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Scandinavia Trip 2018
  • West Family Travels
6月 – 7月 2018

Scandinavia Trip 2018

We will spend 5 nights in Copenhagen, 7 nights in Stockholm, 2 nights in Oslo, 5 nights on the Sognefjord, 3 nights in Bergen, 1 night Hagesund and 1 night in Stavanger. We will travel by train and then rent a car in Norway. もっと詳しく
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  • 旅行の開始
    2018年6月29日
    West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者

    Trip planning

    2018年5月27日, カナダ ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    We are very much looking forward to our trip to Scandinavia this summer. After several years of travelling to Europe, last year we opted for a North American road trip holiday to Montana and Wyoming. We had a great time but it didn't fulfill the wanderlust of going to Europe. This year I have changed my travel planning. I am relying totally on Air BnB to book our accommodation. In previous years I had used VRBO. Our bookings were always good through VRBO but I had troubles paying. Many of the places required me to send Bank Drafts or go through paypal which I found to be a hassle. Air BnB was much more convenient to book through their websites. I am unsure whether it was any cheaper. As always I was planning well in advance for the trip and I managed to have booked many of the places last September which provided me a very good selection of accommodations to pick. The other change this year with the trip is that I decided to travel via train for our first two legs of the trip from Copenhagen to Stockholm and from Stockholm to Oslo. These are very sizeable distances and would have taken several hours to have driven. I decided that it would have just been to exhausting and unpleasurable. On previous trips when I looked into train travel but it was considerably more expensive then car travel for a whole family. For the past couple of months I have been daily checking the Swedish Rail site for when the tickets would go on sale hoping that if I could buy the tickets on the first day they went on sale that maybe I could get a wee discount. When they did go on sale I was totally shocked by the cost. I have heard horror stories about the cost of travelling in Scandinavia but I never suspected the cost of the tickets. For our family to travel from Copenhagen to Stockholm it will cost us $77 CDN for all five of us. For our second trip from Stockholm to Oslo it will cost $144 CDN for the whole family again. How can this be so? Obviously the tickets must be highly subsidized by the state. After Oslo we will be renting a car for twelve days to allow us to travel to the very spectacular Sognefjord which one could get to by train but it would logistically be much more difficult. In previous years I have always been on the lookout for a nice monastery for two of my colleagues to retire to but unfortunately I have learned that Scandinavia did away with it's monasteries during the reformation. My apologies to Mark and Ross for letting you down on this. Last year Ross did get his genealogy tested through Ancestory.com and learned that he had Scandinavian blood so I will be happy to assist him with any genealogy research. I have included some of our photos from our trip last year in order to test out the site.もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者

    Iceland for an hour

    2018年6月30日, アイスランド ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

    We have arrived in Iceland with a quick turnaround and on to Copenhagen

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者

    Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles

    2018年7月1日, デンマーク ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    We arrived safe and sound in Copenhagen yesterday. Those transatlantic flights really take a lot out of a person. I think I faired a little better this year as I was able to sleep a little bit. We took the LRT and walked to our apartment in Fredericksburg where we were met by the owner Henrik who would appear to live here when he is not renting it out. He is a retired architect who is doing this as a side hustle. We kept awake as long as possible even doing an after supper Zombie walk. Andrew gave in about 7 and went to sleep waking up at midnight while the rest of us persisted until 8:30. Being a Saturday night the street in front of our house was quite noisy but I slept until 4:30. Madeline and Chris slept until 8.

    So far if there is one thing that defines Copenhagen I would have to say the bicycle. I always knew the Danes were active bicycle commuters but I was absolutely stunned by the scale of things. The city is incredibly well set up with bicycle lanes everywhere. There are an incredible number of cyclists using the system. Everyone looks so fit and healthy on the bikes. On Saturday night everyone was elegantly dressed heading out on the town all on their bikes. They also like to use cargo bikes which you see people transporting their children, their girlfriends and their dogs. We were so motivated that today Sunday, we rented bikes and cycled around to see the sites. Highlight were Christiana a commune started by squatters on an unused military base in the 70s. It was hippy marijuana ville. Chris was told off for picking some bud growing up in what he thought was a public garden.Lots of tourists and gaunt looking men sitting around smoking and drinking Carlsberg beer at 10 in the morning. I am sure they were waiting to break the bud out. After an hour everyone decided the place was too seedy and we left.

    We biked north through the harbour district to Amalienborg castle home of the royal family. The harbour was over run in tourists. We caught a little of the changing of the guard before biking north for lunch at St. Albans Anglican Church. A little bit of England here in Denmark. The little mermaid was just beyond St. Albans. We just had to follow the tour buses. The statue was prettier than I thought it would be. We headed south to Rosenberg castle. I thought everyone should experience one Scandinavian castle. It was filled with Royal family junk and the Royal jewels. We have been getting our friend Russell to buy us a souvenir for our trips from a garage sale in Edmonton these last couple years so we thought we would have him keep his eye out for some Scandinavian Crown Jewels for us this year. He was quite successful finding us beer steins from Germany.

    Everyone was running out of steam so we biked back and returned the bikes at the rental shop and headed down to the harbour away from the tourists to swim in a 50 metre harbour pool with the locals. There was a 2 metre diving board which kept the little ones busy.

