13. Norwegian Nature (Trolls?)
Featuring so much sunshine for a city that gets rain 240 days a year.
Day 40. Tuesday 6/30/26
Transit to Norway! We flew from Stockholm, Sweden to Bergen, Norway. “Welp, time to book our next apartment while on the move at the airport.” Also, if you’re tracking these routes city to city, this route made the most logistical/money/time/access/start/end sense, even though geographically it looks a little haphazard.
Look below at the giant art installation that reads "BERGEN?" immediately outside the airport departures gate.
I assumed it was playful/silly sort of existential humor -- I looked it up today -- I was right! Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson wanted to capture the strange feeling as a modern traveler, constantly flying from airport to airport, feeling disconnected from place and disoriented. "Where am I now? What is this place? It also pokes fun at conventional and boastful city signs/landmarks, which I find hilarious.
I’ve never taken so many flights where we leave our gate and walk directly on the tarmac to the plane or take a bus to the middle of the tarmac and get on a plane. Just a different way of doing things (with a plane whizzing by 50 meters away).
Tram Travel here worked, until it didn’t. Google Maps was the winning app of this trip (by far -- HA! Like distance? Far away? Keep reading) with how much information it could provide, including information about these road closures/delays. Below was a clear sign the tram wouldn't go any further.
Bergen had a gigantic World Cup viewing tent set up in the main park. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet — the World Cup is going on during all these travels!! The energy in all the cities is fun; there’s advertising and support everywhere. It would be really cool if I got excited about soccer/football. Nonetheless, it’s special to be there. We caught parts of matches super briefly a few times. The games always started at 11pm-3am, and I’m usually sawing logs and swelling ankles at that time.
Took an all-day Bus Tour through the Norwegian Countryside! Way more fun/beautiful than it sounds! I learned SO much about Norway on this guided bus tour, from our enthusiastic and knowledgeable Dutch guide, Toine (“twahn”).
Here's a bunch of stuff we learned about NORWAY on our all-day tour. Our guide, Toine (pronounced "twahn"), was from the Netherlands (so he don't mince words) and has lived and traveled all over the world doing various jobs. On his downtime in the day, he was coordinating with the contractors who are building his floating tiny home on the northern coast of Norway, trying to get it ready by Northern Lights time.
250 days of rain. And in days without rain, often no sun
Many microclimates. Raining on one side of the tunnel, snowing in other side
Newer name is Bergen. Originally Bergvin when founded by Olaf. “Greenfield between mountains"
Vikings were misunderstood, people. Mostly farmers and woodcarvers. 798, start of the Viking Age, Norsemen raided monasteries in England. In a monastery, people can write and they write about how gruesome it was.
Vikings are not a people. It’s an activity. You are going on a Viking. Trading, raiding, going somewhere ended in 1066 in England and lost (about 260 years of Viking rule)
Second biggest fjord: Hardangerfjord.
Soknafjörður - biggest.
Apples pears cherries potatoes fish fishing nets near here. Norway could produce something that no one else could. Because of the Catholic church. The church told you you had to eat fish on Friday and fast — so access to fish. Fish smoke easily so they invented stockfish - dried codfish that can keep for 10 years! Extremely important export. It became a “Hanseatic city” in trading with the German Empire
Dialect in Bergen is very specific with heavy influence with English Dutch and German due to trade history
The city center is still the harbor, which is unusual, because as cities evolve, usually the city center moves further and further from the city.
1702 terrible fire. 90% burned, except for everything on the other side of a big rock formation and the few UNESCO-declared workhouses.
At least 7 big fires before in Bergen during excavation of 1955
10,000 people can be dropped by cruise ships
1814 Norway wrote its own constitution and divorced Denmark. Denmark is cool with that Independence Day. Well, they weren’t fully independent because Sweden said you can keep your constitution, but you are our territory until 1905
Swedish parliament (IKEA) HA!
Each village in Norway has a lot of dialects because they are so separate. Ninosk and Bockmol (90%) two unified dialects
Swedish language very close to Norwegian
Scandinavia is not a region it’s a cultural, historical, and linguistic subregion of Northern Europe.
Did you know that Swedish Parliament is actually located in Norway? See below:
Jokes.
Had the famous waffle with brown cheese on it. Texture of provolone, color of peanut butter, flavor of a mild cheese.
