29 October

Where are the Trevants?

Dresden is probably more famous for what it is now than what it was. The beautiful old city centre was obliterated in 1945 by one of the most intensive fire bombings of the war. Last time we were here, 2000, the city was still rebuilding, more than 50 years after its destruction. Even then, it was spectacular! We are looking forward to a possible turn visit tomorrow, because the rebuilding of the centre of the city, as it was pre-war, is now complete. This includes the rebuilding, from scratch, of the 12th Century Cathedral!

Since our first visit to the old East Germany, in 1987, before the Wall came down, many things have changed. The roads are now up to Autobahn standard, the cities and towns have all been re-built. The cheap, mass-produced Trevants and Lada cars of the Communist era, have all disappeared - except for one lone relic we saw puttering over a motorway bridge as we, and thousands of cars and trucks, thundered on below. As campervanners, we know the shame of having everything on wheels – even Smart cars, pass us, so we felt a certain degree of sympathy for that lone Lada .

Today, a casual observer would probably notice nothing to identify the old East and West divide. The differences are still there, though. English is rarely spoken in the East, particularly by anybody over 30. We suspect that Russian would still be the predominant second language of older citizens of the former East Germany – and that may not be a bad thing. The new 'Russian invasion' seems to be tourism. The 'Ruskies' are everywhere. Much like the Japanese, they seem to prefer organised tours. You run into masses of them in many of the popular tourist venues. Dresden, today, was full of them. Their attitude smacks of superiority, at least in their eyes. Are they the new 'Ugly Americans' of Europe?

In some ways, the incorporation of the old “Iron Curtain” countries into the European Union is a little sad. The 'Big Mac' sameness of the world has quickly pervaded cultures that, to some extent, had been frozen in the 1930's. Horse-drawn ploughs and carts were common in eastern Europe when we last visited. Villages in Romania and Bulgaria had just got electricity.

We would never begrudge the good citizens of the 'east' their improved lifestyles, but..... does everything have to look like 'Small-town USA'?

There are exceptions though! Meissen for example. About 30 kms from Dresden, it escaped the attention of Allied bombers. The town, its cathedral and castle stand today, much as they did in the 16th century. Yes, there is a Maccas and all the other 'sameness stuff', but they all seem to exist in a far better balance than many other places. We hope there are still many 'Meissens” left!

28 October

Ludwig the Leaper


Following in the footsteps of Napoleon and Hitler, we are moving ever eastward. Our target, however, is not Moscow. Not this time. We saw what happened to Napoleon and Hitler! No, we are heading to Dresden and then into the old eastern blo. At this stage, we aren't sure how far east we'll go, but given that we drove all the way East to the Europe-Asia frontier (the Bosporus) last trip, and were robbed along the way, we might just head for Prague and Budapest?
Although we have a broad plan, deciding day to day what to do is what travelling like this is all about. If the weather turns bad or other things attract us, we can drift off wherever we like. As an example, we once drove more that 700 klms across France to Switzerland, just because we hadn't seen snow and it WAS December!

Our progress to date has been more like the celebrated retreat (s) from Moscow, rather than an advance. Getting a van set up to a good travelling mode takes longer than it would at home. Finding the German equivalent of Bunnings to buy bits and pieces to make life more comfortable, has taken us the better part of a couple of days, with only a couple of hundred kilometers 'under the belt'.. Along the way, we have managed to see Cologne Cathedral. Truly awe inspiring! We could see it well out from the city on our way in, but when we got off the train in the centre of town, it was looming above us. We wandered about for an hour or so, stunned!

Leaving Cologne and pressing further East, the weather turned foul, but the scenery was still visible through the rain and haze. Rolling hills, with small towns nestled into valleys, slipped by us for hours. Germany, particularly the old East Germany, has a lot of open space and forest.

Autumn is in full 'swing' in eastern Germany. The golds and russets, mixed with the green of the pines paint the hills. Maybe the mist is part of it all? - “Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness... etc”.

On our way to visit Wartburg Castle, the forest floor was covered in a carpet of autumn colour. It's something we miss in Brisbane... autumn. Wartburg was famous for two reasons:firstly it was built by Ludwig der Springer (the Leaper) and secondly, Martin Luther hid here for a year or so once he had upset the Pope with his 94 Treaties.

