BERGEN

The flight tracker in front of my Delta Airlines seat showed our plane heading out of Detroit over Canada, flying over the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone in the North Atlantic, cutting south of Iceland and Greenland, cruising north of Dublin and just over London. We landed in Amsterdam about 6 a.m., and I was feeling the first pull of jet lag as I hiked across the huge terminal to catch my KLM flight to Bergen.

“Why are you going to Norway?” the passport control officer asked. My scrambled brain told me to blurt out, “I’m going to see the Northern Lights!” She smiled broadly and handed me back my passport, giving me the go-ahead.

About two hours later in Bergen, I stumbled into my hotel bed, hoping for a good nights sleep, not the Northern Lights. Besides my jangled sense of time, it was a good time to sleep, because like many of Bergen’s days, it was raining outside. 

Luckily, the next day - my only full day in Bergen - was sunny, so like many Bergenians, I took the funicular up Mt. Floyen for a great view of the port and the hub of many trails up into the mountains.

Photos of Bergen from Mt. Floyen

I took one of those trails, following it for about an hour and ending up back at the funicular for a ride back to Bergen. My dinner choices that evening seemed to be Chinese, Italian, Jack’s Country Saloon or McDonald’s. Fortunately, I stumbled across a restaurant in the Bryggen district - the oldest part of the city - that seemed authentically Norwegian. The menu included sustainably “harvested” whale and a reindeer dish. I was not ready for either of those, so I opted for the mushrooms.

On Monday, I was scheduled to board the 600-passenger ship the MS Havila Castor, for a sea trip up the coast and into the northernmost part of Norway.

But I didn’t have to be on the ship until early evening, so I decided to pay a visit to the home of Norwegian composer Edvard Greig. (Check out “Morning Mood” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King”. You’ll recognize both of them.) After detailed directions from the hotel clerk that included taking the tram to the bus station to the “Hop” stop and walking another 20 minutes, I decided to take a cab.

The cab driver dropped me off that the Grieg house and Museum and drove off before I realized the museum was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Still, I could walk around the grounds, including into tree-and-moss hollow next to the fjord.

One of the trails by the Grieg house and museum

Of course, I had to get back, and some helpful locals directed me straight ahead to the bus line that took me to the bus station where I could walk back to my hotel in time to get my bags and head to the dock and board my ship for a six-day cruise up the Norwegian coastline.

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ON THE SHIP

The Castor is a new ship, put into service in 2022. Like the other four ships on the line, it sails up and down the craggy fjords along the Norwegian coast, stopping at 34 ports - some at night and only to drop off supplies, mail and passengers. The ship did stop for a few hours at some of the larger towns, and passengers could wander around the streets looking for souvenirs or museums or even go off on excursions arranged by the cruise line. But if you go off on your own, don’t be late getting back to the ship. I heard one story from a passenger who saw a couple running two minutes too late toward the Castor after the ship had already cast off.

The accommodations on the ship ranged from deluxe suites with balconies and individual jacuzzis to inside, windowless cabins. I had a window and a double bed in my room. There were two exercise rooms, a sauna and a hot tub. One of the best things was free use of three washer/dryers that even dispensed the appropriate amount of detergent for your dirty clothes.

Me getting ready to board the Havila Castor

Carl, who seemed to be the master of ceremony for the cruise, made all the announcements in Norwegian, English and German. Every day, he conducted a get together in three languages to discuss the next day’s activities, which towns we would be stopping at and other interesting facts about the fjords.

The ship was docked in the city of Tromso for about three hours, enough time to walk to the Arctic Museum and check out the displays that included taxidermy seals, anything you might want to know about the explorer Roald Amundsen and the bones of a young man who may have died long ago.

All the way up the coast, we saw a number of small settlements and several larger cities, including Trondheim, the capital of the Vikings and the site of the impressive Nidaros Cathedral which includes an organ with 9,000 pipes. We then sailed past rocky mountains, snow-topped mountains and finally glacier-covered mountains.

A view from the ship of the glacier covered mountains

On day three, we sailed across the Arctic Circle, the dividing line between the Midnight Sun of the summer and the Polar Night in the winter. I chose to go to Norway around the vernal equinox, when the days and nights are relatively equal. As we passed the markers showing we were at the 66.5 degrees north latitude, the ship staged a charming ceremony in which ice cubes were poured down the backs of anyone willing to undergo the practice. I was not one of them.

The marker showing us we were passing the Arctic Circle

Twice during the trip we were alerted to signs that the Northern Lights were beginning to appear above the ship, and quite a number of passengers came to stand on the upper deck, looking for the green shimmer in the night sky. My camera has one of the worst for photographing the Aurora Borealis. My one photo looks like a pail of sand. But those with better cameras got some great shots of the ghostly lights.

The seas were calm most of the way up the coast, except towards the end of the third day, when the ship started swaying to a seemingly unending series of swells. Fewer passengers showed up for lunch that day. Even fewer turned out for dinner a few hours later, after the swells became stronger. Doors to the outside decks were closed for safety, and the captain decided to hold the ship in a relatively protected area for a few hours. Still, it was best to hold onto the railings as you made your way along the halls.

