21 May: Copenhagen to Amsterdam

When I was in primary school, we did a class project on Holland. We learned all about tulips, barges, dykes, clogs, and windmills. We cooked cinnamon biscuits and learned how to count to ten in Dutch. Thankfully, we didn’t learn anything about what Amsterdam is really famous for.

Our mission is to enjoy Amsterdam and avoid the red light district. Maybe I’m being paranoid? Or maybe I’ve read too many websites having googled ‘what to do in Amsterdam’ and concluding from that if you haven’t come here to smoke pot then you’re wasting your time (bad pun – sorry!).

Having said all that, we did manage to enjoy our first afternoon. We found the place where we are staying fairly easily, and picked up a few brochures on the way. It seems most of the attractions have esaily obtainable vouchers for significant discounts – for instance, we opted to buy tickets for a hop-on-hop-off boat and bus tour, for 48 hours, for 36 Euro instead of 70. Having done that we rode one of the routes around some of the various canals, which gave us a good overview of the city (geographically and historically).

You might remember my photo from a couple of days ago, of all the bikes outside the train station at Copenhagen. Here in Amsterdam they have built a 3-4 storey high bike garage that has a capacity to hold 2,500 bikes, and it’s not enough – they estimate there are some 9,500 bikes that are parked near the station every day. Amsterdam has a population of around 740,000 inhabitants, and a bicycle population of 550,000. On top of that, 50,000 bicycles are stolen every year in Amsterdam alone.

20 May: Copenhagen, day 2

Today we took a day trip to Roskilde, about half an hour by train from Copenhagen. There, they have a Viking ship museum – but it’s much more than just a museum.

In the 1950s, five ships from the Viking era (900-1100) were found, deliberately sunk together in a narrow part of the fjord. Scuttling of ships like this was a common way of defending a harbour, and Roskilde was one of the major towns in the area at the time. What excited the archaelologists the most, however, was that they were five different kinds of ships: trading ships, fishing ships, a small warship and a longboat. It took nearly thirty years to preserve the wood (using the same polyethyleneglycol process as the Vasa), and put the pieces back together to re-form the original ships.

But the museum didn’t stop there. They have also rebuilt exact replicas of all five ships, and sailed them. The longboat replica – called ‘Havhingsten fra Glendalough’ (‘Sea Stallion of Glendalough’) sailed from Roskilde to Dublin in the summer of 2007, and back to Roskilde in the summer of 2008. More info here.

Today, there is an active boatbuilding area, using traditional methods, materials, and tools. There are various areas where you can watch people making ropes, carving wood, weaving baskets and sails, and so forth.

For an extra cost, you can also go sailing in a Viking ship. This entailed giving Mum my camera – she did a good job, don’t you think?

We walked back to the train station through the town, and Mum found a new friend on the way!

19 May: Copenhagen, day 1

Today we explored Copenhagen by hop-on-hop-off... boat. While we were waiting, we saw a number of other canal tour boats pull up and passengers disembark. One boat in particular, we watched as not just one or two, but a noticeable majority of people immediately lit cigarettes as soon as they got off.

We had lunch at a restaurant at Nyhavn – a bit more upmarket than we’ve been having normally, but that’s all right (and it was warm inside!).

After lunch we headed towards Amalienborg: four symmetrical royal palaces built around a square. While we were there they had a changing of the guard.

From there we visited Frederick’s church, which as a Lutheran church was somewhat different from most of the churches we’ve visited so far (being mostly Catholic). Interestingly, they had paintings of the twelve apostles around the dome – including Paul as the twelfth, instead of Judas Iscariot.

After this we walked to the Kastellet (Citadel), a five-pointed fortress at the northern end of the old city. Although it is still used as a military facility, the rampart paths are open for pedestrians, and it was a really nice place to visit. Part of the complex included a church that reminded me a lot of the former Christchurch cathedral.

A visit to Copenhagen isn’t complete without seeing the Little Mermaid statue, based on a Hans Christian Andersen story. Unlike most of the other tourists, however, I didn’t feel the urge to climb up on the rock next to her!

We had originally planned to take the boat around these sights, and then visit the National Museum. However, by the time we arrived it was only ten minutes before closing. So we saw the foyer and that was about it!

Bikes outside the central train station

18 May: Bergen to Copenhagen

We’ve arrived in our final Scandinavian destination: Copenhagen. It’s – so far – (a) warmer than Bergen, (b) less weird than Oslo, and (c) quite similar to Stockholm. We found the hotel and went for a wander around the neighbourhood, and ultimately found somewhere to eat.