Our main reason for paying the extra to take the guided tour of Wartburg, was that we desperately wanted to know why Ludwig was known as 'the Leaper'. You can probably guess how disappointed we were when we had to take the German language tour! In absolute frustration, we squeezed the answer out of the guide (who thought he spoke poor English, but it sounded perfect to us) And the answer is? Ludwig was imprisoned at one stage of his life and escaped by jumping 30m into the moat of the prison. Knowing that made enduring an hour of incomprehensible German description of the wonders of Wartburg well worth the entrance fee! The answers to our lesser questions as to why there was a Frederick the Bearded and a Nicholas the Nosey, not to mention Albrecht the Decadent, suddenly became irrelevant.

Tonight we are parked in another Services, with a few companionable truckies. We had to take a “small” road into Erfurt to try to find a supermarket to stock up on the necessaries. There's always something that you need that's not in the van – especially when free-camping is on your agenda. Today we picked up a hose and some actual glass, wine glasses – so tired of the plastic stuff we bought in Scandinavia! Alle ist gut! Eastern Germany has certainly come a long way since we were last here in 2000 – not to mention when we were here in 1987!!!

25 October

'On the Road Again'

We taught our grand-daughter Abby to sing “On the Road Again” (Willy Nelson) when she went on a long road trip with Ben & Jen a couple of months back. Paul also drilled her on what to say when bored in the car. “Are we there yet?”

Now it's our turn to hit the road.

Back in the van mode of travel after a gap of 7 years, we have slotted back into the routine like the pros we probably are by now. (By the end of trip we will have spent almost 12 months travelling this way) Despite our concerns about adjusting to motorway noise, we had a reasonable sleep last night. The usual hassles about van travel, water, gas and dumping waste are still there to challenge us, but we are a lot more experienced and able to deal with them than we were over 20 years ago when we first travelled in Europe this way. Our van is 'ok' and only ok. It's old but, so far, everything works.

Given the number of people in Europe, and the number of people travelling at any given time, accessing simple things like fresh water and places to dump rubbish and waste, can be a problem. At home, the nearest toilet 'dump site' is only a stroll away in the bush with a shovel and the nearest fresh water is at the local service station. Here, doing both will probably cost you money and require a Google search to find!. Not a lot of money, granted, but it rubs a bit to pay for things that we consider to be free. Paying for the use of a toilet is something that is not new in our European travels, but still irks. The female member of our party delights in paying these “tolls” in the smallest denomination coins she can find as “payback” for the fact that she has to pay to use a toilet!

It was Saturday today, so the trucks weren't on the motorways (must be an overtime thing?). For this in our slow old van, this was a blessing. After a hectic day yesterday in traffic jams and narrow medieval streets, it was fairly easy going today. We visited two great little cities on the Dutch-German border. Maastricht and Aachen. Both were great. Easy to access and full of interesting old cobbled streets, neither of which we had to actually drive through, as we often do when lost!

One of the things most people tire of in visiting European cities is Cathedrals. Yes, after months of one “Dom Kirke” after another, one can be just about 'kirked-out'. But this early on we were happy to join the Autumn throng of tourists wandering open-mouthed around the medieval cathedrals and city squares of Maastricht and Aachen.
Tonight is a relatively new vanning experience for us. We are using what the French call an Aire de Service. It's something between a camping ground and a highway rest stop. You can pay up to around $50 to camp in a camping ground. A motorway stop costs nothing, but it generally has no power, no water, showers or other conveniences. The Aire can be anything from simply a relatively safe site, to a full-on camp site with power, water toilets etc. And they cost from nothing to about $30. This one is in Koln (Cologne to us). It is packed with German Campervanners! They are well into all the tricks of the trade. There must be 50 vans packed into this small site beside the Rhine. We were late in this afternoon, so we don't have a powered spot or a view of the river. Never mind, we have 24 hours of parking for $15 and a safe location, close to the centre of the city. We went for a walk around the site this afternoon and saw an amazing variety of campers, from basic ones like ours to huge RV's. Bottom line is, we're in the same place. And the question must be asked - How's the serenity?

20 October - 24 October

Amsterdam Again!


The Netherlands has a population a little less than Australia's, crammed into an area less than the size of Tasmania. It is a wealthy and enterprising nation. Just try to get a bargain out of a Dutchman!

