Happy campers in Gudvangen

I had fairly low expectations of the Gudvangen campground, but it delivered big time.

 

We had a two bedroom cabin with loft and pull out sofa.  And 3 channels of TV. (The kids loved BarneTV- the children's programming.) And wifi.

 

We used the sofa because we couldn't feasibly have 2 of our kids sleep in that loft with nothing to stop them from falling 8 feet in the middle of the night.

It also had a pretty great kitchen.  So Rob walked to the nearest grocery store/gas station and bought some provisions. (Our standard travel fare: yogurt, granola, sandwich stuff, milk, bread, fruit.  In Gudvangen this bag of groceries cost us $50, but I digress.) Meanwhile I made up the beds with the rented linens and showered the children.  We finally ate dinner at 10 pm.  It was still completely light out.

 

The next morning we woke up around 8, ate breakfast, and let the kiddos check out the playground in front of our cabin, while we sat on the porch and soaked up the scenery.

 

We could see 9 major waterfalls and countless smaller ones just sitting in front of our cabin.

 

This was our home for two nights, the one farthest to the right.

 

Swinging.

 

Soccer.

 

Then we headed out to explore the area and look for a decent hike.  We walked along the river back into "town." Gudvangen has been around since the middle ages, but I read somewhere that everyone died during a plague in the 1200s and the town wasn't re-inhabited until the 1400s. Besides subsistence farming, it was a stopping place for the mail carriers back in the day.  Now, of course, the main economy is tourist driven.

 

And took some more photos by the fjord.

Viking (Ninja Turtle) Bear.

 

Anderson is a great Norwegian name... except it isn't.

 

The only problem with these spectacular cliffs is that there wasn't a clear place for us to hike up them.  We did however find a lovely walk past this sheep farm.

 

To the base of the waterfalls that we enjoyed looking at from our cabin.

 

And we loved being away from the crush of the Nutshell tourists and out on our own.

 

Back in Gudvangen we ate lunch and drank hot chocolate at the only restaurant/cafeteria in town.  We also asked someone to take this (comical) family photo for us, bought some souvenirs, and experienced the two things that happen to us everywhere we travel in Europe.  Someone counted our children "ein, two, dre, vier." And several Asian tourists smiled and waved at our children and took photos of them like they were celebrities. Everywhere we go.  

After lunch, we headed back to the cabin and ALL collapsed for 3 hour naps. We were so completely exhausted!  When we woke up it was raining again, so the kids watched some BarneTV while Rob and I sat on the porch.  Then we ate some basic dinner and ice cream bars from the campground office's shop and went back to bed for the night.  We had a bit more traveling to do the next day and needed our rest.

Norway in a Nutshell: Oslo-Myrdal-Flam-Gudvangen

Those Norwegians, they are clever, I tell ya. They know that most of us normal folk can not afford their country, so they created this travel plan that lines up various legs of public transit options and they sell it as a "tour" of Norway. You can actually do the entire Nutshell in one day (if you leave Oslo at 6:25 am and return to it at 11 pm and spend no more than 20 minutes in any one location.) Our plan was to go as far as Gudvangen in one day and then spend a few nights resting there before doing the return leg. So we left our apartment at 5 am and rode the bus to the main train station in Oslo where we boarded that 6:25 train for the 5 hour ride to Myrdal.

 

When I bought our tickets, I noticed something called a family car, so I chose seats there.... Score!!  The family room has a playroom type lounge with cartoons, picture books, and a little climbing area.  The kids spent most of the ride there (playing with a little boy from State College, PA!), which meant that Rob and I enjoyed a surprisingly peaceful ride.

 

The highest altitude point of this train ride is in Finse.  The train stopped for 15 minutes so we could all pile out and take some photos at 1,222 meters above sea level.  See the itty bitty cross country skiers?

 

Lovely day for shorts, isn't it? 

 (The kids opted to stay in the playroom.)

 

 

Sometimes we made them take a break and look at scenery out the window or eat a snack.  Amelie was the only one to take any sort of nap at all.

 

At Myrdal we switched trains to the Flamsbana railway which would take us us back down to sea level in about an hour.  The train stopped at this beautiful waterfall, where again we all piled out to take some photos (kids included this time.)

