Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

I spent two short days in Oslo on my way to the Netherlands, to meet up with Nicole and her boyfriend Patrick, who were visiting Patrick’s sister and her husband who live in Oslo – are you still following me? ;). They live on Bygdøy, the “museum island” which is actually a peninsula. It’s a really nice area, and we went for a little walk to the beach on our first day. It was very windy, with some nice clouds, and we also found this abandoned chair on the beach.

The next day we went to visit Vigeland sculpture park, a large park with a lot of granite and bronze sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. The overall theme of the park is man’s journey from cradle to grave. All sculptures show people in various scenes of life. Some people find the sculptures disturbing, I think mostly because the people in it are naked, but I think that’s missing the point. I found it beautiful and moving, sometimes very realistic, sometimes bizarre… The centre piece of the park is the huge monolith in the middle, surrounded by several granite sculptures. This part of the park has beautiful iron gates.

The photo on the left (below) shows 2 details of the big monolith in the middle. The photo on the right shows several of the sculptures found around the monolith.

Further down there is a large fountain with a bronze sculpture in the middle. Around the bottom of it are square plates showing small scenes. I put some of these together in a collage (photo on the right) – I especially liked the ones with the animals!

From the fountain to the main entrance (we walked the wrong way round 😉 ) there are several larger bronze statues, like this girl with crazy hair :). In the other photo Nicole and Patrick are showing off the bikes you can rent all around Oslo.

We spent some time around Akershus fortress, where there are soldiers keeping watch, and lots and lots of cannons on display. The elephant trunk handles on the cannons are quite pretty!

Here is a view of Akershus fortress, and a photo of Patrick and Nicole on the ferry back to Bygdøy – what a nice way to travel!

The next day we went to visit the Fram museum. Fram means forward in Norwegian and this was the name of the ship that Fridtjof Nansen used on his expedition during 1893-1896 where he tried to reach the North Pole by letting the ship drift with the sea ice. He didn’t actually succeed in doing this, but FRAM spent 3 years in the ice and everybody survived the expedition, including Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen who set out on ski’s and with kayaks to try and reach the North Pole but in the end had to overwinter on Frans Joseph Land. I find this one of the most incredible tales in Polar history, and I was very excited to visit the museum where you can actually walk around the ship! Fram was also used for an expedition around the Canadian Arctic with Otto Sverdrup, and in Roald Amundsen’s expedition in 1910-1912 where he was the first person to reach the South Pole. The museum was really interesting, and the ship actually looked quite cosy and comfortable inside, though the beds seem a bit short!

After our visit to the museum, it was time for me to head to the airport to catch my flight to Amsterdam. It was a very short visit to Oslo, but a fun one! I definitely plan to come back and see more 🙂

I’m now with my family in the Netherlands, it’s great to be back for a while! I’m also preparing for my PhD defense which will take place on Friday… I’m quite scared, but also kind of looking forward to it – or at least to having it out of the way 😉 I’m travelling to Norwich on Tuesday already, so I probably won’t update my blog until the end of the week – but hopefully by then I’ll have some good news to share!

This morning I flew to Oslo, and I won’t be back in Tromsø until the end of this month. It think it will look quite different by that time! Célia and Gert-Jan came to visit for a couple of days, which was very nice. On Sunday, the weather was warm and sunny, and we took the cable car and then hiked up Fløya. It was great! There were lots of people around, to hike, enjoy the view or pick blueberries. We did all 3 🙂 Here are some photos – and the last one shows the first signs of autumn: the blueberry bushes have turned a deep red!

I also took this panorama of Tromsø island. Last year, I took a winter version of (almost) the same view 🙂

I’m now in Oslo with Nicole and Patrick, staying with Patrick’s family. Oslo looks very nice, I’m looking forward to some exploring tomorrow! I’m only here until Friday evening, but I’m sure I’ll have some photos to share soon 🙂

We joined Paul’s parents on a trip to Ålesund from August 20-24. We flew from Tromsø to Trondheim, where we rented a car. Our destination for the first day was Molde. We noticed a difference with the north of Norway… around Trondheim you often have to pay toll for crossing bridges or tunnels! The drive was scenic though and included a nice crossing by ferry… it was quite windy, but the wind was very warm!

We took a detour to Kristiansund, a friendly coastal town. It’s built on five islands, and you can see several small ferries (for foot passengers) crossing to the different islands. The woman with the clipfish seems to be the symbol of the town. Kristiansund used to be the largest exporter of clipfish in Norway.