Most Australians would be highly envious of the infrastructure that The Netherlands possesses. Fantastic road networks that look like lace-work on a map, modern rail and bus networks within and between cities, landscape dotted with glasshouses, cows, windmills and picturesque houses in picturesque settings – it's all almost postcard perfect. It's a shame that Amsterdam doesn't measure up. Maybe we've just been unlucky, but they always seem to be digging up the roads, there's always someone doing a drug deal just off the road or laneway you're on and they don't seem to have the “Don't litter” mentality that has become part of our life.

Amsterdam has the worst aspects of many big cities in abundance. Dirty, crowded and increasingly charmless, as modern developments crowd out and overshadow the once attractive parts of the city. Liberal drug laws have attracted 'kids' from around the world. The city is probably still relatively safe. However, it just doesn't feel so?

For such a crowded nation, The Netherlands does have a fair amount of farmland. Increasingly though, it is rows of factories, rather than glasshouses that line the highways.

We dropped off our leased car on the 22nd, after leaving our luggage at our B&B. WELL, the Barangay B&B is a story in itself. It is run by two guys (look at the name of the place) and their “houseboy” -Ron- from the Philippines - who welcomed us beautifully. For those of you who know “The Birdcage” movie with Robin Williams, think Agador. The place was wonderful, very well set up, with everything a boy could possibly want. (See our Facebook pics)
After a couple of days in and around Amsterdam, we took ourselves off towards Aachen in our newly- acquired campervan. Our 'escape' from Amsterdam was less that graceful. 'Nav-girl' (our sat-nav) has great difficulty with inner-city streets and as a result of her incompetence, we saw far more of central Amsterdam than we had planned. After a cruise up the Damrak, and a number of lesser side streets, we sailed past Centraal Station, the Mint Tower and Singel Canal. None of this was planned, but what the...!

Next it was off into 'Motorway World' Dutch style. Disaster! Five hours on the road for much less than 200kms. Hours in traffic snags that stretched for 10s of klms. To solve the problem, the ever-enterprising Dutch are building more and more motorways, up and over, under and beside existing clogged arteries. As quickly as they are built, they become parking lots. Is this the right solution?

Tonight is our first night 'free-camping'. Last night we stayed at Camping Zeeburg in Amsterdam. A reasonable site, but located in an extremely ugly part of the city. Our view tonight is one that is familiar to us after two previous campervan trips to Europe. Motorways and Trucks. We will get used to the noise after a few nights, but the roar outside now doesn't bode well for a good night's sleep!

17 October – 18 October

The spirit of Canute

Days seem to alternate between perfectly sunny and purely miserable in Denmark this time of the year. Yesterday we drove over to Odense on Funen, the central island of Denmark. It was a shocker - glum and grey at the best, pelting rain at the worst. A perfect day, however, to visit the mortal remains of that great Dane, King Canute, 'Knud' to the locals. On a day, probably much like we experienced yesterday, the Great King was murdered, along with his brother, (so legend has it) while kneeling at the altar of a nearby church. You can see Canute and his brother, Benedikt, in open coffins in the crypt of the Cathedral. Now you might think that we are a little morbid? Well you might be right. Nothing interests us more than a good shriveled-up 2000 year old bog man or the odd set of skeletal remains. We once drove miles out of our way in Italy to see a skeleton dressed in a nun's habit! But there's nothing strange about us!!!? As proof, we also visited Hans Christian Anderson's house, a remarkable museum dedicated to the man and his life and times. Despite the fact that Hans high-tailed it out of there when he was 14 and later denied that he had been born in a corner of this very house, as is claimed, the people of Odense celebrate him in many ways, one of which is to make the traffic walk and don't walk signs representations of the man, complete with cane. It seems that Hans was a bit of dandy and quite vain about his appearance.

Revisiting Odense and environs today was a totally different story. The sun was out most of the day. Not abandoning our search for more grave sites, despite the beautiful day, we visited the Viking Ship grave “ Ladbyskibet”, just outside the small village of Ladby. The site is unique in Scandinavia (or as the self-effacing Danes might say, 'almost' unique). Vikings either burnt their dead leaders on ships at sea or buried them, ship and all! Nothing remains of the chief or prince who was buried in this ship, as grave robbers took the body and most of the artifacts buried with the chief. They did, however, leave the bones of nine horses and four dogs for us to see today! What is special about the Ladby site is that the ship's impression is still in the ground, buried under a funeral mound. You enter a specially constructed cave around the impression to view it 'in-situ'. The timber has long since disintegrated, leaving only the mould, nails, anchor and, of course, the bones of the animals.