    I figured we must have biked about 15 k and swam .5 km. And walked for about an hour. It was the Copenhagen triathlon.    もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Roskilde viking museumBuilding viking boatsMore vikings

    Vikings, vikings, vikings

    2018年7月2日, デンマーク ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Today we travelled a little out of Copenhagen to Roskilde which until 1450 was the home of the Royal family. It is today better known as the home of the Viking ship museum. In 1969 they found the wrecks of five Viking vessels from 1100 which had purposely been sunk in a fjord close to Roskilde to block it from potential attackers. Although the wrecks which consisted of planks of wood mounted on metal frames of between 30-70% completeness weren't that exciting, they gave a very good tour in English explaining all about the history of the boats and of the Viking era. They had also established a Viking ship building shop where they had recreated all of the ships using original techniques. These ships were fully functional and they allowed one to get on them although we didn't go for a sail. They had also been building replicas of other ancient ships so there were a lot of ships. The boys and I had a go with axes to shave down a 1/8 size split log. There were also opportunities to make jewellery, a little boat, practise basket weaving and make rope. All of the trades workers were very friendly and engaging. We were exhausted after a few hours so we decided to take a miss on the Roskilde cathedral where many of the Royalty from Denmark are buried. We took the train back to Copenhagen and I realized the cost of the round trip 16k on the train was $80 which is more than the cost of our one way trip to Stockholm. How can that be?もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    We are th Danes
    Giant meteorLiberal DanesFive metre platformChris's Punjabi Grocery storeSomething for Ross

    Bog people, French horns, meteors

    2018年7月3日, スウェーデン ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    We visited the Danish national museum. We started with a one hour tour called "We are the Danes" that explained how Denmark starting in the depression in the 20s had slowly became more socialistic. The bicycle represented part of this idea as everyone would be equal with a bicycle. I found that somewhat interesting as in addition to seeing a lot of bicycles in Copenhagen I also think that I saw more Tesla cars then I have ever seen. Denmark had historically controlled all of Scandinavia but had gradually lost territory through poorly planned wars such that by the 19 century they were a very small country. They developed a philosophy of looking inwards rather then looking outwards. We also learned had Danes love their home and the coziness and comfort that their home gives them. They call it Hygge.They also are very private about their homes and will never invite close friends into their houses. The Danes are ahead of us by 10-15 years on maternity leave, same sex marriages but not yet marijuana legalization. Chris, Cheryl and myself enjoyed the tour, Madeline and Andrew less. We went and had lunch in a courtyard beside this big rock which looked a little unusual. We realized later that it was a giant meteor from Greenland. It was huge. After lunch it was onto the fun stuff. I told everyone that they had an hour and a half to see whatever they wanted. The museum has a huge collection of Bog people, that is bodies buried between 2000-3000 BC in bogs in oak logs allowing the body and possessions to be preserved. The clothing and shoes were perfectly intact and not that different from our clothing although it was all woven. The bodies were less preserved.There was a bog girl who was dressed in a miniskirt and "crop" top. It was the type of provocative clothing you wouldn't want your daughter wearing. Times don't change. They had a wonderful collection of lur horns from 1000 BC. The lur horns were the precursor of the French horn. My colleague Ross who collects antique French horns will have to get a Lur horn. Lots of ornate jewelry from prehistoric times. There was also lots on the Danish colonies of US Virgin Islands, Gamba,Greenland and one in India. All lost to the US, Britain or independence. By then our time was up and we headed off to swim in another canal pool as it has been quite warm in Copenhagen. This had a 75 metre pool and a five metre diving tower which my kids made me go off.もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Cooling our heels
    National galleryBaby portrait of AndrewAndrew the discus throwerA seductive painting

    Bicycling and art galleries

    2018年7月4日, スウェーデン ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    For our last day in Denmark we decided that we wanted to do some more bicycling and to combine this with some art galleries. I had mistakenly bought a museum pass at the Rosenburg castle which I was misled to thinking included the National museum. It included the National gallery and the Davis gallery. We rented bikes from a different bike shop around the corner from where we were staying. Uptown bikes. As Chris said afterwards it seemed a little shady. I felt I was doing some sort of drug deal. I guess they weren't use to cash transaction. I just would not have liked leaving my credit card number with them. We cycled the long way to the National Gallery. Everyone had an hour to immerse themselves in art. I made a beeline for the Danish collection and thoroughly enjoyed the paintings by artists that were unknown to me. Cheryl and Madeline concentrated on the modern art and I don't know what Chis and Andrew did although I kept meeting up with them. We ate lunch in the foyer of the gallery before heading off to cool our feet in the pool out front. I am not sure whether this constituted a traditional visit to a gallery but every seemed happy. Our next stop on our bikes just a few blocks away behind the Rosenburg Castle was the Davis collection. Davis was a wealthy lawyer/ business man who collected art with an interest in Islamic antiquities. On his death in the 1960s he had left his house and collection to be used to establish an art gallery. The main collection consisted of Islamic antiquities dating back to 700 AD divided by region. They had a page from one of the earliest Korans in 700AD which had been erased and written over again. Lots of calligraphy in stone and wood. Ornate jewelry. There was a glass appearing container which had been carved out of a crystal. Obviously Islam punched much higher culturally then Western Europe during the dark ages. I think it was probably one of the most pleasant galleries that I have seen in ages. After 45 minutes though we had to leave as this was all the time we had allotted. We finished the day with a swim in the first canal pool we had gone to and then returned the bikes to the money laundering bike shop. As it was our last night in Copenhagen we started packing up for our departure the next day for Stockholm .もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Waiting for the train
    Walking to the Copenhagen train stationAir BnB StockholmFellow train traveler

    Slow train to Stockholm

    2018年7月5日, スウェーデン ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    I think the great thing about traveling with children specifically teenagers is that you can learn so much from them. Despite having so little worldly experience they seem to know how to conduct oneself when travelling. The first lesson I have learned from my son Christopher is that there is no need to show up for a train or plane departure in advance to give oneself any buffer room and doing so only indicates that you have a serious neurosis. Perhaps an anxiety disorder NOS. The second thing that I have learned from Chris is that one should never ever ask anyone for help even people working at information booths. One can learn all from the internet specifically YouTube videos. Being the accepting person that he was of my anxiety neurosis he allowed us to get to the train station 50 minutes early and he tolerated me talking to the information people. We learned that our train across the border into Sweden to Lund where we would catch our high speed train to Stockholm had been cancelled. My heart had a sinking feeling when I heard this. As we were in good time we could take another train and still make our connection which we did in Lund. At the Swedish border there was some pretty intense security with passport checks and ticket checks. I think the era of open borders in Europe may be coming to an end. The high speed train was glorious. I sat beside Cheryl and the children sat in other seats. The trip took about 4.5 hours which beat the 7-8 hour drive had we rented a car. All for $80 for all of us. When we made it to Stockholm we had a 10 minute walk to the subway line where we paid $20 to go three stops which was maybe 2 km. The enigma of Scandinavia. Oh it wasn't a slow train to Stockholm, it was a very fast train. A slow train to Stockholm just had a nice ring to it.

