Slo go to Oslo

A week ago we took a mini-vacation on the overnight ferry to Oslo. We left on a Friday evening, stayed Saturday in a hotel in Oslo, then returned to Copenhagen on Monday morning. It was a relaxing, civilized way to travel, much more enjoyable than flying if one can afford the time. While in Oslo we took in the Norwegian Folk Museum (maybe the last in a series of open-air museums), the Viking Ship Museum, the Munch Museum, and the Stenersen Museum. We also visited Vigeland Sculpture Park and strolled along Karl Johanns Gate. The last hours were spent at the Åkershus fortress.

The ferry to Oslo comes complete with several restaurants, bars, clubs, and a movie theater. We ate too much at the buffet breakfast and dinner. I found the quality of the dinner better on the outbound trip than on the return. Between meals and sleeping we enjoyed sitting on the deck and watching the coastline scroll past, at least until the wind picked up. At one point it was slinging plastic chairs across the deck and people headed for cover. Everyone told us it was a smooth ride, but we went through some weather. It was nothing serious, but enough to bring waves from the west once we got into the open water north of Sjælland which set the boat rocking. This made sleeping a bit challenging at times. On the return trip we had the additional sensations of the rocking boat layered over the special effects of Spiderman 3. The travel sickness bags stationed at the stairs indicated that the rough ride had been anticipated. Fortunately we didn't need them.

After dropping off our bag at the hotel, our first stop was at the Norwegian Folk Museum. We took the bus from the city center out to the peninsula where many of the museums are located. At the museum we saw many preserved homes and farm buildings which indicated that Norway was far more rustic compared with other parts of Scandinavia based on what we saw in the other open air museums (Skansen, Den Gamle By, Kulturen). One treat was the stave church which was occupied by a Spanish tour group when we went in. It was reaching back a ways to recall enough Spanish to understand the tour guide. I managed as much as: La Ultima Cera = The Last Supper. The reenactors were baking lefsa, chopping wood (pictured) and demonstrating Norwegian Folk Dances. Another fun stop was to visit a preserved Oslo apartment built in the early 1900's. It gave us some insight to our own building in Copenhagen which is now fully whitewashed, but originally was more colorful. Another photo shows Alexa outside a one-room schoolhouse.

At our visit to Vigeland Sculpture Park I was a bit distracted by a short Italian man who I was certain was Yogi Berra. I managed to get a few photos of him and on further review discovered his smaller nose and ears distinguish him from the famous Yankee catcher. The sculpture park was a bit over the top. It's good that the artist was able to have an outlet for his creativity. At some point it seemed like an interesting idea gone too far, but the park setting captures the work nicely. Had it been in a museum, it would have seemed very repetitive to walk into room after room of naked bronze people in various poses. In all, the statues raise questions about the struggles of humanity on many scales, personal to societal.

The Viking Ship Museum held two well-preserved Viking ships and the lower part of a third. I learned that the dramatic dragon heads at the prow and stern were used in ceremonial vessals and not warships. On warships, captains would mount staves with their personal insignia to identify themselves. As ships may be used by different captains, they could just swap out their personal emblems then head off into the sunset to wreak havoc.

The Munch Museum records the life work of a disturbed artist. Unlike many disturbed artists, Edvard Munch lived to the ripe old age of 81 and captured many self portraits tracing the journey. Security at the museum was very tight, coming on the heels of the recent theft of The Scream, Munch's most famous work.

Moving ahead to this weekend. Finally beautiful weather in Denmark - on a weekend no less! Yesterday we visited a friend from work and enjoyed the bike ride up through the "Whiskey Belt." In the span of two hours we walked to the beach, enjoyed tea and cookies in his garden overlooking a field and the Danish countryside, and soaked up the sun. One outcome of this visit was that Alexa was able to meet another of my co-workers. A second outcome is a borrowed book "Arabia Felix" on the Danish expedition to Arabia 1761-1767 written by Thorkild Hansen. So far it's a good read, interesting insight into life and politics at the time and a reminder of how much we take travel for granted. The book describes the troubles the expedition faced merely getting to the North Sea from Copenhagen. Granted, they left in January, but after travelling 2800 miles (out and back several times, returning to the calmer waters near Helsingør) they were still only 30 miles closer to the Mediterranean Sea. After a very enjoyable visit, we and our bikes hopped the train back to Copenhagen.

Fine ferry friends

We've been busy with our guests, G&L. They headed home on Sunday after a great streak of beautiful spring Danish weather. The next day I watched hail falling outside my office window. Hopefully J&P will get the good weather when they arrive next week. During their visit, G&L took a side trip to Oslo and three day trips from Copenhagen (Roskilde, Helsingør, and Lund, Sweden).

Last weekend we visited our friends M&P who live near Århus. It was wonderful to see them and they were gracious hosts in every way. We saw the sights including Moesgård, Den Gamle By, Århus Domkirke, and the occupation museum. We enjoyed the trip there, driving across Sjælland to Sjællands Odde (odde=cape) where we caught a fast ferry to Århus. The whole trip took a little over three hours. Sjællands Odde (pictured) is a beautiful part of Denmark with the sea visible on both sides as you drive. There is a little town which is besieged by heavy traffic every few hours when the ferry comes in. The ferry was fast, kicking up a rooster tail the whole way. On the return trip dolphins playing in the ferry's wake couldn't keep pace.

Den Gamle By (the old city), one of the stops during our 2005 visit to Denmark, is an open-air museum of buildings gathered from different parts of Denmark and reassembled in Århus. On our last trip it was pouring rain and we ducked in and out of the old buildings trying to stay dry. This time we had complete sunshine. There were period actors scattered around, including two guys brewing beer in the old brewery. They said they like their job. They provided free samples for visitors who purchased a souvenir glass. Moesgård was an interesting museum covering the bronze age, iron age, and Viking age history of the area where they found a "bog man" who had been thrown in a bog after being killed 2000 years ago. The chemical composition of the water in the bog preserved him and now he lives in a glass box in the museum. The grounds surrounding the museum include a large wooded area and a walk down to the sea along with a stave church, iron age reconctructions, and a collection of stone age sites.

Yesterday the Swedish royals came to visit Denmark. They looked like they were doing much better than the bog man we saw in Moesgård. They arrived at the harbor next to my workplace, so someone went out and took a few pictures. Here is a photo of the Danish Queen with her cousin, the king of Sweden. The Swedish crownprincess Victoria came also, but I don't have a good picture of her. In the evening we watched the beginning of a big state dinner on TV. The queen and king made speeches after an awkward period where the guests made small talk. It actually made me glad that I'm just a commoner.