A farmer discovered the remains of the ship in 1934 and the decision was made to leave it in place. Later in the day we returned to Odense for another walk around the city. It's amazing how different a place can look in good weather!

Driving through the Danish countryside, one cannot fail to notice the hundreds, possibly thousands, of huge, white, wind generators. Some people see these generators as visual pollution. We don't mind them at all. They, in fact, have a strange fascination for us. We can't help but imagine them as the 'Martian Machines' that featured in Orson Welles' War of the Worlds.

We leave Denmark in a couple of days. Tomorrow we plan to catch a movie, clean up and re-pack, ready for the next phase of our trip. We pick up our camper-van in Amsterdam on 22 October. Our stay here has been less hectic than has been the case in many of our travels. We have had time to 'potter' about some small cities and towns that we would otherwise have 'flown' through on a motorway.

Denmark is a very small country with less than 6 million people. You can drive across it before morning tea and traverse the total length before lunch, but it is a lively place with obvious wealth and an enviable life style, if not climate! What has probably surprised us most is the rich history of Denmark from the Vikings to periods of almost great power status in the 15th and 16th centuries. They even took the Germans on over territorial disputes in the 1840s and again in the 1860s. They lost on both occasions of course, but you have to admire their spirit!

A closing comment on Scandinavia as a whole. It is just amazing how much 'stuff' is made locally. We went through the kitchen utilities drawer in our rented house. Vegetable peelers, knives, plastic spoons - all made in Scandinavia. Mostly in Denmark. Haven't these people heard of China? Given the cost of things here, probably not. On the other hand, you have to admire their, 'buy local' mentality. One has to wonder though, how long can it last? With a combined population which is less than Australia's, they are up against it competitively, unless they heavily protect local industry.

13 October – 14 October

“Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen”


Not sure where the song came from, but the 'Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen' theme rolled through our heads as we walked all day through this beautiful city. We have been here before, but perhaps the weather wasn't as nice and so the impressions may have been muted. We arrived early as mentioned in the previous entry and were greeted with bright sunshine. Our second day was a little overcast but bright enough to appreciate the grandeur of this, the largest city in Scandinavia. Amazingly for a city of around 1.5 million, there is very little traffic congestion and driving around the centre of the city is no problem at all.

We walked the city all day doing, we think, about 15 – 20 klms, poking our noses into private courtyards and side alleys. Hidden away in these nooks are some quiet corners of what remains of old Copenhagen. You can bet the locals know about them, but you won't find them in the guide books. Half-timbered houses in shades of ochre, some over grown with brambles, took our fancy particularly. Sure we also saw the most over-rated attraction in Europe, the “Little Mermaid” and a few palaces, churches and grand gardens, but it is the little treasures you find wandering about the back streets (sometimes lost?) that are most memorable. We knocked on the door of the Amalienborg palace, but Fred and Mary weren't home, so we didn't get to share a beer with them. Bugger! Maybe next time. Unfortunately also, as it was Monday, most of the museums were closed so, as we were booked into this house in Jutland, we missed them. AND we want to know where our free Internet has gone!! Not even a signal here – what is the world coming to?

Heading off today, we had one of the nicest days, weather-wise, so far, so warm that we were down to T-shirts. It took us most of the day to do the 300 odd klms from Copenhagen to our new 'digs' just outside Kolding (close to Middelfart – which took Paul's fancy) in Jutland. Autumn is further behind again. Trees are half green and half gold, still waiting to break out into the riot of colours we saw further north. We have a full week here in a small Danish village. A bit of a rest will be good but, given our usual frantic pace, we doubt that we will stay put. After all, we can do day trips to most of Denmark from here and probably a fair whack of northern Germany as well! So why sit about?


15 October – 16 October

Self-effacing Danes

Gorm the Old, the father of Harald I the Bluetooth, is buried (at least part of him is) under the floor of the 11th Century church at Jelling in Jutland. Gorm the Old died sometime in the first part of the 10th Century.

The zenith of Viking plundering had long passed by this stage of history. The hapless inhabitants of Britain banded together to fight off the Norse raiders, so sources of easy loot had become rare. So Gorm and his subjects had become farmers, although they still fought amongst themselves just to keep in 'trim'.