 

Pictures like this are priceless. Do I really need to say that it was wet and windy right there?

 

To add a layer of surrealness, some tourist board thought that what was needed here was a person spinning and dancing in the mist while they blared folk music at us.  Very strange, but oddly amusing.

 

All the way down we just snapped pictures of the incredible views out the windows.

 

Until we finally reached Flam. 

 

Here we arrived at the famous fjords!  

Formed by glaciers, the fjords can be as deep as the surrounding peaks are high and actually get more shallow as they approach the ocean (as the glaciers melted and were less thick and heavy.)  

 

We boarded the next ferry headed to Gudvangen. This took us up one side and down the other side of a V shaped route (the Sognefjord and Naereyfjord).

 

Not long after we got on the ferry it began to drizzle, but we were still smiling.

 

We bought the starving children some sausages wrapped in bacon and cheese and juice boxes.

 

When the rain really started to come down the kids took shelter in the dining area and colored their free coloring books they received on the Flamsbana train.

 

Rob and I kept our eye on the goal which was to SEE the fjords, so we took turns venturing out to gaze at misty mountains and waterfalls... and to take photos.

 

We found a fellow BYU grad to take one for us as well. (Don't worry, we could see the kids at all times through the big glass windows of the dining room.)

 

At the end of our 2 hour ferry ride, we arrived in the teeny tiny town of Gudvangen, population 120. From here we had to walk about 2 km to the Gudvangen campground where we had booked 2 nights in a family cabin so that we could explore the area a bit more on foot.  The first leg of our Nutshell tour was complete!

There's Nor way we can a-fjord this place!

I hope you like terrible puns! Anyway, Rob first brought up the idea of going to Norway to visit the fjords about eight years ago. I started to plan a trip, and got sticker shock and put it on the back burner.  From time to time I have begun planning this trip again, and gotten sticker shock and run away again. Norway is so expensive. We have a travel budget, and it was hard to commit so much money to such a short trip, but we finally took the plunge and flew to Oslo to start our Norway in a Nutshell tour.

 

We arrived on Friday afternoon and dropped our bags at our airbnb apartment before heading to Frogner Park.(That sounds like it was easy to do, but it wasn't! It involved a $60 bus ride from the airport, followed by a long walk to a subway station, where we paid about $50 for a 24 hour transit pass, followed by another long walk. Thankfully the days are long in Norway at the end of May.)

Frogner Park is filled with sculptures made by Gustav Vigeland.  He made a deal with the government in the 1920s that if they would give him a posh studio and place to live, he would spend his career beautifying this public space. He generally sculpted out of clay and then cast in bronze, or utilized a group of stone carvers to create the finished products.  The fountain pictured above shows men metaphorically bearing the burden that holds the source of life- water. All around the fountain are trees teeming with life- like this one brimming with babies. Others show people in various stages of life until there are just bones fertilizing the tree of life at the end of your circuit around the fountain. (My interpretations anyway.)

 

Up the hill from the fountain is the Monolith.

 

This is the view across the bridge toward downtown from near the Monolith.

 

And here is the Monolith itself. It took 3 stone carvers 14 years to complete, working 6 days a week. It is about 46 feet high, carved into a single piece of granite and shows 121 individual people.

 

On the stairs all around the monolith are simplified human sculptures in various poses showing human relationships.  My favorite, which I didn't get a picture of, is of a woman down on all fours. Her braid is being used as a bridle by two toddlers riding on her back. I know the feeling.

 

The bridge is lined by 58 bronze sculptures further illustrating the human condition.  The most famous is this angry boy. The story is that Vigeland gave the model some chocolate, and then took it away to get this reaction. I know this feeling too.  (Apparently people rub his one hand for luck?)

 

After we had our fill of outdoor art, we found an outdoor cafe in the park and ordered some pizzas and enjoyed the fresh air.  It was about 8 or 9 pm by this point and beginning to drizzle.  And we had a long trek back to our apartment yet.

 

But there is always time to stop at the playground, right?

 

Riding the tram back to the apartment waaaay past bedtime.  Little did we realize this super long day would not be the only one of its kind on this trip!