    When we got to our BNB accommodation in Stockholm Cheryl and I left the children to play one of our favourite games. It is called find the obscure ingredients for a recipe. This game is best played when you are a little tired and hungry . It is a timed event where the competitor, typically myself is expected to find obscure ingredients that the judge usually Cheryl wants me to find. I cannot be caught by the judge asking anyone for help or else I gain time penalties. At no time during the game must I say " Couldn't we make something simpler for supper or I will immediately forfeit the game and the penalty will be that I will have to make supper. The game went pretty well for me although I had some problems finding chicken broth. The best I could find were Oxo cubes. I also gained some penalty points as Cheryl caught me trying to explain what it was to a shelf stocker. I will have to improve my communication skills for our next game.

    We have been in Stockholm for less then a few hours. Maybe I was brainwashed by the Danes but I think that people really did look happier and healthier in Denmark. The Swedes well they appear more like us North Americans, a little frumpy and not as happy .    もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Drottingham palace
    Swedish queen's geraniumsDrottingham palaceThe Swedish queen's geraniumsGripsholm castleRune stone at Gripsholm castle

    Drottingham palace, Marieford

    2018年7月7日, スウェーデン ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    We picked up our rental car from a rental car agency which was only 1.6 k from the house. When we showed up they told us that they had no cars. After I told them we had travelled all the way from Canada and that we would take any car we mysteriously got a Kia Niro. We went back to the apartment picked up the children and headed off to Drottingham palace. It was supposed to have been a 12 minute drive but despite having a GPS we got terribly off course and ended up driving through a tunnel under central Stockholm. It took us about 50 minutes. Drottingham palace is the home of Sweden's King. It is known as the Versailles of the north which is probably a stretch. It is unique to Europe as it is one of the only royal palaces one can tour. I guess the Swedish king must be short of cash and needs a side hustle. It is probably only a matter of time before he opens up an Airbnb. We checked out the palace gift shop and wandered around the grounds. Interestingly we bumped into an old colleague of mine, Mr Toilet paper holder man. Initially I didn't recognize him, a common problem that befalls pathologists not being able to recognize tumours out of context. He told me he needed a break from all the crap he has to put up with at work. The most impressive thing we saw in the gardens was this collection of Geraniums. There must have been 60 different species many of which I had never seen or heard of before

    Drottningholm castle is on Lake Malaren, a huge lake just west of Stockholm. We decided to drive to Mariefred home of Gripsholm castle. Mariefred was a very pleasant lakeside summer resort town with a beautiful brick castle and grounds. We went for a swim in the lake just down the lake from the castle before touring the castle grounds and gift shop. There were some beautiful Rune stones in the gardens dating back to 1100. Rune stones were memorials that Vikings made to memorialize lost family members often with poems.

    All in all a very full day.    もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Boda Borg
    Conscripted into the Swedish armyAll you can eat Tacos

    Boda Borg, carpool karaoke, Oxelosund

    2018年7月7日, スウェーデン ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    Today we drove to a town south of Stockholm about 100 k away known as Oxelosund. Oxelosund is home to Boda Borg a quest centre which our friends the Kleins raved about after their trip to Sweden a few years ago. The trip was fun as we got to see some of the rural areas around Stockholm. The boys got their devices hooked up to the car computer via Bluetooth. I don't know how they can figure this out but they can. We had a good run of carpool karaoke all the way to Oxelosund. James Cordon would have been proud of us. I wanted to get a video but Chris wouldn't let me.The joy but frustration of living with teenagers.

    We made it to Boda Borg before ten and signed up for the full day and the lunch. Boda Borg is a quest centre. To complete the task you need a team of 3-5 . You can't do it by one's self .You enter rooms and either have to perform physical tasks as a group, solve puzzles, press light sequences in a specific order before being allowed to proceed to the next room. Basic instructions were provided in English on the doors which after about an hour my children realized would be helpful to read before starting.Rooms have themes like escape from prison, Safari adventure or Ninja warrior. There was a lot of crawling on knees through small spaces. I felt at times that I was in a McDonald's play area. By lunch I was exhausted and Cheryl had a massive headache but the kids were having a blast. After a traditional Swedish lunch of make your own Tacos the kids were back at it. Cheryl and I took a long time over the Tacos in order to savour the food in such a romantic setting. Or maybe it was because we needed a rest. I headed out for another round with the kids while Cheryl had a drug induced nap on the couch. By 2 I was absolutely spent and feeling my entire age. The kids didn't want to go but fortunately Cheryl had an exit strategy. A Cold War military installation just outside of town. My children seem to love anything military. They must get it from their mother who also has a penchant for military museums. Did I ever tell you that her Grandfather was at Vimy ridge. The opportunity to visit a Cold War series of batteries dug into the bedrock in the 60s was just too much to resist. The installation consisted of these three huge guns and radar facilities controlled by central bunkers built into bedrock to a depth of 30 metres. It felt very 60ish something you would expected out an early James Bond movie. We had our very own personal tour from a local high school student whose English was just okay. The tour normally takes an hour but we were so interested that it took us 1.5 hours. In addition to the large guns, they had lots of other military paraphernalia including guns, rockets, drones etc. We were in our glory. After the tour we got back in the car, drove to a grocery store for supplies and did some more carpool karaoke. On the way back to Stockholm everyone tried to console me for my poor showing at Boda Borg by telling me that as a tall adult that the place wasn't designed for me and that I was probably one of the older players at the facility. I also think that our friends the Kleins are a little younger and obviously a little fitter then we are.    もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Viking burial mounds
    Uppsula cathedralVintage ToyotaCarl LinnaeusViking swimming holeA volvo in every driveway