Boathouses are simple. They are a place to store your boat off the water for the winter or long periods of time. They are normally next to your house on land or at least near it. Explain how this one works once you store your boat:
Visit to Bondhusvatnet National Park (Glacier)
“Ice Road” leads from the main road up to the now glacier lake, formerly a glacier. The road was built around 1860 to transport blocks of ice from the glacier. The valley is in a textbook U-shape carved out by multiple ice ages, where the glacier scraped its way across the terrain. Back in the day, English fancy pants would vacation here just to walk up and touch/see the ice, which they had never seen before.
Below is a side-by-side of what it used to look like and what it looks like now.
The water was so clear, so peaceful. Nature just stretches on and on and on.
Did you ever think, "I wonder if there are jellyfish immediately off the coast of Norway?" Neither have I, and there are! I was shocked and by guide poked fun at me.
Salmon Farms! Everywhere. We learned about how they are one of the more sustainable seafood/fish farming options that exist and why. Short version: they don’t take up a lot of space or resources.
Had dinner on the pier, in one of the fish markets. Tasty and fresh. Dad ordered Chablis (100% Chardonnay grape from Chablis, France) everywhere we went because we were supposed to have visited Chablis in our original plans. Not the same as being there, but boy did he/we have some good Chablis!
Day 41. Wednesday 7/1/26
Happy Anniversary, Bethany! I am continuing to celebrate our marriage by having fish soup with my father on a mountaintop in Norway! I’m so glad we got to celebrate each other in Italy. Thanks for being so supportive of me traveling and learning! I love you to Scandinavia and back!
Dad and I took the funicular to a gorgeous lookout point overlooking Bergen. We had fancy seafood soup and a stew there with a great view!
Took a long hike. Trails were extremely well marked. Except for where they weren’t posted and we had to guess. Dude, “easy hike” on the map cannot be trusted. We walked up for hours. Sometimes steeps, sometimes not that steep, but boy, it just…kept…going. Pretty trees, rocks, lakes, mountains, views.
I don't speak Norwegian. I've sung maybe 1 song in Norwegian. Since I'm unfamiliar, the look if it looks, well, different. I appreciate/better understand the phonetics because it is highly influenced by the German language due to the Hanseatic trade route they were a part of for centuries. See below.
Evening wine bar across from the park. Probably the best wine I’ve had on the trip! Which is saying something. Ask, and I can get you labels. Dad and I met local Norwegian women (I’ll call Sophie and Trish). You could make a graph of where conversations with a stranger cross from each of these levels (all of which we passed).
Stage 1) Acknowledgement of existence: “Hello”, maybe adjusting chair.
Stage 2) One liner exchange: “How are you?” or “Nice weather, eh”
Stage 3) Closed Loop: “Where you from?” “Great to be on vacation”, “Well I’ll let you enjoy yourselves”. In this option, it’s a pretty clear closed loop “we’re done” situation.
Stage 4) Lingering chit chat. Both parties keep chatting, and there is no clear sense of how long you’ll talk or what you’ll talk about, and the feeling is mutually okay (because you didn’t exit the loop in step 3.)
Stage 5) Longer Hang. Conversation together becomes the main activity. Enjoying each other’s company on a long-term basis.
Stage 6) You are now so invested in each other’s lives that Trish explains her tattoo to you in great detail. You know, the one that in Step 4 she said, “I will never tell you. It’s very private. Not even my bestie Sophie here knows”. You are officially having one of the deepest conversations you’ve had since you can remember because it is easier to open up to a total stranger than to be vulnerable with those closest to you.
We fully entered Stage 6) and I’m not kidding about what happened in Stage 6 above. It was really beautiful, and lovely, and strange for self-described "private and anti-social" people to be so social.
1/3 of Norwegians own at least 1 holiday cabin (summer/winter/both) . Homes to stay after hunting, gathering, milking, curing meat — now holiday. Many quite primitive bouncing water l. Norwegian band who made what does the fox say — he has a cabin about how hard it is to take his date to the cabin. “The cabin song”
Day 42. Thursday 7/2/26
I can eat anything for breakfast. I’m not normally hungry until a few hours after I wake up, so I don’t normally eat breakfast first thing in the morning, but I can eat just about anything. One of my favorites is Indian food. Here was my modest shrimp fiesta.
Edvard Grieg!
The most famous Norwegian composer/pianist/conductor. We visited his home — Troldhaugen!! This is the most magical thing for many reasons. Everyone loves Grieg. Grieg’s music is magical, natural, and mystical. His art is extremely tied time and place (as is my compositional style), so being in the place where he made his music is incredible. He and his wife built this property to be embraced by the Norwegian countryside and nature, to have private quiet space to host and entertain small groups of people.
