It's a long train trip from Oslo to Stockholm, about 10 hours, so it's most likely that I took the overnight train. I found that there are two pictures of Uppsala, a handful of pictures of Stockholm, and Helsinki after that. So I come to the conclusion that I either stayed only one night in Stockholm or not at all, and explored it in more depth the second time through. Sleeping on overnight trains to save on accommodation and time was a strategy I used a few times. But you miss the landscape in between.
I needed somewhere to while away a couple of hours, and Uppsala which is about an hour north of of Stockholm seemed as good as any. Uppsala University is the oldest in Sweden.
This is the cathedral, probably the grandest in Sweden as Uppsala is also the ecclesiastical centre of Sweden.
The main street of Uppsala. If my guesstimate of my visit date is correct, it would have been a Saturday morning and this would account for the lack of traffic.
There are some good pictures of the Stockholm archipelago as the overnight ferry cruised towards Helsinki, so this time I'll merge the photos from the return visit with those of the one-day first visit.
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway and my chance to see a bit of the west coast. The Montana hostel there has stunning views over the city from its location on Mount Ulriken.
I encountered a senior hosteller there who looked in his 60s or 70s but fit as a fiddle. He was the oldest person I'd seen in a hostel so far and it planted the idea in my mind that age need not be a barrier to backpacking.
In the evening I joined a group of hostellers to await the sunset over the harbour.
And this is what we eventually were privileged to see.
Only an afterglow left.
The next day I explored the harbour which dates from the 11th century.
Grieg was born in Bergen and his home Trouldhaugen is a museum. Unfortunately it's some ways out of Bergen, so I had to leave it for another year, perhaps.
This fountain is in a lake near Byparken.
One of the most scenic railway trips in the world is the one from Oslo to Bergen via Myrdal with an excursion to Flåm on a branch line. Flåm is at the head of the longest and deepest fjord in Europe, the Sognefjorden.
You can spot traces of reflection from the window glass so these pictures were probably taken from the train. I'll keep the commentary to the minimum required to maintain the layout.
Swift mountain stream.
Mirror like lake.
Snow on the peaks, even in summer.
I remember that it was a very comfy train and that sections of the line were protected with snow shelters. If you look at the left of the picture you can see a protected section of the line where we had just been, or were about to go.
It looks bare in summer and probably just all white in winter.
At Myrdal I changed to the 20 km branch line, which descends to sea level at Flåm. As you can imagine, the views of the valleys are spectacular.
This is probably the Kjosfossen waterfall, within view of the line and one of the main reasons tourists take this trip.
I think those spectators came by road from Flåm since train passengers would have to wait for the next service if they made a stopover.
Another waterfall, perhaps Rjoandefossen.
Nearing town of Flåm, at sea level.
And I was there, with the sign to prove it.
Flåm did not have a youth hostel, and other accommodation would have been expensive, so I returned to Mydal and proceeded westwards to Voss where there was one. It's close to several lakes. One was walking distance from the hostel.
I overnighted here and took these pictures.
Local flora.
I made a stopover in Gothenburg to break the long journey to Oslo. I can't find any photos from there. But I met and shared a room with Wolfram, a German student who studied physics. We later corresponded for many years; he liked to tell me about the plays and films he had seen. I think he rose to a high position in the academic world, but we lost touch after he got married. I have a photo he sent of his wedding.
A reader has tracked down this fountain for me. It's near the Nobel Museum, which I probably visited but have no recollection of. This design looks old fashioned and the building behind looks grey and forbidding. I was probably attracted by the sculpture on the wall.
The Scotsman pub in this shot of the main pedestrian street of Oslo is still there.
This is the sea memorial sculpture on the peninsula of Bygdøy. Several museums are located here, including the one below. Note the natives enjoying the summer day.
I visited the Kon-Tiki museum which exhibits artifacts from Thor Heyerdahl's journeys. His account of the intrepid Kon-Tiki journey captured my imagination when I was a kid. When I digitised these slides I thought this was the raft, but it would have been flat, as it was made from balsa logs lashed together. In fact this is the Ra II from a later journey, which sailed from Morocco to Barbados.
Here is Kon-Tiki, or rather a reassembly of it, since the raft broke up on the reefs when they reached Polynesia.
The debate over whether Polynesia was settled from the west or from the east continues. It seems that DNA testing partly supports Heyerdahl's theory that it was settled from South America, or that at least there was contact.
I walked back to the city from Bygdøy to save on bus fare. Oslo is not a big city; the walk is about 5 km by the map and would have taken me an hour and half perhaps. I recall being grumpy because I had confirmed what the guide book wrote, that Scandinavia was expensive. But I must have liked the colours of this garden that I passed to take a picture.
At least it was a pleasant day and there were some feathered natives to look at along the way.
Large and handsome specimens too.
Frogner Park with the Vigeland Installation, a large outdoor collection of the sculptor's works. I just learnt that he designed the Nobel Peace Prize medal. Learn something new everyday.
I also visited Holmenkollen, where the ski jump Holmenkollbakken has been used for winter Olympics. But I went also to get a vantage point over the city.
Unfortunately grand vistas never look quite as good squeezed into a small picture on a screen. You had to be there.
A distant view of the harbour.
The ferry between Funen and Zealand was part of the Danish rail system and covered by Eurailpass. It was a pleasant crossing in the fine weather. As mentioned, a bridge opened in 1998 has cut the travel time.
It was a large ferry with many amenities.
As with Paris, I passed through Copenhagen twice, the second time on return from Sweden. I will combine the couple of photos I took in Copenhagen before going to Norway with the second visit.
Before that I spent part of day in Louisiana. No, not that southern state of the US, but the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. The first owner of the property named it after his three wives, all named Louise.
Louisiana is on the rail line to Helsingør, so it was a stopover.
Louisiana was founded in 1958 by Knud W. Jensen who wanted to establish a place where Danes could experience modern art. The museum holds works by famous modern artists. I liked the sculpture park. Even if one is not enthused by modern art, it's pleasant to wander in green surroundings.
I'm guessing that this was the original house on the property.
Stabiles and mobiles by Alexander Calder, just outside the cafe. The museum's website shows lovely views, especially in the evening, across the Øresund, the strait separating Denmark from Sweden.
Alberto Giacometti's signature works are thin, elongated figures.
Modern painting is also represented.
A street in Helsingør. The English speaking world knows it better as Elsinore, the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
But the action in the play takes place in Kronborg castle, which is just outside the city, at the tip of the island, and guards the strait.
Possibly a last evening photo before catching the ferry.
So I bade farewell to Germany and hello to Scandinavia, starting with Denmark. It comprises a peninsula, Jutland, joined to the European mainland, and lots of islands. The two most populous islands are Funen, which is joined to Jutland by short bridges, and Zealand, where Copenhagen is, which was connected to Funen only by ferry before the Great Belt Fixed Link bridge was completed in 1998.
I made a stopover in Odense on Funen to visit the Hans Christian Andersen Museum. It was the childhood home of the author. If I recall correctly, it is the yellow house and the building with the sun motif is a theatre.
This is a rather ordinary looking building so I'm guessing it's the youth hostel I stayed at in Odense.