    Volvos, volvos, volvos

    2018年7月8日, スウェーデン ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Today was our last day with our car. We decided to drive to the ancient town of Sigturna on the northeast arm of Lake Malvern. Sigturna was a pretty little town on the lake. The only trace of the Vikings however was the Rune stones that had been organized around town on a little walk. We ate our lunch by the lake which was filled with Lilly pads and then decided to head to the University town of Uppsala. Uppsala is a university town. We visited the Cathedral with the longest nave in Scandinavia. It was of Gothic design build in 1453. It was a very impressive building and even the kids tolerated visiting it. After the church we headed off to the house of Carl Linnaeus, Uppsula's most famous son which is quite the claim given that scientists from Uppsula's university have won a total of 8 Nobel prizes. Carl Linnaeus was a physician and botanist who developed the formal naming system for plants and animals between 1743 and 1778. Think genus and species. He is quite big here having had his picture on the 100 kronor note. I thought of my colleagues Mark who maybe had he been born in another time would have been a great botanist. The museum and garden were quite beautiful. They had an audio tour where one would walk from room to room in the house and click on a light to hear information about the room and about Carl's accomplishments. The children stayed amused for 45 minutes and maybe even learnt something. Our last visit was to Gamla Uppsala. This consisted of nine large viking burial mounds from 500 AD. They were pretty large. We walked around them and visited the gift shop. No one wanted to go into the museum. We enquired at the museum about a swimming location and learned that the town of Uppsula's maintained a swimming spot on a river with bathrooms, a beach and a dock. It was quite busy. Madeline and I ended up chatting with some graduate students from the university doing Phds in molecular biology. It wasn't the spot that I would have thought that I would have had such a scientific discussion. It was kind of fun to think that we were swimming where Vikings once swam. We returned to Stockholm and after supper we returned our car to the Avis car rental with no cars and dropped the keys off.

    Having spent the last three days driving around in Sweden, it is tough not to notice that there are an incredible number of Volvos here. There are Volvos everywhere. I think about 50% of the cars are Volvos. Seeing all of these old Volvos has been a little nostalgic. We told someone that we met that Volvos were considered prestigious cars in Canada and they really thought that was funny. Whether it is Volvos or Skodas or BMWs, the Swedes love their station wagons. We also notice that they don't drive minivans or trucks. I think we only saw 4-5 personal trucks while driving around. We wondered what would all of the doctors drive to work at the Royal Alex if they didn't drive Volvos. Teslas ? The one car that we came across that piqued my curiosity was a 1981 Toyota Cirdan. It looked a lot like a Camry. We talked to the elderly owner who told us she was the original owner. It was 37 years old. By comparison my Toyota Odessey is only 15 years old. I am unsure It will make it another 20 years. For Ross there were a fair number of BMWs here but not many vintage ones. Maybe you could get a better price for your Beamer if you shipped it to Sweden.    もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Improvised hat for Madeline.
    A little island mermanAndrew and the swingLeaving StockholmSwimming in the Baltic oceanThe castle

    The Stockholm archipeligo

    2018年7月10日, スウェーデン ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Today we headed off to the Stockholm archipelago which consists of a lot of islands in the Baltic ocean which have summer houses and summer communities. We decided to head to the community of Voxholm which is about a 45 minute ferry from Stockholm. Enough to give us a taste of the archipelago but not long enough to get bored. The archipelago struck me as a Muskoka done Scandinavian style.Lots of large Swedish looking houses on islands. We got to Voxholm and did the Rick Steves tour of the town having an opportunity to see the quaint fisherman's cottages which have all been converted into multimillion dollar summer homes. We hung out at a beach with the locals for a while, visited a playground where Andrew got stuck in a child's swing and received a lot of funny looks from the locals. All three of us had to work to pull Andrew out of the swing. It was a very unusual situation but Andrew was pretty happy when we got him out. We checked out the castle before heading back to Stockholm on the bus. This island happened to be connected to the mainland by a bridge. Of course the kids didn't realize this until we were waiting for the bus.もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    A reconstruction of a victim
    Model of VasaThe true Vasa in the darkSt. GeorgeTiny boy statueInteresting sculpture