Troldhaugen!
Concert hall from the inside -- looking out over Grieg's red composition hut and the Norwegian countryside!
The reverse view of the concert hall looking up. Look how it just blends in with nature so modestly.
I got to visit his Composition Hut! He built this down by the water so he could have even more solitude, immersed in the beauty. An upright piano, a stool, and a writing desk. How beautiful. I’ve talked with Bethany about getting me a composing hut. She’s on board, but seems to be steering me more towards a “Composition Basement/Cellar”.
We attended a program (of all Grieg) by Norwegian-Parisian pianist Fabrice Bligoud Vestag. He was so stunning, we bought another ticket for his next concert 2 hours later and attended. Grieg and Romantic music can often be over-interpreted, without letting the music unfold and breathe with the information given. Fabrice showed so much maturity and creativity in his interpretation. After his first performance, we talked for a while.
We went to a food hall with a bunch of different vendors. Dad got a lobster roll (different than US East Coast style), and I ordered a fish sandwich. They accidentally gave me two, and I inhaled them. How could a fried fish sandwich be? Um, these were incredible. Crisp fry and lots o' fish.
Below is the UNESCO-protected area in Bergen, an iconic historic wharf featuring colorful wooden commercial buildings, narrow passages, and medieval foundations, which served as a trading empire hub for the German Hanseatic League from the 14th to mid-16th century. The buildings are based on the newer ones under construction. The online photos look "prettier", but it's not raining in those -- and it's always raining in Bergen!
Facts from my tour
Dried cod = stock fish dried in air . Super food of its time. Up to 10 years quite impressive even for today’s standard
Bergen was not a hanseatic city , but they did trade within it. So they didn’t have polital power, but still did business. Upsides and downsides to this.
Bergen and northern Norway would trade grain and fish
Each tenement has a “assembly room” only one that could have fire. So everyone was cold
1702 pretty much everything burned
Bergen and all hansiatics spoke low German — they only interacted with other hansiatic
Reconstructed to imagine life preform of 1702
Lots of houses were very colorful to show status and wealth. Painter inside and outside
Only church and king could afford stone flooring. The hansiatics had
Hansiatocs were forbidden to marry. Because if they had kids they would have e both Hansiatoc and Norwegian rights and resources. Some brought them back to their original families back to home .
In the evening we went to a piano comedy show titled "Musical Comedy in Broken English" by Dyvekes Vinkjeller. Saw advertisements around town, described as the "Norwegian Victor Borge", and it was only an hour so I thought we'd give it a try.
It was in the basement of a very old bar -- like you could see centuries of history on this dungeon-y bar. Unfortunately, we were 2 of 9 people there, which is really hard to play off. He was enthusiastic and playful. We laughed. He said he booked the bar for the next 3 weeks before he takes it to their local Fringe Theatre festival. Good for him!
In the dorkiest way possible, Dad jumped up in front of the mic (unprompted by anyone else), and acted as the host: "How's everyone doing tonight? Alright, alright! Good to see you all. Hey, you're in for a great show tonight. When he comes out, let's go crazy and give him a round of applause!"
This is extra cringe because the real host was sitting 6 feet away from us.
Day 43. Friday 7/3/26
We hopped on a ferry and rode to who knows where through the Norwegian archipelago. The captains were crazy efficient in their stops along the way. Speeding head-on into the dock, putting the engine in reverse, and letting a family board with a stroller for a timed total of 20 seconds from the time the boat touches the dock, lowers the ramp, raises the ramp, and off to the next stop. Here's a screenshot of somewhere in the middle of transit. Based on this, could you tell us where in the world we were? I sure couldn't!
We traveled to Rosendal. Rosendal is known for (only because we happened to discover it) its beautiful romantic village, stunning hiking trails, and the Baronet Rosendal.
Baroniet Rosendal was established in 1665 when Danish nobleman Ludvig Rosenkrantz and Norwegian heiress Karen Mowat built the manor, later designated as Norway's only barony in 1678. A barony is the rank, title, or territorial land domain ruled by a baron, given this power/land by the king (King Christian V in 1678). It is preserved exactly as the family left it in 1927. The gardens feature a 300-year-old rose garden and 1850s landscape park. This place hosted famous Norwegians like Henrik Ibsen (writer) and Edvard Grieg (troll-lover and composer).
Thankfully, the weather cleared a bit after being very rainy, windy, and cold.
Spooky cloud sitting on the mountain. here you can only see like 15% of land here.
