Norway - The Reality Behind the Beauty

Norway...

What an amazing country to visit for so many reasons.  

In May, the girls had a week off of school at the end of the month.  My sister Sheryl and her husband Bob were here visiting us in England and we all travelled to Norway together.    

Aren't they cute!

If we hadn’t been living here in England for two years, I’m not sure I would ever have made it to Norway. Before I came, I knew Norway was beautiful, but there are so many places in Europe to visit.  It just wasn't at the top of my list and let's face it, how many trips to Europe does the average American get?  Most of us have to be a little choosy. 

And then we moved to England for two years and that changed things a bit.  Now, I live a mere 1 1/2 hour plane ride away from Norway.  Getting there is so much easier. 

Besides the scenery, there was another draw for us - we have some Norwegian blood in us.  Being from Wisconsin, there are lots of Scandinavians around.  In fact, the town my sister and I grew up in has a sign when you enter saying "Velkommen til Woodville" (that's "Welcome to Woodville" in Norwegian in case you haven't already figure that out).  

We grew up celebrating Syttende Mai (the 17th of May, Norway's Constitution Day) and eating lefse, rommegrot (good luck pronouncing that one if you aren't familiar with it), and smelling lutefisk (because I've never had the courage or desire to taste it).  Every Christmas Eve, the pastor at the local church we attend in Woodville has at least one good Norwegian joke to share during the sermon.  It's in our blood.  We wanted to go and see this country that we grew up learning about from some 4000 miles away.  And we were curious to discover why so many people would leave this stunning scenery behind to move across the ocean to the America.

The scenery is Norway is beyond beautiful - indescribable really.  

We visited the fjord region which is along the western coast.  Gigantic majestic snow covered hills surround the the deep water of the fjords...

and river etched valleys that are a mixture of lush green and hard gray rock at the same time.  

There are waterfalls in every direction.  

Seldom are you not within view of at least one waterfall, and often you can see several at the same time.  

At one point, we counted eleven waterfalls that we could see out the car window.   

But it's the very majesty and beauty of this incredible place that also makes it a very hard place to live.  These hills are steep and rugged.  Except for down in the the flats of the valleys, the soil is shallow making it difficult to grow food and crops.  And we saw signs of rock slides everywhere.  On our first day in Norway, as we tried to make the two hour drive from the airport in Bergen to the little town of Flam where we would be spending the first five nights, we found our way blocked by one of these rock slides, a common occurrence.  We found an alternate route, the ONLY alternate route available for us, and several times the road narrowed to one lane because the other lane was covered by more rock slides.

And that's why so many people have left Norway looking for more promising land. It's just hard to make a living here on this magnificent land.

An abandoned farm sitting high up the rocky slope above the house we stayed in.  What exactly they farmed, I'm not sure.  My guess would be sheep because you certainly aren't growing much for vegetables or crops up there on that hill.  

But where the families that lived here would have allowed their sheep to graze throughout the year is puzzling, especially during the long hard cold winters.  

Another abandoned farm.  

This waterfall was gushing down the hillside just to the right of this farm.  An amazing setting, but that rocky slope.  In Italy we saw plenty of seriously steep slopes turned into productive vineyards, but here in Norway, that is not an option.  There was a pensive sadness about these abandoned farms.   To think that someplace can be this impossibly beautiful, but so impossibly harsh at the same time.   

Several Norwegians told us they've visited their relatives in the US - mainly in Minnesota and Oregon.  Oregon surprised me.  I didn't know there were lots of Norwegian immigrants in Oregon, but then I asked the lady driving us to the ferry landing where we would be catching a boat for a tour of a fjord from the water about this.  She said that when her ancestors first immigrated to the US, they settled in the Red River Valley of Minnesota, but it was too flat for them.  When you are use to this....

and this...

you can understand why they moved to Oregon to feel more at home.  

 

I've got more of Norway to share with you tomorrow, but I'll leave you today with some cute pictures of sheep and kids because...

Norway may win the price for the most adorable sheep....

(Look at these guys!  Don't you just want to pick them up and take them home with you?)

(I promise, this is the last sheep photo, but I couldn't resist sharing the black sheep of the family picture because they are all so darn irresistible.)

(Okay, I lied - just one more and I promise I really am done this time.  This is just funny.  And cute.  Sheep have one expression and only one, no matter what they are doing.)  

and Norway may win the prize for the most stunning playground location!

How can this not be fun...

And this... 

When you have waterfalls above you...

And a fjord lined with snow covered hills behind you...

 

And there's nothing like family to share it all with.




 

Italy - Pisa, Our Last Stop

I’ve got one last place to share with you from our two week adventure in Italy (which was way back in April and it’s about time I get these blog posts wrapped up, isn’t it). 

Pisa.

I don’t think I need to tell you what it was we saw there.

I can now confirm that the Tower really is leaning - a lot.

But it is also absolutely G O R G E O U S - even with a hundred tourists all standing along the walkway that leads back to the Tower posing as if they are holding the tilting Tower up as their travel companion stands a few feet away instructing them on where exactly to place their arms in order to get the perfect shot.  I am not ashamed to say that we fully partook in this most cheesy of tourist activities in Pisa.

Did you know that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is really a bell tower?  I didn't know that before visiting. See the building in front of it?  It's the Pisa Cathedral and the Leaning Tower is it's freestanding bell tower.