    Vasa museum and Gamla Stan

    2018年7月11日, ノルウェー ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    This is my second attempt at this entry. The first entry was lost when my iPad crashed. It makes me feel like I am at work and one's dictation gets lost. I am actually working on this on a high speed train to Oslo. One can watch the speed of the train and at times we have been doing 200k per hour which seems pretty fast but maybe not as fast as the TGV trains in France. Maybe someone could fact check this for me. We finished our stay in Stockholm on a strong note. We toured the Vasa museum which contains the Vasa ship from 1638 that sunk in Stockholm harbour within 40 minutes of it's maiden voyage. The guns made the ship too top heavy. Due to cold water, low oxygen levels from fecal matter and a low saline water, all of the wood and fabric on the ship and many non metal items were perfectly preserved. It was raised in 1961 and the ship and contents made the perfect tourist attraction. It is the most visited site in Stockholm. The ship is very large and all of the ornate wood carvings are incredibly preserved. This combined with all of the preserved nonmetal items including shoes and cloth made it a very interesting museum. We lasted about 2.5 hours which is pretty good for the West family. After the Vasa museum we headed back to Gamla Stan for Rob's quick tour of the old town. We started with theRoyal Palace where none of the Royal family live but was being over run with tourists. In fact the old town was all over run with large bus groups following numbered ping pong paddles. We checked out some of the old church's which served the various nationalities of the merchant communities from the 17 and 18 century. There was an impressive statue of St. George slaying the dragon and the tiniest little statue of a boy looking at the moon. If you rubbed the boys head it would bring you good luck. We wandered the narrow streets of the old town trying to avoid the hoards of bus/ cruise ship tours. By 2:30 we had had enough so headed back to our BnB to make supper for some Swedish guests. Our friend Jennifer Klein's first cousin once removed Astrid and her boyfriend Oscar came over for supper. We made the quintessential Canadian meal of macaroni and cheese. It was a more luxury version compared to Kraft dinner. My children certainly enjoyed it and I think our guests did as well. It was nice to get together with them as it is always nice to meet the locals. When one is travelling one doesn't always get the opportunity to do so. They also brought over a Swedish game called Hukke that we went to play at the park after supper. It consisted of throwing batons to try to knock down one competitor's blocks. After several spirited games we let them go home so we could start packing up for our trip to Norway today. After three transfers we made it to Flemingsberg station in good time. Chris was very helpful figuring out where the commuter trains left from as it was a real three dimensional maze in the train stations figuring out where to go.もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Trekking to the hostel
    Murals at city hallCrying infantCheryl and ChrisVigeland statues

    A day in Oslo

    2018年7月13日, ノルウェー ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    The train trip from Stockholm went pretty well yesterday. We got in around 8 and successfully navigated the T subway system to the hostel. The hostel is very nice. The boys have a room for two and Madeline, Cheryl and I have a room for three with our own shower. We had a gourmet meal at the hostel of Ichi ban noodles which we had stocked up on in Sweden. We had been munching the whole train trip so we didn't need a big supper. It has supposedly been quite warm in Oslo this summer with temps of 29 degrees Celsius the last few weeks.Fortunately it cooled off over night and we all had wonderful sleeps. We didn't get to bed until 10:30. It was still pretty light out when we went to bed. There were people playing frisbee golf in a park beside the hostel. It really is the place of the midnight sun as it is so far north. Breakfast was included and was a wonderful spread not like the youth hostel meals I remember from my youth.

    We headed downtown on the T and visited the car rental place to make sure all was in order for our car rental tomorrow. We then took Rick Steves tour of downtown Oslo. My favorite part of the tour was the City Hall. A large Art Deco building build in the 30s. The front was covered in wood carvings of Norse mythology. Inside the central hall was covered in Art Deco murals. We wandered around a little and saw the room where they present the Noble prize which has a spectacular view of the harbour. We then proceeded to walk around downtown Oslo taking in the National theatre, the parliament building which was less impressive then the city hall, the cathedral and downtown train station which were all spread out principally along one street with a lot of high end shopping stores. We bought some groceries for lunch before heading off to Vigeland park on trolley 12. In 1921 an artist by the name of Gustav Vigeland made a deal with the city of Oslo that they would support him and provide a studio if he produced bronze and stone statues for the park.He produced 600 nude statues of men and women which were all gracefully arranged throughout the park. Some of the statues dealt with the phases of life others dealt with the interaction of men and women. They were very beautiful. We spent a long time wandering around. It was a little sunny and by the time we were done viewing the sculptures we headed to a nearby outdoor swimming pool to cool off. It had a 50 metre pool and 1,3,5 and 7 metre pools. The kids were in heaven. I had hoped to make it to the National gallery to see the Scream but we just ran out of time.    もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Our boat house
    Urnes Stave churchBeach at SolvernUrne stave church900 year old panelsOpen air museum

    Sognefjord

    2018年7月16日, ノルウェー ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    We drove from Oslo to Kaupanger on the 14th of July. We were right at the car rental place in downtown Oslo at 9 am to pick up the car. The process was painfully slow. I had gotten a very good deal on the car rental. 1200 Cdn for 13 days. They had told us the day before that a walk in rental for two days with drop off in Bergen would have cost the same amount. I think they wanted to scrutinize everything extra carefully as they could have rented our car to a walkin for much more. Finally after 30 minutes we got the car but not after realizing that Cheryl's license had expired in March. By then there was a massive line up out the door. I wonder now that the government isn't sending out notifications how many Albertans are driving with expired licenses.By the time we were done there was this very long line up of people behind me. We got back to the hostel by 10 and the kids were all ready for us. We packed and headed out of town and within 30 minutes we were at a standstill in traffic. After this our trip was punctuated by a long stop for groceries and an unsuccessful grocery stop. We drove over a mountain range with an elevation of 1200 metres before descending to the fjord. Travel time was an astounding 7 hours. My highlight of the trip was stopping at a gas station with some old Volvos one which looked like it was from the early 70s and it reminded me a lot of the Volvo my parents had bought in 1968. My parents 1968 Volvo looked good but was a terrible car always breaking down when on holidays and rusted out very quickly. This early experience with Volvos scarred me for life. I don't think that I could ever own a Volvo.