Materials are super expensive to transport to Norway, so they try to use as many local materials as possible. One of those is using slate for roofing. Giant, incredibly heavy slabs of slate. They help insulate and keep dry. A challenge is that they require an incredibly strong support to hold.
Test your KNorway KNowledge
First tourism in Norway was wealthy e flush factory owners during the Industrial Revolution. Steamboat, rowboat, carriage, to touch ice in the summer
100.000 km estimated coastline. More than twice around the earth
Salmon is a freshwater and saltwater fish. It can remember the stream it was born and goes back there.
Children work in the factory as codfish tongue cutters. They have small hands ideal for this job. They get paid by the kilo. They can earn quite some money and wealthy at a young ago. As young as 6 children work (some places have relaxed child labor laws)
Expensive to transport stuff and build so you want to build with local resources as much as possible
Slate roofs or grass roofs forms insulation to keep warm and keep cold.
Building colors:
Red paint cheap and protects the best because of iron oxide to protest wood from aging and protect from the sea.
Yellow is wealthy
White is expensive and for impoetnt building and contains zinc
Blue to look like the sea and keep cool
November 21-January 21 sun sets and doesn’t come back to the. Big change. Changes 1 hour per week. 10 minutes per day. Messes with your biological clock. Prefer all day or all night? Which would you choose and why?
Sauana know the difference — Norway with your clothes and be quiet. Finland naked and talk the whole time. Don’t confuse them. The only place where Finnish people talk.
Aha! Norwegian band — “take on me”
Henrik Ebsen, poet and writer or Peer gynt (Harry Potter of Norway, but not magical. Lies a lot and has a lot of problems) and he asked Grieg to set music. Grieg said no because he didn’t like it. Epsilon asked again, but with more money and he said yes.
Most famous is “in the hall of the kings I king” where peer gynt is captured by trolls, taken to their cave , and he tries to escape and they chase him
This is Askøybrua (Askøy bridge). Suspension bridges are challenging to build. This one is 2/3 of a mile long. The water is way too deep to drill into so it has to be a suspension bridge. Openen 1992.
Dad and I went to AdO Areona, one of the top world-class training facilities for Olympic divers. Naturally, I had to jump off one of the high dives while I was there! This facility, opened in 2014, is special for multiple reasons. Norwegon champion swinner Oen (who tragically passed away in 2012 at just 26 years old) aggressively loobbied for the builders to make the lap pool 3 meters deep (instead of standard 2) to minimize water turbulance to attract the world's most elite swimmers -- and they made it so!
It also features a 16x12 meter training pool with a fully adjustable hydralic floor (80cm to 160cm) to use for hosting baby swimming class, rehab, or adult lessons.
I swam a bunch of laps, then mustered up the courage to jump off the diving boards, then the small platform, then twice of the 5 meter platform! I only saw 2 people jump off the 10 meter platform, and althought there's a big part of my that says "I'll try anything!", something about "trying" the 10 meter standard Olympic high-level championship platform as a casual fun thing seemed potentially hazardus.
Being here felt special and I'm glad Dad was game to try it out! He chatted with the locals while I took fish form.
Speaking of fish,
A photo of monkfish that was in season. I ate this guy's cousin below.
We had dinner at the historic fish market. I think Dad had halibut that was amazing. Against my better judgment, I ordered monkfish because the fishmonger recommended it because it was in peak season. Unfortunately, it tasted as I remember: chewy and tough. So if I don’t like monkfish in Norway, I don’t think I’m going to like it anywhere else. We found it super cool, niche, wild that when we sat down to dinner, the front page of the menu had the unmistakable drawing of the same fishmonger that we had talked to just outside 15 minutes earlier. He’s the real guy! We ordered Fish & chips for dessert. We both agree it was out of this world — best fish and chips I’ve ever had. Flaky fish and a super crunch/crispy outside like it was rolled in Long John Silver crunchy bits or Frosted Flakes. I will remember it always.
More Norway Tidbits - skip if bored. I wrote down because I found interesting!
1.600 tunnels in Norway. To be safe, reliable.
75-% of the region is uninhabitable - too steep, weather etc
Lots of missing train connections between locations because geography is challenging. Why aren’t there more railroads? Ww2 ended "too soon", cuz they were built by the nazis
For safety, there are internet connections in tunnel driving, but gone in trains because you lose the connection all the time
Easy to build tunnels because the rock is so hard; just use explosives, spray some concrete or paint and you’re done
24km tunnel 20 minutes. long.