One thing you can’t help but notice is how bike-oriented the city is. Maybe it was Friday afternoon ‘traffic’, but there were quite a few bikes around. Every street we walked down had a bike lane, separated from the traffic. So you have the footpath, then the bike lane, then where the cars are parked, then the road. This results in some places in cars looking like they are parked in the middle of the road!

17 May: Bergen

Today, as it turns out, is Norway’s Constitution Day. And the city of Bergen really knew how to celebrate it – despite the weather. At 10:30 there was several – perhaps as many as 21, we didn’t really keep count – cannon shots, and from then until about 1 pm it seemed half the town participated in a parade through the streets. Even most of the bystanders were dressed up in national costume.

We watched most of the parade – umpteen brass band groups, scouts, the police, fire brigade, and ambulance, what seemed like every primary school in town...

... the medieval society, classic car society, cycling club, ice hockey club, cheerleading club, tae kwon do club, rugby club, so many student societies we lost count, tap dancing, windsurfing, jet ski, gymnastics, tennis, theatre clubs...

... fencing, Zumba dance, the Salvation Army, stunt motorbikes, mountaineering, the SPCA equivalent, ballet and ballroom dancing, the Viking society, Bergen Scottish society, and somehow in the mix there was an Irish accordian band. And that’s just the few we could remember!

Afterwards we rode the furnicular up to the top of Mount Fløyen, where we had a fantastic view over Bergen and the fjords it’s nestled among.

16 May: Oslo to Bergen

Today we had five changes of transport, and some pretty spectacular scenery. This was all part of the ‘Norway in a nutshell’ tour which goes from Oslo to Bergen via a mountain railway to Flåm and fjord cruise from there to Gudvangen. We left Oslo at 8:00 am and arrived in Bergen around 8:30 pm, so it was a pretty long day. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!

Heading up the mountain – snow!

More snow!

Changing trains at Myrdal

Coming down the mountain

Start of boat trip

Boat trip

Waiting at Gudvangen for the bus

Unexpected detour on the bus ride

One of many waterfalls we saw

View of the mountains, close to where we changed to our final train

Reflections

15 May: Oslo

Today we went to the Akershus castle and had a wander around. The castle itself wasn’t open, because apparently in May they have many official functions there (the 17th being Norway’s Constitution Day). But in any case it was nice to be able to walk around the grounds.

While we were there we marvelled at the Queen Mary 2 which was in port.

After that we headed up to the Oslo By-Museum which was described as having exhibits from 1000 years of Oslo’s history, but since most of the displays were only in Norwegian, we didn’t really know what we were looking at so it was a fairly brief visit.

You’ll remember from yesterday I described some of the weirdos we saw, well, today you get pictures. I present to you the Oslo weirdo montage. (This doesn’t include the guy who was arguing with himself; he looked relatively normal.) The girl pulling her non-wheeled bag behind her – even some of the locals watched her and laughed at her. She stopped to light a ‘special cigarette’ shortly afterwards.

click the picture for a larger version

This really reminds me of a kid in a youth group I was running a number of years ago, who came out with the classic line: ‘If everyone was weird, weird wouldn’t be weird, weird would be normal!’


On our way back to the apartment we stopped at the train station to pick up our tickets for the trip to Bergen tomorrow, which goes via some of the fjords. We had a bit of an awkward conversation when we collected the train tickets, because the guy behind the counter saw that we were from New Zealand and said, ‘I understand New Zealand is very similar to Norway. Do you agree?’ I said something about how we have fjords too – trying not to think about how many more weirdos Oslo has per head of population; mind you it’s been a while since I visited Courtenay Place – and he said, ‘Yes, and the climate, too, yes?’ I replied we had only been in Norway for one day so we didn’t really know, but probably. ‘I haven’t been there but I heard New Zealand has some spectacular scenery?’ Yes, I can agree with that.

14 May: Stockholm to Oslo

No photos today - 6 hours on a train with dirty windows. And we didn't see much apart from a lot of trees.

We found our way ok to the place we are staying (an apartment hotel). Our next mission was getting to what is possibly the only laundromat in Oslo (at least, the only one I could find on Google). It wasn't too hard to find, and it was right next to a supermarket, so while the washing was going we went and got some food for breakfasts and dinners for the next couple of days.