After his father's death, Gorm's son, good old Bluetooth, who had recently 'seen the light' and become a Christian, moved the grave of his heathen father from the Viking burial mound, which remains outside the church, to consecrated ground at the (then) new church in 950 AD. The important part of all this is that, using modern DNA techniques, the couple of bones, excavated from beneath the church in modern times, that were thought to belong to Gorm, were confirmed as being those of an ancestor of the current Danish Royal Family. So, in 2000, with much pomp and ceremony, the Danish Royal Family, re-buried the bone (s)? of their ancestor under the floor of the old Jelling church.
Bet none of you have ever heard this fantastic story? The reason probably is that the Danes are so “self-effacing”. They are said to totally under-rate themselves. Believe it, they do! Can you believe that, in the centre of Copenhagen, a billboard extolling the virtues of the local beer, Carlsberg, reads: “Carlsberg, probably the best beer in town.” How's that for a 'hard sell'? There are many examples of this sort of stuff. One of the guide books describes Kolding Castle in Jutland as .. “almost awe inspiring”.

In the past two days we have started our in-depth study of Denmark. Sadly, the weather has been less than perfect, but we have seen some extremely interesting little towns like Christiansfeld, (a Moravian town famous for its honey cakes, as well as for having the largest church room without supporting columns in Denmark – bet you didn't know that either – self-effacement at its best!!) Sonderborg and of course Ribe. Aside from the rain, we have seen some interesting sights like the Viking Museum (Ribe), the very interesting Sonderborg Slot (castle) and, naturally, the 'Bog Woman' (450 BC) in the church at Vejle. Scoff if you will at the Bog People, but we are off to see more of them tomorrow, when we hope to see the head of the Tollund. Man; that's all that's left of the poor old fella as his body decomposed once it was dug up; as well as Grauballe Man – yep, all of him.

For the un-informed, a bog person has been preserved by the action of tar that forms naturally in 'bogs'. Many have been thrown into the bog as sacrifices. What do they look like? Imagine a cadaver modelled out of dried licorice!

9 October – 10 October
Some Swedish myths

Myth one: - Swedes are universally blond and gorgeous. Well perhaps we have been in the wrong places at the wrong times? Blond? - Not all that often. Gorgeous? Rarely. It has to be said that Norway seems to have retained far more of the Viking – Nordic stock than Sweden. Not that diversity in a population is a bad thing, but it can dilute what has traditionally been seen as the classic “Scandinavian look”.

Myth two: Sweden is expensive. Depends on the value of your currency! When we arrived, our AUD was worth 5.7 SEK. At that rate, Sweden was far cheaper than Norway and Denmark. Beer - the only real international comparison! - in Sweden, is about half Norway's prices. Most other costs, food, transport and entry fees seem much the same as at home. However, the financial crisis of the last week has driven our dollar down by 30% so things are a bit 'out of whack' at the moment.

Myth three: Sweden is all clean lines and design perfect like in an IKEA product promotion. Not at all. Grot and Grunge are just as “in” as in most other places in the world. The air is clean and the environment is probably far cleaner than most of Europe. But cities have the same degree of graffiti and grunge as anywhere else. Dress sense falls far short of chic. Trakky daks are not uncommon in the cities. Relaxed this may be, but haute couture it is not.
However, it is not all negative. Far from it!

The Scandinavians do great open air museums. Today we went to Skansen, the world's first open-air museum, opened in 1891. It is touted as Sweden in miniature as it contains sample houses, summer houses and farmsteads from all over Sweden. There is also a small zoo. Very well done. We have also been impressed by the museums and the old parts of towns. And the people have been so friendly and helpful to us poor mono-linguals. And let's not forget Gus, the very friendly bloke who has rented us this place, plus the very accommodating person who has supplied us with wireless internet for the the last four nights! in Sweden – whoever they may be?

We should also mention, and thank, Ikea which has been used by many of our rental landlords to furnish/supply our houses with everything from taps to toilet-paper holders. What would Scandinavia and the world be without the ORLAV shelving system or the MONIJEI throw rug?

We leave Stockholm tomorrow on one of our 'forced drives'. 700 kms at full motorway speed to Copenhagen.

6 October – 8 October

Swedish Meatballs

Crossed the Norwegian border into Sweden a couple of days back. In fact we crossed it a couple of times, much to the puzzlement of the Norwegian Customs Officers who had pulled up the usual van-load of suspect Eastern Europeans who were probably just on a family holiday. Or??