    Our boathouse in Kaupanger is right on the fjord with a million dollar view. As soon as we arrived Videl the brother in law of the owner who has two children took my two youngest out on a boat with his kids fishing in their little motor boat out into the centre of the fjord. It is a little rustic by Muskoka standards but for us it is perfect. Kaupanger is very quiet and there are few tourists here. I have had two great sleeps here. The fjords are quite spectacular. The sides in areas rise quite sharply up from the water. It reminds me of BC but it is different. Cheryl keeps saying that it reminds her of Saskatchewan but I am not sure how and I don't think she is being a smart alek when she says this. The water has a lot less salinity than seawater so It doesn't taste very salty nor does one's skin feel salty after swimming in it. It really doesn't even smell like the ocean. Yesterday we drove to a very picturesque town on an even prettier fjord called Solvorn home of the Walaker hotel a historic expensive looking hotel. We took a ferry across a fjord to Urnes home of the world's oldest wooden church. It was a 20 minute hike up to the church from the ferry. It wasn't a hike by our definition as we saw some girls doing it in flip flops.These old wooden churches are known as Stave churches as the old Norwegian word for the supports were known as Staves. This one dated from 1100 AD. It looks impressive now but probably looked even more impressive when it was built. There were wood panels on the outside carved with snakes and dragons which were felt to be from the 900s. The wood carvings looked like Celtic meets Scandinavian. We ate our lunch at the museum before hiking down and catching the ferry. We were all pretty hot by the time we made it to Solvern which fortunately had a beautiful swim area with platforms for jumping and diving off. We were all tired but had a good day. My son Chris said that he would have given it a 7.5/10 which by his standards is pretty good.    もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Mount Molden
    Our bay in the fjord1Serenity on Mt MoldenUber yachtA Norwegian stroll up the side of a mountain.A Norwegian stroll

    Hiking in the Sognefjord

    2018年7月17日, ノルウェー ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    We have spent three glorious days here in the Sognefjord in our little boat house. It was sunny for the first two days and much of the third. Supposedly they have had no rain for a month which is typically the daily norm. Having exhausted the museums the first day it was time to do some hiking. I have been trailing my hiking boots through Scandinavia so I thought it should be time to put them to use. My right ankle is very weak from an old volleyball injury so I am always worried that I could roll it again. Therefore I really need to wear the hiking boots. One of my colleagues wives broke her ankle while hiking in running shoes a few years ago which has further increased my anxiety about not having hiking boots. For our first hike I chose one called Bjorahaug outside of a small town called Hermansverk. It was described as a Norwegian stroll which I thought would be a good warm up hike. It was only 1165 metres long. What I didn't realize was that the elevation gain was 500 metres. It was a hike up the side of a fjord. I don't think I have ever hiked so steeply. It certainly did give me an appreciation of how steeply the sides of the fjords rise from the water. There were ropes in areas to help oneself up. At one point my son Andrew told me that he thought that his mother had fallen. I quickly backtracked to check up on her but she had just lost the trail and was calling us to see where it went.The kids had no problem. They must be part billygoat. The hike was rated as 70 minutes. At the 70 minute mark we were very high up but not at the top of the fjord. The trail started to go down before I suspect it would go up again. I was absolutely drenched in perspiration. After all that work I decided that I didn't want to lose any of the elevation we had worked so hard for. We stopped for lunch. The view of the fjords was spectacular. On a sunny day I think it looks prettier then the west coast of BC.

    After our warm up day, we decided to try something a little more difficult although we had set the bar pretty high the first day. We decided to do the Mount Molden which was a small mountain looking out over an arm of the Sognefjord. The arm is known as Gaupnefjorden. One can also see the glaciers to the north from the top. It was a longer hike with an elevation of 600 metres. We reached an elevation of 1116 metres. It was a pretty hard hike although probably not as hard and definitely not as steep as the warm up hike. We were well above the tree line at the top. The view from the top was even more breathtaking. When we were at the top we realized that there was a storm system coming in from the south. We were 9/10s of the way down when we were hit with a wicked rain storm. Gale force winds, snapping branches etc. We only had to walk 15 minutes in the rain. I wouldn't have wanted to be on the top of the mountain when the storm hit.

    Last night this huge yacht maybe 60 metres long came into our bay and stayed for 24 hours. It was owned by Jade yachts so I checked it out online. People can rent this yacht for a week for 362k Cdn. Chris and I paddled a canoe out to it to check it out. I felt like a polynesian native checking out the ship of James Cook. I couldn't believe just how large it was. It was bigger than my house.    もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Sognfjord
    The SkodaSognfjord6.5 metresVidel and the little onesNorwegian waffles and Coke with our hosts

    Taking it easy for a day

    2018年7月18日, ノルウェー ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    It started raining pretty hard yesterday afternoon and kept up all night. We had planned to do another hike today but it seemed unlikely that it was going to let up. I let everyone sleep in. The kids were pretty tired after the hiking. By 10 the rain had slowed so Cheryl and I went for a Canadian stroll around town and within 30 minutes the sun was out again and shining very brightly. In Kaupanger they have 5 and 3 meters diving platforms on the water. With the rain yesterday we had to take a miss on the platforms but with the sun out the kids really wanted to use the window to give the platforms another go. It was low tide so the platforms were more like 6.5 metres. This is pretty high. They actually talked me into doing it. It is a long drop. I talked with a local while watching the kids. I told that at home in Canada they would never have such an unsupervised structure as someone would get hurt. She told me that no one had ever been seriously hurt. I told her that we were just a bunch of worriers at home. I suspect that there must be something in the viking blood that makes Norwegians more risk takers. We had a late lunch and there were some more showers. Videl came over with his kids and took my little ones fishing again and then towed them around on inflatables behind the little boat. It was very kind of him. Just when I thought things were going to quiet down another mega yacht came into the bay. Forever one. 54 metres long and owned by billionaire Bruce Grossman who was heir to the Mexican Coca Cola bottling group. It is interesting what you can find out online. Chris and I went to check it out in the canoe. Just a beautiful yacht.