In time, the seas calmed down a bit, and we continued our trip, though we had to skip a few ports to keep to the ship’s schedule.

One of the last stops on the northbound trip was the North Cape, the farthest north you can go in Europe. Although the temperature wasn’t too bad - only about 28 degrees - the wind was merciless and drained my phone battery in about 10 minutes. Still, the view was panoramic, and worth the bus trip from the ship to the cape. I sat next to an Australian, who was traveling with his family. As is expected in situations like this, he asked where I was from. I said I was from the Detroit area and most specifically from Ann Arbor, though perhaps he had never heard of the place. Well, he did know about Ann Arbor, because he had attended college in Berrien Springs many years ago. Though it was early April, there were quite a number of tourists at the North Cape, and it’s apparently even more crowded in the summer months. Needless to say, there is an excellent souvenir shop on the premises.

A picture of me in North Cape

The next day, the ship reached Kirkenes, it’s final stop on the northward route and about six miles from the Russian border.

The Ice Bar - A photo of my cabin

Unfortunately, I didn’t see but slight signs of the Northern Lights when I was at the Snowhotel, even though I voyaged out for a night tour of the area on a dogsled.

The Snowhotel has 170 dogs, all of them enthusiastic about pulling visitors around on sleds. Every now and then, they would all break out with a wave of howling and barking, just to let you know they’re there, I guess.

A couple of our dogs who would be on our dogsled

Isaac was the musher on my dogsled. He was about 20 or 21 and just finishing his degree in heavy diesel machinery. He loves the dogs, but his hobby is driving around on snowmobiles. He boasted that he can do a complete backflip on a snowmobile, and isn’t phased by a near fatal crash that involved a friend trying to do another maneuver. 

I was in one of four dogsleds that headed out that night for a fast ride over the snow with a stop midway through for hot drinks near a fire pit. At one point, the dogs were distracted by a white grouse that was such a bright white it stood out even against a backdrop of snow.

It was too cloudy to see any Northern Lights, but a good trip nonetheless, and a fitting end to my stay in the Norwegian Arctic. The next day, I flew to Oslo.

OSLO

Oslo has a population of just over 1 million inhabitants, but it feels bigger. The trip from the airport to my hotel took about 40 minutes. Not only were there McDonald’s, there were Burger Kings. 

There were cars everywhere, though I only saw two American cars, both Corvettes. One of my cab drivers in Oslo was driving a Nio, an EV Chinese car, but dead batteries could be swapped out for a charged battery, an operation that took about four minutes, instead of the 20 minutes it might take to recharge a Tesla.

I had one full day in Oslo, and I planned to hit four tourist sites. First, to the botanical gardens, where forsythia and rhododendrons were blooming.

Then I set off along a walkway next to the Akerselve River that cuts through the city and walked uphill past a row of small houses to the Memorial Cemetery where I found the graves of playwright Henrik Ibsen, who wrote the drama A Doll’s House, and of artist Edvard Munch, whose most famous painting is “The Scream”. 

My next stop was the Royal Palace, where I arrived just after 1:30 p.m., in time to catch the end of the changing of the guard ceremony. The palace is at the end of a wide boulevard and in the middle of a huge park, with gardens and ponds, all open to the public.

I think King Harald V and Queen Sonja were there when I stopped by since his flag was flying over the palace. But no, they didn’t invite me in for tea, though public tours take place during the summer months.

My final stop in Oslo was the Vigelandsparken, a collection of sculptures by Norwegian artist Gustav Vigeland that features more than 200 sculptures in bronze, granite and cast iron showing men, women and children in all stages of life and emotions - and all without a stitch of clothing. (The only statue in the park wearing clothes was a figure of the sculptor himself near the entrance.)

I did find The Angry Boy statue when I stopped to tie my shoelace. And I snapped a photo of the sculpture Man Attacked by Babies, a depiction of a sentiment I suppose all parents feel sometimes.

Three of the many sculptures I was able to see at Vigelandsparken

After walking 31,500 steps (according to my iPhone) that day, I took the tram back to the hotel, packed my bags and got ready for my flight home the next day.



ODDS AND ENDS

1) The food was great everywhere in Norway - except maybe in the airport. I ate croissants every day for breakfast, which almost always included yogurt, cold cuts, oatmeal, pancakes, bacon or sausage, eggs, orange and other juices, besides the regular coffee and tea. 

One of the best food items I discovered was the brown cheese, which is shaped like a brick. It’s made from boiling down whey left over from the cheesemaking process. Is it healthy? There are fans and there are haters, but it is agreed that brown cheese is high in sugar and fat, which must be why I like it.

My best lunch I had was in the Snow Hotel, where I could get soup - fish soup one day, carrot soup the next - and a hunk of bread for about $5. 

2) Norwegians all learn English in elementary school. The only people who didn’t speak English too well were my cab drivers, one was from the Punjab, another from North Macedonia and a third from Syria. 

3) Sometimes Norwegians - like the couple who gave me directions to the bus station near the Grieg Museum - would ask me what was going on in America. I would always tell them that even I lived in America, I didn’t know what was going on either.