We have had such a hard time with tolls in Norway that we were not confident that we could spend our remaining currency until we knew there were no more toll booths! Within 5kms of the frontier we were about to head to a shop to spend up the coins we had left, (those of you in the know will remember that Janita cannot leave a country without spending every last cent of that country's currency! She left the last Norwegian shop with 50 ore [about 10 cents], which Paul promptly threw on the ground) when we saw a sign saying Toll Ahead. We were not at all surprised that the Norwegians might extract yet another pound (or krona) of flesh for driving on their fairly average roads. However, we did the good people of Norway an injustice. “Toll” also means customs and so we crossed the border – not much of an issue these days – did a U-turn and drove back to Norway to spend up our leftover change. By the time we crossed back to Sweden, the boys of the Customs service had had their fun for the day with the hapless immigrants from 'the new Europe' and had retired to their heated office.

Open rolling plains have predominated in our drive down to Stockholm - much like northern Germany but far less crowded. Great roads and no TOLLS.

Our Stockholm rental house is in the countryside near the small city of Sodertalje (try pronouncing that!). Again a very comfortable place with all the mod-cons including wireless internet. The city itself seems to be the home of Scania. A huge plant sits on the fringes of town but, like most Swedish industry, it is very clean.

So far this trip we haven't talked much about our Sat-Nav, better known as “Nav Girl”. She has done better here than she did in the USA, where the multi-layer freeways threw her a little! Her main problem here has been the number of new roads that have been built in the last couple of years. (Her maps are 2006) As a result, she sometimes gets quite lost and we are sure she just blurts out directions so as not to appear foolish. Our favourites are the “Turn Left's” which she hits us with while we fly along a motorway at 120 klm/hr. Yes, in Sweden, we are actually allowed to travel at the HUGE speed of 120, compared to the max of 80 in Norway! Yesterday, in combination with our poor instructions to her and her poor directions, we managed to drive about 60 klm to a supermarket that was about 7-8 klm up the road!

Oh yes: and the meatballs – we had them for dinner.

30 September – 1 October
A Different World

Fewer than 5 million people live in Norway, so in comparison to its neighbours, particularly those who live south of here, Norway has large areas of close to pristine country. Not quite wilderness in the true sense, but heavily-wooded, open country with little or no human impact. Granted much of this is rock and frozen Arctic wasteland, but all this creates a vastly different world to Europe on the whole. Rightly or wrongly, they still hunt large animals here. Furs and pelts are on sale everywhere. The air is clean and the water crystal clear. Is there some of that Viking spirit still left in Norway?

We very rarely do formal tours when we travel, but this trip we had planned to do organised Fjord trips. Fortunately for us, the lateness of the season meant that there were no tours that suited our schedule and our needs. Instead, both our fjord trips to Hardangerfjord, described previously, and the one we did yesterday to Sognefjord, were managed using local regular vehicle ferries. A fraction of the cost and just as spectacular. What we appreciated, as we drove along beside the fjords, were the frequent rest areas beside the road, (note – some of them are actually bus stops!) designed to contemplate the serenity. If you ever have to wait a long time for a bus – just hope it's at a Norwegian bus stop. They have the best views in the world!

Today, 1 October, we headed off from our rented cottage near Bergen, towards Oslo. On the way, we took a ride on the Flam (pronounced Flum) railway, 20 kms into the hills through some of the most rugged countryside in southern Norway. As usual for Norway, every turn on this hundred year old line took our breath away. Let's acknowledge it, Norway does good scenery!

After several very full days, we discovered tonight that we have a spare day before we move into our rented house near Oslo. What a relief! We have been ''working” fairly hard lately, so a day just cruising about will be a bonus. Tonight, at Laerdal, we are in an “apartment”, read “motel style room with cooking facilities” right on the Sognefjord. Note – all the cabins were booked!! We foraged in the local supermarket for our dinner, then wandered down to the fjord to contemplate said serenity and marvel at the clarity – and chill!! - of the water. Gotta love it!

October 2
Bring a packed lunch
Our day of cruising was just as expected. The road across the mountains of central Norway through small ski resorts to the small town of Geilo was simply spectacular (again!). This high and this far north, the autumn leaves have definitely started falling, yet the russets and golds still provide splashes of riotous colour among the evergreen pines, as well as congregating together to create scenes of their own, softening the greys of the mountain rocks. And on the hill tops, a dusting of early snow tops off the panorama.