    With some time on my hands today I have had time to reflect on one of my colleagues dilemma. My colleague owns a vintage BMW. It is a wonderful looking car but unfortunately its time is coming to an end. My colleague has enjoyed the image and prestige of a European built vehicle but may not be able to afford a new one. I think though that this vacation that I have stumbled on a solution to my colleague's problem. We have been privileged to drive a Skoda Octavia station wagon since Oslo. Skoda is a Czech build vehicle which is actually built in Europe. No Mexican content here. It drives wonderfully and is probably much cheaper then a Mexican built BMW. My colleague would be the first to own a Skoda at the RAH. It would really improve his image amongst the staff parking such a car in the Doctors car park.    もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Cheryl and Chris
    No room to spareMadeline and the fjordsBruce Grossman's yachtCheryl and AndrewMyself and Sognfjord

    Fjords, fjords, fjords

    2018年7月19日, ノルウェー ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Today we left our boathouse on the Sognefjord to travel to Bergen. As one of the big ticket items for the trip I had reserved a spot on the 10:30 am ferry from Kaupanger to Gudvangen. It was a 2.5 hour ferry ride through a main part of the Sognefjord and then down one of the even more scenic arms known as the Naeroyfjord. We were a 1 minute drive from the ferry terminal. The reservation said to arrive at 10:15. I was anxious to leave by 10 but some people doddled. When we showed up despite it being only 10:14, the ferry was almost loaded. I was the last car in the reservation line and I didn't think we would make it on to the ferry but they just squeezed us on. The trip was characterized by steep mountains rising up from the fjords to staggering heights, occasionally dotted with farm houses now probably vacation properties by the water. It was just spectacular and well worth the cost. After completing the ferry ride we drove on to Bergen and we were thoroughly exhausted if not a little car/sea sick when we reached our BnB. Our BnB is in a house with the world's steepest driveway requiring a 10 way turn at the top which is impossible to do if you don't precisely follow the owners directions. I know this as initially I attempted to improvise my own 10 way turn which pretty well got the car stuck at the top of the driveway.もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Pleasant steep driveway
    Edvard Grief, very pleasantPleasant Ole Bull's housePleasant Hanseatic quarterPleasant Edvard Grieg's houseOle Bull

    Pleasant Bergen

    2018年7月22日, ノルウェー ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    We have now spent three full days in Bergen and although pleasant enough, it hasn't been as exciting as the Scandinavian capitals or as exciting as the Sognfjord. We did our own little walking tour of downtown Bergen best known for the Hanseatic quarter. This area consists of fragile wooden buildings from the 1700s built by German speaking merchants and traders. The street scape of these buildings has the quintessential Norwegic appearance of coloured buildings. In areas some of the wooden walls are quite bowed but that is understandable after 300 years. The German merchants have given way to Norwegian owned touristy stores. It was quite pleasant. We were also impressed by some of the massive cruise ships in the harbour. They were quite pleasant from a distance. For something completely different we headed out of town to the Ole Bull museum which was on a small island 30 minutes outside of Bergen. One had to take a small boat over to the island where Ole Bull had built his house. Ole Bull lived in the 19th century and was a contemporary and friend of Edvard Grieg and Henri Ibsen who also lived in Bergen. He was a virtuoso violinist who was the equivalent of Elvis Presley of his time. Reportedly he had fathered 40 children. He was also a Norwegian Nationalist when Norway was controlled by Sweden and he promoted Norwegian culture. When he died 30000 people attended his funeral . The house he had built was a cross between the Alhambra built by the Moors in Granada and a Orthodox Church. It was all built of Norwegian pine. There were trails all around the island, a beach to swim although the water was very cold and a look out tower. It kind of felt like the Norwegian equivalent of Fantasy Island. It was very pleasant. We spent the good part of the day there. Edvard Grieg the famous composer was also from Bergen. His house Troldhaugen has been preserved as a museum with a tastefully designed concert hall, gift shop cafe and another museum. It was located 8 minutes from our house so we stopped there twice to take in the atmosphere. One could walk down to the fjord and look into his composing hut. I think that ever since I played the Peer Gynt suite in the London Youth Symphony that this has been one of my favorite pieces. Having visited the house and Norway, I think that I have a better appreciation for his inspiration. We visited the summer Royal palace where the Royal family stays when they come to Bergen. None of them were around so you could wander the gardens and pretend you were the King. The Norwegians are much more relaxed then the English about their Royal family.The Royal Palace was very pleasant. We visited the Botanical Garden which was a disappointment. I think they were known for the Rododendrums. They had a lot of them but they had bloomed in June. The garden covered a large area. It wasn't as good as the Devonian garden. The garden had been broken into regional areas from around the world. When we got to the region of Canada, it struck me that a lot of the forest trees had been cut done. Was this an attempt to recreate clear cutting or were they building a new garden? There was no one around to ask so I guess we will never know. They needed some more volunteers for weeding and deadheading. Our final excursion was to Bergen's open air museum representing Bergen circa 1870. It was quite pleasant. On the hour they had little 15 minute acting scenes recreating the past. The vignettes were in English and Norwegian. As everyone speaks English when one talks to the Norwegians, this was the most Norwegian I had heard. After wandering around the small open air museum for an hour and a half and playing 3-4 rounds of Kubbe which we had learned in Sweden we called it a day. The Kubbe game was very pleasant. I get the feeling that Bergen is the jumping off point for cruise ships heading north or people heading inland to the fjords. People typically spend a day or two here before heading out. Perhaps 2 days would have been enough but it was very pleasant.もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Stein and Lillian
    Cheryl and a tankViking museumFast Norwegian ferryNorwegian Oil and gas industry

    Rain rain rain

    2018年7月24日, ノルウェー ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    It started to rain Sunday night just as we started packing our stuff up to drive to Haugesund which is located half way between Bergen and Stavanger on the west coast. We really have been blessed with marvellous weather during the trip. It has been warm and sunny the majority of the time. Unlike Vancourvites, Norwegians on the West coast of Norway actually readily volunteer that it rains a lot here. It rained off and on for much of our trip. We took a ferry for part of the trip. The rain ceased so we could hang out on deck. The ferry seemed brand new compared to the BC ferries I am use to. Loading the ferries was a model of efficiency. We were away before I could get out on deck. The ferry was also very fast. BC ferries should check out. When we got to Haugesund, Cheryl stayed at the BnB while the kids and I went to the Viking museum. The Viking museum was at a site of prehistoric and Viking settlements from 3000 BC to 1300 AD. From this site the inhabitants had been able to control north south trade and had thus been very powerful. There was a good documentary movie about the site. There was a point and click English audio tour but I sensed all was not covered. Lots of old prehistoric and Viking nicnacs. After the museum we wandered through a sheep farm to a Recreation of a Viking farm. It was getting on in the day and all the historical actors were on there cellphones counting down the last 30 minutes before going home. One of them was good enough to break away from her phone to chat with us. Many people have unanswered questions about the Vikings such as how did they navigate such large distances without compasses. They didn't need compasses, they had cellphones.

