully corresponds to the name of the country (“Norway” is translated as “Road to the North”) and we are on our way, crossing the whole country from south to north to the extreme point of Europe.
Late in the evening we enter Norway and stop for the night at the hotel in Fredrikstad, acquaintance with which was postponed until dawn. Morning greeted with drizzling rain. Walking through its streets, I did not meet a single person, only the garbage truck was doing its job, the city had not yet woken up. Everywhere is clean, tidy, lots of flowers, silence, order.
Even the police department is closed, probably, there are no violations of public order during the hours of rest and the police can rest in peace.
Walk around Oslo
Ahead of us is a meeting with the capital of Norway, the city of Oslo, which is located on the banks of the Oslo Fjord.
The first object we visit is the City Hall - the most noticeable building on the embankment. Looking at this gloomy brown brick building, it's hard to believe that beautiful, bright frescoes adorn its walls inside. The Nobel Peace Prizes are awarded annually in the frescoed hall. The Town Hall is the center of the capital, next to it is a tourist center where you can get maps and various information about the whole country, including in Russian.
Oslo ("field of God") was founded in 1048 and is the oldest capital of northern Europe. At the end of the 13th century, this city became the residence of the Norwegian kings.
In 1624, Oslo was renamed Christiania, after the Danish king Christian IV. In 1814, Oslo became the capital of Norway, but only in 1924 the city was returned to its original name of Oslo. Despite the ancient history, almost no buildings of the 19th century, and even more so of the 14th-18th centuries, have been preserved in Oslo. The exception is the Akershus fortress, built in the 12th century. In the fortress museum, you can look at the model of Christiania, go around the beautiful castle, which was once the royal residence, and watch the guards walking menacingly around the fortress every 15-20 minutes. The fortress offers a beautiful view of Oslo, the Aker Brigge embankment and the bay.
Walking around Oslo, we note the almost complete absence of road transport, the unusual calmness of the central street of Karl Johan, leading up to the Royal Palace. No wonder Oslo is one of the most environmentally friendly capitals in Europe.
Useful sayings are painted on the sidewalks of the street. It was here that ski slalom competitions were held during the VI Winter Olympic Games in 1952. It was along this street that the previous king Olaf V every morning on a bicycle (without security and escort) went to work down to the Parliament, and in the evening on the same bike back up to the palace. The Royal Palace is currently the residence of King Harald V.
On the right side of the National Theatre, on Karl Johan Street, the old university buildings settled, the assembly hall of the university is decorated with the creations of Eduard Munch. To the right of the university is the monumental building of the National Gallery, which houses the largest collection of art paintings by Norwegian and foreign artists created before 1945 in the country. Here you can get acquainted with the paintings of Eduard Munch. Entrance to the museum is free, but, unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays.
Next to the National Gallery there is a historical museum, consisting of an ethnographic museum, a coin office and a museum of cultural heritage. "The whole world at all times - under one roof" - this is how the exhibits of this exciting museum can be described.
We go down the street to the building of the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget), the entrance to which is guarded by two stone lions. There is a park with a pond and a fountain between the Parliament and the National Theatre. In winter, a skating rink is poured here.
We continue our acquaintance with Oslo on the Bygdø y peninsula, famous for its museums, especially the maritime ones, which we visit.
The Viking Ship Museum has collected under its roof unique archaeological finds - ancient keel ships, on which the Vikings carried out sea trade, predatory and conquest campaigns at the end of the 8th - the middle of the 19th centuries.
Recent discoveries have proven that on these ships formidable warriors reached the shores of North America several centuries earlier than Christopher Columbus.
The Fram Museum houses the ship of the same name, built by Nansen specifically for sailing in the harsh ice of the Arctic. It was on this schooner that another Norwegian traveler, Roald Amundsen, sailed to Antarctica, and then reached the South Pole first on skis. Particularly impressive is a walk along the Fram, where you can not only touch everything with your own hands, but also hear the voices of the sailors and the characteristic rumble in the hold, and feel like members of legendary expeditions.
We show the greatest interest in the Kon-Tiki Museum. World-renowned Norwegian ethnographer and archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl is a national hero in Norway.
To confirm his theory about the original settlement of the islands of Polynesia from America, in 1947 he sailed with a crew on a raft of balsa logs "Kon-Tiki" from Peru to Polynesia. In 1969 and 1970, he traveled from Africa to the islands of Central America on papyrus boats "Ra", which proved the possibility of sailing to America by the ancient Egyptians. On this journey, Yuri Senkevich became one of the members of his multinational team. The legendary boat "Ra" and many other exhibits dedicated to the travels of the famous Norwegian made up the main exposition of the museum. Opposite is the Museum of the Navy, and next to the embankment stands a monument to brave sailors.