But the thing that has struck us about Oslo right from when we got off the train is the number of weird people around... some staring blankly into space, others standing in the street yelling at nothing in particular (or perhaps at everything), people standing or sitting in strange places. Even the guy working in the 7-11 who we asked about buying a day ticket for the trams tomorrow, didn't seem like he was all there. Then there was a woman who stood next to us while we were waiting for a tram and lit up a joint. Finally we've seen about half a dozen beggars at very close range - walking up and down the platforms while you're waiting for a tram or bus. It's quite creepy and I'm glad we're only here for one day. I don't think it's solely due to the area we're staying in, although it does seem to be more prevalent... Maybe tomorrow morning will be better. We'll have to figure out what time weirdo o'clock is - maybe the museums etc. close at 4 pm for a reason?

13 May: Stockholm, day 2

The weather today was fantastic – such a change from yesterday! It was still cold, however – max about 13 degrees Celsius.

Our first stop today was the National Historical Museum. Stockholm has over 80 different museums, and we only have two days here, so we chose this one to gain a bit of a handle on the history. They had a large Viking display of articles from throughout Sweden, and a timeline of Stockholm’s history.

After this, we headed for the Vasa museum. The Vasa was built in 1628 as a warship, and sank 20 minutes into her maiden voyage, while she was still within the harbour area of Stockholm. A bit embarassing for the king at the time, you’d have to say! Anyway the ship was salvaged in the 1960s and restored (by slowly replacing the water in the timbers with polyethyleneglycol); over 95% of the ship as we saw it today is the original timbers. We watched a short film about the salvage and restoration processes, and listened in on a brief tour which pointed out different parts of the ship.

The Vasa

Details of carvings on the stern


Our final stop for the day was the Eriksson Globe. This is a purpose-built ice hockey facility, although from the obligatory promo video that we had to watch about its construction, it looks like they use it for other indoor sports and concerts as well. It’s the largest spherical building in the world, and there’s a capsule that runs up and down one side of it, giving views over the city from the top. It was especially weird coming back down...

At the top

Today must have been ‘take your baby for a walk day’ in Stockholm. We had lunch from a kiosk in the park on Djurgården, and every man and his baby were out for a walk. Literally. Of the many people we saw pushing pushchairs and prams, the majority were men.

12 May: Stockholm, day 1

We managed to pack quite a lot into today: the city hall, where the Nobel prize reception dinner is held (among other events), the city hall tower, the royal apartments, the treasury (i.e. where the crown jewels of Sweden are kept), the Nobel museum, and a sightseeing boat trip. Probably the best things were seeing some of the rooms in the royal apartments, with these enormous chandeliers and tapestries on the walls; and the boat trip which gave some informative history about Stockholm.

The ‘Blue Hall’ at the city hall

The ‘Golden Hall’ at the city hall

View over Gamla Stan (old city) from the tower at the city hall

View from the boat trip

It hasn’t all been easy, however. Many places seem to suffer from a lack of sensible signage. For example, our first stop was the tourist information centre. They have a counter with people behind it, but you can’t just bowl up to the counter, nor can you start a queue – you have to push a button (next to which had a small label saying ‘Free WiFi’) to get a ticket with a number on it, and wait for that number to be displayed on a screen. Obviously, we managed to figure the system out eventually.
Then, at the city hall, there was one sign indicating where to buy tickets, which led to another sign pointing to where the tours left from. It turned out the ticket office was in the same place, but again that wasn’t obvious from the signage.
We found other things that we thought were rather inefficient. This surprised me, for the country that invented Ikea! For example, certain pedestrian crossings only go green in sections across the road, and the timing does not seem to be linked very well with the traffic lights. So you have people waiting to cross the road, and traffic waiting to turn, while other pedestrians and traffic travelling in the same direction can go, and then both get a green light. I probably haven’t described this very well, but maybe that just indicates what a mess it was.
At the city hall, instead of limiting the number of tickets sold for a particular time, they split the group into two – each with a guide, who then proceeded to try to talk over the other one as both groups moved through the same rooms at about the same time.
For dinner we had burgers and salad from a Swedish fast-food place: the guy who took the order was the one who went and made the salad.
I bought an iron-on patch to go on my collection blanket: it had been stuck onto the cardboard support using a hot-glue gun.
Finally the most inefficient thing of all has been the hostel. First of all, neither of our credit cards worked yesterday when we checked in. Secondly, they offer breakfast in the mornings, but when we went down today we found about a dozen people had taken over half of the kitchen making packed lunches for a small army. Then we found that all the dishes had been put away wet, and there was nothing provided to dry them on. (So we left and bought breakfast somewhere else.) Then when we arrived back in the evening, with it starting to rain outside, we opened the door to find about 30 people all standing in the very tiny foyer area. Maybe all this goes with the territory of a hostel, and I’m getting old. Or maybe people should think about other people just a little bit more? Can’t believe we’re paying NZD140 a night to put up with this!