    When I planned stopping in Haugesund it was mainly to break our drive down to Stavanger. As it turned out afterwards, I had a connection to Stavanger.Back in the winter when I was showing one of my neighbours what Air BnBs I had booked for my holiday he commented that his brother happened to live in Haugesund. Now my neighbour Bjorn is from Norway so if anyone I knew had a brother there it would have been him. I got in touch with Stein and he invited our family to their summer cottage for a barbecue at his summer home on a fjord. It was 25 minutes east of Haugesund and away from the coast so it was less cloudy. The rain held off and there were some glimpses of the sun. We had a delightful meal of hot dogs. Norwegians love hot dogs but not sausages.In their grocery stores there are lots of hot dogs on the shelves, far more than Canada. I kid you not. Their cabin was on this beautiful fjord. After supper we went swimming off of rocks just by their cabin. The swimming was even more exciting as there were these white jellyfish one had to avoid. I swam across the fjord and when I got back, I had a skin irritation in my antecubital fossa. I had probably been stung by a jellyfish. Fortunately they are pretty harmless. After washing my arm off with salt water and about an hour of time the itch went away.

    We returned to Haugesund and it rained hard all night. I am sure the local were happy as there has been a drought here. We had hoped to go to some beautiful beaches today but when we woke up it was still pouring hard. My wife who has a penchant for military museums as many of you know from my previous blogs insisted on going to the military museum. As military museums go, it was excellent. Norway was occupied by the Germans in WW2. They hid there submarine bases in the fjords and built coastal defences all along Germany's west coast. When they lost the war, they left all of their weaponry in Norway. There was a lot of German armaments, submarine material, information about the resistance and life in Norway during the war. My favourite item were shoes that were made from fish skins rather then leather during WW2 and a wedding dress made by a female resistance fighter after the war from an allied parachute drop. I think Cheryl read every word of the English booklet that described 90 different displays in the museum. I was happy to get out of the museum in 2 hours.

    We drove on to Stavanger. Another ferry ride and multiple bridges and long long underground tunnels connecting islands. The Norwegians infrastructure is pretty impressive. I thought the Swiss do tunnels well but the Norwegians seem to do them better and longer.    もっと詳しく

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  • West Family TravelsScandinavia Trip 2018旅行者
    Working the rigsOil modelsTall ships StavangerMadeline and a troll

    Oil oil oil

    2018年7月26日, ノルウェー ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    We have now spent two full days in Stavanger.

    We decided on the first day that we needed some exercise so we headed out of town 30 minutes to climb Mt. Dalnuten which is about a 1.5 hour return hike. From the top of the mountain which is only 400 metres one can get a spectacular view of Stavanger across a sound. We had missed the funicular in Bergen so this was to garner the same experience. We went swimming off a pier into the same sound we had been looking at to cool off when we had Finished the hike. The water was very cold and very salty. We avoided any jellyfish We got home early afternoon and chilled out until after supper when we headed downtown to the harbour where they were preparing for tall ships involved in a race to come over the weekend into the harbour.

    I think the two words that best describe Norway is oil money. Since the development of the offshore oil fields in the North Sea starting in 1969, the Norwegian economy has been on fire. Having now spent the last two weeks in Norway, I can attest to the affluence of the country. New housing, new cars, vacation properties, marinas filled with unused pleasure craft. Compared to the other Scandinavian countries Norway is expensive. Groceries and consumer items are double what they are in Edmonton. This is even more noticeable in Stavanger which is the centre of the oil industry. The number of high end watch stores in downtown Stavanger was on par with Switzerland. Being from Alberta we thought that a visit to the Norwegian oil museum was in order. I think Cheryl enjoyed it more then the military museum which is a tall order. It had tastefully done movies about how oil had changed Norwegians especially those working on the off shore rigs, interviews about the life and fears of oil workers on these rigs, movies about the divers who work on the ocean floors. There were all sorts of displays about the oil platforms and the drilling off shore. Those platforms are huge ranging from 50 to 250 metres in depth. There were also displays about the environmental effects of burning all this carbon. I think we were longer in the Oil museum then the war museum. I had an interesting talk with an attendant in the gift shop of how oil had affected Alberta which she said was similar to how it had effected Stavanger. By 2014 housing had become prohibitively expensive in Stavanger.

    When we were done we headed down to the harbour to check out the tall ships. The harbour was just packed with 3 and 4 masters. There were at least three large ships from Russia manned by Russian naval cadets. The kids were quite thrilled to be on a Russian naval vessel with real naval seamen who were conversing in Russian. There was also a tall ship from the Indian navy who had the most friendly crew. After an hour and a half wandering around in the sun we headed for home to chill out and start packing for our trip home.

    This will be my last blog of the trip. I hope you have all enjoyed following it. I have had some camera issues so I will try to post the photos later. Thank you Ross for all of your encouragement with this blog. Knowing that someone was actually reading it was a true motivator for updating it.

    Cheers Rob    もっと詳しく

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    旅行の終了
    2018年7月27日
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