Norway 2019

Visited Norway again this summer. This time we decided to rent a car and drive the various places we wanted to go, rather than try to deal with public transportation and suitcases. So we flew to Oslo to start.

Stayed at the Thon Rosenkrantz Hotel. Thon has dozens of hotels in Norway, Holland, and Belgium, but most Americans have likely never heard of the chain. Their HQ is in Oslo, and the Rosenkrantz is one of their nicer offerings. They told me their breakfast won a competition for "best breakfast in Oslo," and I would agree it seems deserving.

It is named Rosenkrantz because its address is on Rosenkrantz Gate ("gate" is Norwegian for "street") not far from the theater. It is a convenient location to reach many sites in Oslo. Our first day included a trip to the Munch Museum. *sigh* disappointing.

We had seen the various Munch paintings at the National Gallery last year, as well as the holdings on display at KODE in Bergen. The organization and quality of the works on display at the museum bearing his name just didn't measure up. So much of their display seemed geared towards self-promotional PR. The works on the wall, to my untrained eye, didn't seem so important. There was no exposition, explaining how Munch developed his style into the characteristic that almost all Westerners recognize from The Scream.

If I understood the story correctly, the current museum will be closing, and they will move to a new location closer to the National Theater.

Following Munch, we decided to head over to Bygdøy to walk through the Norsk Folkemuseum. The peninsula is a pleasant ferry ride from the docks by City Hall. On our trip last year we had already seen the Fram Museum (about arctic explorers -- recommended) and the Kon-Tiki Museum (ho-hum), but had missed the open-air museum with its collection of buildings.

I was intrigued by the style of fencing they had on display. Over our trip I found that this style is very common in Norway.

Scandinavia seems to have many of these open-air folk museums. On our trip last year we went to Skansen in Stockholm, which is part of why we skipped the Norsk on that trip. But for this trip we went to several. The idea doesn't make much sense in the USA, where our pre-industrial history was rather short, but many places in Norway have over 1000 years of cultural history. The museums try to gather the actual buildings from various parts of the country, and then reproduce in an actual landscape setting how people lived and worked in those areas and those days.

Lots of intricate metalwork.

A scarecrow. I doubt this is actually a historical design, but very photogenic nonetheless.

Detailed woodcarving at the entrance-ways to buildings.

A mangle, for flattening wrinkles out of linen cloth.

A container.

The Gol Stave Church, likely from the first half of the 13th century. The key architectural element that makes it a stave church are the vertical bearing posts (staves) in the wall structures.

Some shots of the church interior.

Hmmm. I think it's another modern design element.

We ended the day by heading to the outskirts of town and to the Vigeland Park inside Frogner Park. We had become much more comfortable with public transit, and so took a trolley to the park. This entails a ride through several neighborhoods of Oslo, getting a view we might not otherwise have seen.

Gustav Vigeland has a very distinct style, and he convinced Oslo to let him place some 200 sculptures in this portion of Frogner Park. 

Walking around center city Oslo there is a very prominent Freia sign.

Freia is a large confectionery company. I believe they are now owned my Kraft. Much of the chocolate candy sold in Norway is marketed under Freia branding. One of their products is the Kvikk Lunsj (pronounced so it almost sounds like "quick lunch"), which is almost indistinguishable from a Kit Kat bar.

The next morning we checked out of the Rosenkrantz, picked up a rental car, and drove to Lillehammer, host city of the 1994 Winter Olympics. 25 years later, there isn't a big imprint of the Olympics, but one very visible site is the ski-jump, still looming over the city high up the mountainside. The Olympic torch from 1994 is also at the same location, flame extinguished.

During the daytime it's possible to ride the chair lift up to the top of the jump hill. At any time the park is open it's possible to physically climb the stairs of the viewing stands, which a number of people were doing, apparently for exercise.

We stayed overnight at a hotel that was in a building that had been a grain mill until the 1990s. They retained much of the feel of the old building, leaving some of the milling machinery in place in what became the restaurant. A stream ran right by the building, not surprising for a mill. It was a charming place to stay.

We had wanted to stop at another open-air museum in Lillehammer, called Maihaugen, but arrived shortly before closing time and taking the advice of the hotel clerk did not go up there. In retrospect, we realized we should have gone directly to Maihaugen, and checked in to the hotel later.

Maihaugen is described as Norway's largest open-air folk museum outside Oslo. I'll not be able to confirm that, as I did not get there this trip.

**** this is where the draft ended****

Travelling around Frankfurt

 Germany offers drivers license reciprocity with many jurisdictions, meaning that if you hold a valid drivers license it is fairly simple to transfer that to a German license within the first six months after entering the country. Unfortunately, New York is not one of those jurisdictions. If I want a drivers license in Germany I will have to take driver safety classes, sit for a written test, and take a road test. Total cost for all this is quite expensive, and so I have given up on the idea of driving here.

There are a few other options. Germany has a well-developed public transit system. And bicycles are everywhere.

The transit company for most of the Frankfurt region is called RMV. As a senior citizen (defined as over 65 years) I qualified for an all-transport monthly pass for 72 euro. The allows me to take any train, tram, trolley, or bus in the central Frankfurt zone. Had I wanted to travel in outer zones too, it would have been a bit more, but for many it is cheaper to get the monthly pass, and buy an add-on ticket when traveling outside the central zone.

Commuter trains operate mainly radially, into and out of downtown Frankfurt. To travel across you mostly must use a bus. The bus system is more complicated, although RMV has an app to help you find connections. For the most part, in my life so far, I don't need the buses that much, so I haven't explored the app thoroughly.

Today I splurged an bought myself a bicycle. There has been a shortage of bicycles since the COVID lockdown in the spring. One bike shop owner I spoke with said the main issue has not been the bicycles themselves, but rather the parts produced by Shimano. Shimano has pretty much a grip on the entire world market for derailleurs, and no matter how many frames you can buy, you can't assemble the bicycle without a derailleur.

I did find a bike shop who actually had a bike in my size in stock. (I was warned that ordering a bicycle was futile, as there would be no way to predict when, or even if it would come in.) So I bought it. It is a Hercules Tourer 21. I got the bike, a UVEX helmet, and a Trelock lock. I had my first ride bringing the bike back home from the shop.

I was worried about riding a bike in traffic, but once on the road, it seemed quite safe. There was a bike lane most of the way, and the cars and buses did not attempt to crowd me. I was a little unsure how to handle intersections with a dedicated right turn lane where I wanted to go straight if there was a red light. The bike lane seemed to veer off to the right, but I felt exposed in the "go straight" lane. Nevertheless, I managed. Successfully home.