Well so much for the obvious beauties of Norway!

Gloves off? -
Those intending to travel to Norway (and everybody should at least once in their lifetime!) should bring a packed lunch! Everything is expensive beyond belief. It has little to do with value for money or paying for quality. Sure, locally manufactured products like clothing and some food items are very high quality. However, one has to wonder why products commonly available all over the world, most of which are made in China, are often two to three times the cost of anywhere else.
Don't even think of drinking here! Australian wine is widely available here (but we don't drink it when travelling, preferring to try local product). An average wine that would cost $8-$9 at home would set you back $20 - $25 in Norway. The 'beer index' is right off the scale! A 500ml can will cost $6 - $7 in a supermarket, compared with $1 in Germany or $.50 in Vietnam! Don't even think of drinking in a bar! For another comparison, we noticed a common brand of soy sauce that is available at home in a deli today, it was $10 + - at home exactly the same product costs $2.50 - $3.00!
But... if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. - so we grin and bear (beer!) it! Just think of it as an over-priced, but high-quality adult amusement park!

3 October – 4 October

Wink and a Nod

Arrived at our house just outside Oslo last night (3 October). Great place with a fantastic location beside the Oslofjord, about 30 minutes' drive from Oslo. We have a frig/freezer, stove, dishwasher, washing machine, underfloor heating and a fantastic view. We also have cable TV including BBC World News so we can understand what is going on in the real world. What more could we ask for? Today, after debating the merits of driving into a smallish city like Oslo, as opposed to taking the train, we drove. Lesson one. Central Oslo parking is even more expensive than everything else in Norway. We may have done better on the bus. $40 for 5 hours' parking was a bit of a sting.
All that aside, Oslo is a very pleasant city and rather easy to get in and out of by car -as long as you don't get lost - and of course we did!. Not a large city by today's standards, but one with a lively centre that boasts all the usual shopping opportunities – if you are game, that way inclined and are earning Norwegian kroner!

The National Gallery has a great collection of 19th century landscapes - predominantly Norwegian of course. Most come here to see the Scream by E. Munch. With this classic and a small collection of other classic 19th century European Impressionists, and of course the landscapes, this is a great gallery. And FREE.

Unfortunately, the 'must see' Oslo Cathedral, was shrink-wrapped for renovations and we couldn't go in. The City Hall was an ugly, red-brick building, but had some interesting frescoes relating to the Norwegian resistance during WWII inside and wooden reliefs of scenes from Nordic mythology on the outside. All in all, a successful “Tommy Tourist” day.

Norwegians are generally extremely helpful and friendly. However, one aspect of their character, or ours, is their reluctance to recognise people in one-on-one encounters. If one encounters someone walking down an isolated forest track, most Australians, and probably many other nationalities, would say hello or at least nod in recognition. Such behaviour in Norway will bring a range of quite bizarre reactions. Some shrink away in fear. Others scowl. Many just ignore the contact. On odd occasions, the response can be an almost aggressive glare. Ah well, viva la difference!

5 October

Norway in a Nutshell

Only a couple of days remain for our Norway portion of the trip so it is probably time to summarise Norway in the way that they market short trips around the country. “Norway in a Nutshell.”

Toilets: - Use them, they are free, ubiquitous and always extremely clean.
Outdoors: - Go there! The scenery is spectacular, the air is clear and clean.
Bargain shopping: - Absolute no-no.
Drinking in pubs: - only if you don't drink.
Roads: - Good for the level of traffic, although alarmingly narrow in the mountains. But be warned. It will take twice the time you expect to get from A to B with speed limits of 80km on motorways and 70km on the open road.
Driving: - Good drivers who obey the rules and are patient with foreigners.
Eating out: - See Bargain shopping and drinking in pubs.
Supermarkets: - Beware! Credit cards don't always work when you hit the check-out. No hard and fast rule about this – some supermarkets are fine, others refuse every card you own!
Security: - Very safe but always exercise caution.
Language: - English universally understood and mostly very well spoken.
Accommodation: You get what you pay for. But here you'll pay a lot for even average accommodation.
Weather: - It IS Norway! Changeable.
Highlights: Everything outdoors! Small villages and farms. Western Fjords. Oslo city centre. The Norsk Folke Museum in Oslo. Hunting lodges in mountain passes.