The peninsula also houses the Skansen Museum of Folk Life, where more than 150 traditional buildings from all over the country are collected in the open air, where you can get acquainted with the dwellings of Norwegians, their household items and national traditions.
On leaving Oslo, we visit the world-famous Frogner Philosophical Park, where on an area of .15 hectares there is the famous sculpture park of Gustav Vigellan, consisting of 650 bronze, granite and wrought iron figures, which represent all forms of human life. This is an amazing creation that combines naturalism and symbolism with a realistic interpretation of human life. Many sculptures show not only the path of a person that he goes through from birth to death, but also the feelings experienced by each of the generations. It is difficult to convey your impressions of what you saw in words - you must see it with your own eyes.
Small, modest, quiet Norwegian capital with a population of 575 thousand people. held us back for a while. After briefly examining Oslo, we head to the main attraction of Norway - the fjords.
Scenic path to Norway's main attraction
We spend the night in the vicinity of
Winstru in the old (built in 1891) Fefor Hoif Jellshotell hotel. The hotel is located in the national park Rondane at an altitude of 930 m on the shores of the picturesque lake Fevor. It resembles a hunting lodge, the interior of which is equipped with trophies, around it there are lawns for games, there are enclosures with animals.
The second day from the very morning presented us with real surprises: on the way to the famous fjords we visit an old wooden church, perfectly preserved to this day.
The main treasure of Norway is its nature. Thousands of clean lakes and rivers provide a unique opportunity to enjoy fishing and water sports, and carefully protected nature allows you to get acquainted with one of the most untouched corners of Europe. We make a stop in one of the beautiful corners of Norway, where a noisy mountain river with waterfalls rages.
We pass by cultivated plots of land and, to our surprise, we see neat bushes with strawberries.
Strawberries in these northern latitudes ripen by the end of July. Right there along the road on a table there are vessels with freshly picked strawberries for sale.
Fjords - a work of art
The main thing is that we saw the famous fjords. Nowhere else in the world can you find fjords more beautiful than these, if at all you can find something like this. Fjords are a work of art created by nature itself over several ice ages, when glaciers began to recede and sea waters filled the valleys. Imagine you are standing on the deck of a ship, and majestic rocks rise on both sides of you. From the almost vertical slopes of the mountains, the waters of picturesque waterfalls, originating on glaciers, fall into the fjord.
A panorama of the most beautiful fjord in the world, the Geirangerfjord, opened before us, along the entire edge of which real treasures of nature are scattered, including the Seven Sisters waterfall. Geirangerfjord in 2005
was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
We were obviously unlucky with the weather: it rained all day, everything was covered with a white haze and we could not climb Mount Dalsnib - the "roof of Norway". Water is everywhere: rain, clouds, glaciers, numerous waterfalls flowing down from the hanging rocks, below the "sea river" - a fjord and many raging mountain streams, the earth, the mountains are all saturated with moisture.
From Geirangerfjord begins an exciting journey along the famous "Troll Road" (Trollstigen), which is one of the most popular tourist routes in Norway. This road was built in 1936, it climbs the mountain slope in eleven steep serpentine loops with a vertical drop of 12%. At halfway up we pass the bridge over the Stigfossen waterfall (180m high), from the top of the road a panorama of the entire valley opens up. For hundreds of years, this was the only way to get to the Sunnmø re fjords.
Above, on the "Road of the Trolls", starting from the turn, which is called Bispensvingen, that is, "the turn of the bishop. "
Our bus made such zigzags along the wet high-mountain road, and we poured out a huge portion of adrenaline, sometimes you won’t experience such a feeling of admiration and danger even in years of your life!
We pass by the city of Lillehammer, the capital of the 17th Winter Olympic Games in 1994, which became not only the first in the history of the Ukrainian national team to compete under the blue and yellow flag, but also the city of Ukrainian Olympic glory. The national team of Ukraine that arrived in Lillehammer consisted of 37 athletes - representatives of 10 sports out of 12 included in the program of these games. Ukrainian athletes took part in competitions in 32 numbers of the Olympic program out of 61. In addition to the gold medal of Oksana Baiul, the Ukrainian national team has a bronze medal by V.
Cerba, which she was awarded for her successful performance in biathlon competitions at a distance of 7.5 km. Several Ukrainian athletes entered the top six in individual numbers of the Olympic competition program, bringing points to the Ukrainian team in the unofficial team event. This is the figure skater Petrenko, who took fourth place in single skating, Sherstneva, who was fifth in acrobatics in freestyle competitions. Fifth place was also taken by the combined team of Ukrainian biathletes consisting of E. Petrova, M. Skolota, E. Ogurtsova, V. Tserba in the 4 x 7.5 km relay. Our Olympic team in winter sports has never achieved such success.