Are you wondering why this great bell tower could possibly be leaning so much?  Was it designed this way on purpose?  Well, the tilting of this great tower definitely lends a unique beauty to it, but the answer it no, it was not designed this way on purpose.  It was in fact a design flaw.  The Tower actually began to tilt during construction back in the late 1100's due to an inadequate foundation that was placed on ground too soft on one side to support the weight of the structure.  By the time construction of the second floor took place, the Tower was already listing to one side, but the work carried on anyway.  Construction took nearly 200 years and as the Tower grew, the engineers changed the design to try and compensate for the tilt.  In the late 1990s structural work was done on the Tower because it continued to tilt further and further and there was fear of it collapsing.  It's now been stabilized and in 2008 engineers announced that the Tower had stopped moving for the first time in it's history.

Now, if ever you should find yourself in Pisa, please don't just stop to see the Tower.  I beg you to get out and see Pisa itself because it's a wonderful and beautiful city.  

The flower show and art sale that happened to be taking place in the streets on the day we were there added even more color to this already vibrant city.

The young lady who checked us into our hotel room was kind enough to map out a walking route around Pisa for us, complete with which restaurant we should eat at (which ended up being one of the best meals we had in all of Italy)...

 and the location of her favorite gelateria.  

It was also the best gelato we had in Italy.    

Like so many others, we may have come to see the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa, but we ended up seeing so much more.   

And with that, we headed home.  Even though we were leaving the stunning country of Italy behind, the views on the way home weren't bad either.

Italy - The Villages of Cinque Terre

How did we pass our time in Cinque Terre?  By visiting all five villages of course.  While the villages all closely resemble each other at first glance, they each have their own flavor we soon discovered. 

The first village we visited was Vernazza.   

I know I shouldn't play favorites, but Vernazza stole my heart the very first time I walked her cobblestone street (and yes, there is only one street).   

We stayed in the hills above this lovely little town and often started and ended our day here.  It came to feel like our hometown in Cinque Terre, and maybe that's why I developed such a strong affection for it.   

Or maybe it's because this adorable little village that only takes five minutes to walk from end to end seems to spill out of the valley into the Mediterranean Sea...

Or maybe it's the sea urchins lurking in the pools of crystal clear water that collect along the rocky shore that the girls begged to explore every chance they got...

Or maybe it's the colorful buildings all snuggled together on the shore of the Sea with laundry hanging from the windows that reminds you there are people lucky enough to actually call this fairytale place home... 

Or maybe it's because this is a profession here - water taxi operator...

And this is your office - the Mediterranean Sea.  Are you starting to see why I liked this little village?

We did visit the rest of the villages during our stay as well.  Our first morning in Cinque Terre we strapped on our hiking shoes and we were off.  

Our guide was these signs marked with red and white.  Follow the correct sign and hopefully you will end up in the right place.

Keep your eyes open when hiking these trails because you never know where the red and white markings might pop up to point the way. 

Our destination that morning - the village of Monterroso.  

We didn't see much for beaches along the rugged coast of the Mediterranean until we visited Monterroso.   After our long hike, we grabbed a couple of pizzas and some cold drinks and sat on a bench overlooking the beach as we ate.  Not a bad way to spend a day.

We hiked back to Vernazza after lunch taking a different path that runs right along the Sea.  It's quite a precarious trail at times, but the view was amazing!  We caught glimpses of our little village of Vernazza as we made our way back. 

Day two we decided to try a different mode of transportation, a ferry.   We boarded the ferry right at the end of the pier in Vernazza and out onto the beautiful blue Mediterranean water we went.

 

We passed the village of Corniglia sitting high on a rocky outcrop...

And then Manarola...

But our destination that day was the village of Riomaggiore, the last of the five villages, and that is where the ferry deposited us... 

And where we were greeted by the village pussycat.  

The ferry ride was amazing, but getting on and off the boat was a bit dicey as it bobbed up and down with the waves of the Sea.  

We walked the street (again there is no plural at the end of the word "street" because these really are tiny villages) of Riomaggiore for a bit before heading up into the hills on foot towards one of the villages we had passed early on the boat, Manarola.  

After a rugged climb and descent, we found a place to enjoy some food and refreshments...

While watching the colors of the village change in the light of the setting sun. 

And about that setting sun...

We decided to take the easy route back to our little village of Vernazza - the train.  Yes there are trains that actually run between the five villages, although at first glance it's hard to image because of the rugged coastline.  But the trains have a secret - they cut through tunnels in the hills and pop out only when arriving at each village.  And do you know what that means for those who choose to use the train in Cinque Terre?  

You get a view like this while you wait for your train.  

We still had one more village to explore - Corniglia.  We headed there via train on the morning of our last full day in Cinque Terre.  

Upon arriving in Corniglia via train there are stairs to climb, and climb, and climb to actually get up to the village.  

After wandering the village a bit, we set off on our last hike in Cinque Terre.  We were hiking to the village of Manarola.  As with the other hikes, we had to go up, up, up and then down, down, down...

but this hike also took us right through a terraced vineyard....

 

And through someones yard.  We passed right by their front door, or maybe it was the back door (it's hard to tell when your house is sitting on a terrace) and we could see a man inside doing his laundry.  We felt like we were invading his privacy, but that's just where this trail took us.  There was no other route.  I'm guessing he's used to strangers passing right by his house.  He probably didn't even notice us.  

The house and the vineyard seems to just hang in the air over the Mediterranean.  

That people can take a rugged rocky steep hillside (and this is no small hill mind you) where one wrong move earns you a quick trip straight down to the Sea and turn it into this beautiful home and vineyard - it's simply amazing, or maybe crazy.  

But with a view like this and a perfect climate, can you really blame them?  

The last part of our hike would take us down 1200 stairs (there is a reason we decided to start at the other end of this hike)...

And into the village of Manarola from where we had watched the sun sink into the Mediterranean Sea the night before.  

And that was our trip to Cinque Terre.  

A perfect place to visit.  

I've got nothing left to say about it... 

Except that you should go.

If these pictures can't convince you... 

Then there's really nothing left to say.