Hajtenfjord is extremely deep, 800 meters; no bridge possible with pylons
Longest tunnel in the world, the biggest suspension bridges in Europe, underground roundabouts. If that’s not impressive enough they want to make a tunnel under a fjord (400 metres) underwater 30k longest tunnel in the world underwater.
Next project starting in 2027 between Bergen and Allesunt; it’s very rough and choppy on the ferry; the floating German retirement home can’t eat their soup. They are building a ferry waterway through the peninsula
All Scandinavian liquor laws state-owned are very expensive. Can buy until 8pm in supermarkets and 6pm on weekends.
40% of calorie consumption in the Middle Ages was beer. Safe and calorie-rich
Can’t grow grain. Too expensive. Plenty of drinking water. Strong liquor was introduced in 1700s: potato vodka with strict rules because it’s a sad dark winter.
96% of all electricity in Norway is water power! Tunnels bring water inside mountains, where generators are buried and spinning. All you see is door and electricity cables all happens inside the mountains buried. Norway uses a lot of electricity because they don’t use gas or oil. 96% of cars sold are electric. Norway is a giant battery because snow doesn’t make electricity. When it rains it’s makes electricity and brings orices
Often Norwegians can skii before they ride a bike. Mostly cross country skiing l. seal skins with hair pointing one way lets you ski up to grip then take off and sky down
Rich country after 1970s after discovering oil
Steindalfassen - waterfall you can walk behind
Sami People — nomadic reindeer herding community. Centuries of discrimination. Now there are cultural protections
Day 44. Saturday 7/4/26
Breakfast: Best value purchase of the trip: a thick cut of smoked salmon sliced fresh right in front of me at the fischmarket. I’ve only ever had smoked salmon in very small portions — so this was like 10 times the amount I’d normally enjoy, which was honestly too rich and too much. I felt a little sick. Something like 200 grams for $30. .
We each enjoyed a day on our own. I grabbed a cardamom bun (super popular here) and rode the funicular to the top of the Fløien mountain top. I sat, looked out, watched people, and started writing a new choral piece for Bethany to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I found some sappy love poetry and let it unfold.
TROLLS. Trolls are pervasive throughout Norway's mythology. Norway boasts the largest troll museum in the world. (No, I don't know how many others there are, if any.) At the midpoint of the mountain, there is a beautiful nature walk zigging through the trees. Some cheeky (and large) trolls keep guard.
This one above is about the size of a school bus.
It was 3 o’clock and I was starving, so I stopped and got a kebab at “Emil’s Kabab” .. which the door sign proudly advertised as the “The Best Pizza in Bergen”.
[Short Version of cannon ball in Bergen cathedral with fued between England and the Netherlands]
I walked past, but did not visit, the Troll Museum, advertised as the largest troll museum in the world.
I went on a guided tour of Rosenkrantz, the central building of the Bergen’s Fortress, erected between 1247-1261, the medieval fortress and cultural hub of Begin. The Great Hall (Håkon’s Hall) was breathtaking to experience its changing architecture through the ages.
Visited the UNESCO site of the Bredsgården (like the Norwegian Conner Prarie) with all the trade/worker/artisan buildings all lined up facing the harbor. I learned about the Hanseatic Trade route (AKA Medieval German Trade Mafia) and how Bergen was apart of the trade but received zero political say. Got to hold and smell some stockfish (tried fish) that was a primary export of Bergen. Incredibly useful because the fish could stay fresh for literally years in this state.
I toured historic classrooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and workrooms. Many of the building bones were original, but much as been reimagined/refurbished from 500 years ago.
I toured the music building at the Grieg [name of school] and had a moderately challenging time finding the practice rooms. Take a look — how would you do?
[picture of map]
Met some nice piano students. They seemed nice and eager to meet an American pianist and talk shop. I enjoyed meeting them as Norwegian Pianists!
If you are ever find yourself in Norway, there’s one phrase you really need to know:
[Excuse me, where can I find a piano?]
I ventured off for dinner for one at a small restaurant Marg & Bein in the Nygårdshøyden district a bi more inland. Had one of the top 3 best mussels I’ve ever had — steamed in apple cider vinegar — incredible. I also had the local fall/winter favorite, which was essentially chunky mashed potatoes, mixed with fish and bacon. It was incredible. I had a Jerusalem artichoke for the first time. I wish you could have seen the Norwegian waiter, with limited English, and I trying to figure out what this vegetable is in English and what it tastes like.
Goodbye Norway! Next stop, Estonia! Hello Estonia!
Pop Quiz! Can you place Estonia on the map?
(Hint: It's in Europe)