We slept in Molde that night. The next morning we walked around town. Molde is known as the town of roses, and they have a nice statue of a girl with roses on the main square. The building on the right is the “Seilet Hotel” or Sail Hotel. Very modern looking, but it really does look like a sailing ship and I love how it reflects the sky and clouds.

We had a drink outside in the sun, before getting on the ferry to Vestnes – the photo on the right is the view from the ferry.

Just before Ålesund, we stopped to look at on old bridge. In the photo below you can see the new bridge, with a rainbow on the left side!

From the old bridge (or bridges rather, there were 2) we could see a maelstrom (whirlpools caused by the tidal current). There are some very large ones in Norway, especially in the Lofoten, but we never got to see those. This one is a lot smaller, but still impressive to watch the power of the water. Below you can see the whirlpools forming when the water comes around the tip of the island, and you can also see strong currents in the photo on the right (which is another, smaller island).

After checking in to our hotel in Ålesund, we decided to climb up the 418 steps to Aksla, the mountain overlooking the town. This is a famous viewpoint, and while researching this trip, it was a photo taken from up there that convinced me to come :). We were at the viewpoint around sunset, it was beautiful!

And now I have my own version of the photo that convinced me to come to Ålesund 🙂

The next day we woke up to very sunny weather and blue skies 🙂 So we got to see the town at its most beautiful, we were very lucky! Ålesund is a very special place. It was originally a city full of wooden houses, but in 1904 the entire city burnt down. At this time, there was a crisis in the building industry and many workers were unemployed. As a result, labour was very cheap and a lot of people came to Ålesund, looking for work. Most of the architects were trained in Germany, and they rebuilt the city in 3 (!!) years time, all in Jugendstil (or Art Nouveau) style, mixed with other influences and with the Norwegian dragon style. The result is stunning!

We really enjoyed walking around the town, admiring the architecture. Ålesund was voted the most beautiful place in Norway several times – and I can see why!

The details on some of the buildings are really beautiful, with motives of fruit and flowers, and animals – like the owl which we found inside the Jugenstilsenteret, a very interesting museum!

Our hotel was close to the waterfront, where we watched a nice sunset 🙂

The next day was a long drive back to Trondheim. We did take some time to visit Trollstigen (troll’s ladder), a very famous road that goes up very steeply with 11 hairpin bends. The first photo is the bridge over the Stigfossen waterfall. The second is in one of the many tourist shops on the top…

And this is the view from the top of the road:

In the photo on the right (below) you can see Paul, though he is quite camouflaged 😉 In the second photo you can see almost the entire road, with the many bends. I was glad I wasn’t driving, it takes some skill to drive around these hairpin bends, especi
ally with some big cars coming from the opposite direction.

As real Norwegians, we had a picknick outside, before continuing on our way to Trondheim.

Paul’s parents flew back from Trondheim to London the next day. Our flight was a bit later, so we spent a few hours walking around Trondheim. Trondheim is famous for the old colourful storehouses next to the river – very pretty!

We walked though a very nice neighbourhood with a lot of wooden houses with cafes and small shops.

And we found this strange thing… a bicycle lift! We weren’t able to try it out unfortunately, but you are pushed up with a platform underneath your right feet, as Paul demonstrates with his invisible bike 😉 I wonder how much it’s really used though… the hill is not actually THAT steep, and can be avoided too. While we were there, the only people interested in the bike lift were tourists and the few people cycling up the hill didn’t use it.

Our flight back to Tromsø was very scenic! It was sunny and we had great views of the glaciers between Trondheim and Bodø, where the plane has a stop. It was a nice little trip, I’m glad we got to see a different area of Norway. I’d love to come back and see more!

Paul is now on his research cruise on board the Lance, just like last year. Today they are receiving journalist and VIP visitors on board, including the secretary-general of the United Nations (Ban Ki-Moon). Or that was the plan, at least – I just read on the local news website that Ban Ki-Moon wasn’t able to reach Lance by helicopter due to bad weather. That’s a shame!

I have been busy with friends visiting here in Tromsø, and I’m flying to Oslo tomorrow morning, to meet up with Nicole and Patrick for 2 days. Should be fun! After that I’m flying to the Netherlands to spend some time with my family. It’s not all holiday though, my viva (PhD defense) is coming up very soon… scary!