Planning for three weeks in Norway
My sister, Judy, and I agreed that July ’07 was the right time for us to tour the land of our paternal grandparents: Norway.
Looking over travel brochures, Judy fell in love with a 15-day escorted vacation featuring a northbound cruise on a Hurtigruten ship. Though I wasn’t that enthusiastic about seeing the Laplanders (now called Sami) or eating reindeer stew (quite good, actually) or sleeping on flea-bitten rugs (of course we didn’t!), I agreed, with the proviso that she spend an additional third week helping me with genealogical data to fill out our family tree.
That part settled, we chose the Finnmarken, as it not only had an Internet café but was the only ship offering refrigerators in every cabin. Of the five cabin categories, we chose U ($6,939 per person) in order to have a big window rather than a porthole and because our seventh deck had only three other cabins on our passageway.
Though we made our initial arrangements through Hurtigruten (New York, NY; 866/747-8991, www.hurtigruten.us), we also dealt with Brekke Tours (Grand Forks, ND; 800/437-5302, www. brekketours.com), and both gave us early-bird discounts for registering by Jan. 22. Then, because we left home three days before the cruise and stayed a week later than others in the group, we were given refunds of the air portion to make our own flight arrangements.
Leaving the U.S. from two different coasts on July 5, we met in Stockholm so I could claim my 106th country before flying on to Oslo.
To get to Bergen to meet the rest of our travel group, we started our adventure with three trains, one bus and one ferry on the “Norway in a Nutshell” trip ($204 plus $10 seat-reservation fee plus Brekke’s $25 booking fee). It took all day Sunday and was quite an initiation to Norway that I wholeheartedly recommend.
We missed the cruise-tour’s welcoming dinner in Bergen but did use our tickets to ride the funicular to the top of Mt. Fløyen to buy the first of many “soft ic” cream cones with the creamiest cream you can imagine!
The 15-day escorted cruise-tour was really in three segments with three different guides: around Bergen (July 8-12), aboard the ship (July 13-17) and in Sami country with a flight back to and a tour around Oslo (July 18-20) plus a day of travel at each end.
All the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful with one foss (waterfall) after another, and the food was superb, but I must comment on the fabulous drinking water. I couldn’t get enough of it!
We had ridden the Fløm Railway on our “Nutshell” tour but enjoyed that long descent again, this time staying at the historic Kviknes Hotel in Balestrand, where my sister bravely took a few swimming strokes in the fjord. Brrrr!
Then it was on to our home for the next six nights, the Finnmarken of the Hurtigruten line.
In Tromsø we went on our own tour to the Botanical Gardens and then to the Polaria exhibits of Arctic life. One night I stayed up to take a picture as the sun was setting at
11:40 p.m.
For our last day aboard the Finnmarken, we decided to buy shore tours offered by the ship. Judy opted for a bird safari ($150), but I definitely wanted to take the bus tour ($108) to the North Cape, mainland Europe’s northernmost point. Yes, that night the whole ship rocked, just as I had experienced at Cape Horn at the tip of South America where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet.
Our group disembarked at Vadsø, the stop before Kirkenes, on the border with Russia, but many of the passengers had opted for the 18-day package that included the round trip back to Bergen, visiting the ports we had passed at night on the way up the coast.
Our hotel that night was the Rica Hotel in Karasjok. Sitting on reindeer skins around an open fire was a pleasant surprise, as our dinner was inside a room especially prepared for the occasion.
Before flying back to Oslo from Alta, we had a pleasant bus ride along the Finnish side of the river. The varied scenery included a canyon reminiscent of the Wisconsin Dells.
By the way, the airport advertised a special on hamburger, salad, fries and a Pepsi for a mere NOK149, which translates to almost $30, so be warned: prices were about three times higher there!
Back in Oslo, our cruise-tour included the Holmenkollen ski jump, Vigeland Park and the Viking Ship Museum. That night was our final dinner for the 29 of us. Those two weeks really went by quickly!
Then it was time to meet the relatives. Our parents visited Norway back in 1962, but they’ve been gone some 25 years, as have many of the cousins. Dad had made a list of relatives’ names for both his parents, so well in advance of our trip I used that to peruse the Gulesider phone book online. Not speaking the language, I needed the help of my genealogy pals at www.norway@rootsweb.net.
At the website, some gal in South Dakota knew of someone in Namsos (200 miles south of the Arctic Circle), who made a contact for me, and over several months I was successful in reaching at least one relative in each of the two locations. Luckily, their English was good enough for e-mailing, as there was a 9-hour time difference.
Once we were in Oslo, and since we were paying for our own lodging, Judy and I chose to move to the Quality Airport Hotel (NOK895, or $156, for a 2-bed room) to make it easier on our southern hosts driving us around.
Whenever we stopped to meet more relatives, they brought out cake, open-face sandwiches and drinks. Though we had known these people for only two days, it felt as if they had been in our lives for a long, long time.
To go north, we had to change planes in Trondheim (I dealt directly with SAS, using them and their subsidiary to fly within Norway at a cost of $301 each), where we opted to stay overnight in another Quality hotel (this one at NOK 990, or $173), but this was the only place Judy didn’t have to pay extra for Internet access, as we were using my laptop strictly for a daily log and genealogical data; Google was helpful.
Then we flew up to Namsos in the Namdalen region of Nord-Trøndelag County, where our half cousin and her husband met us at the little airport and gave us a grand tour of the area.
The town was flattened by German bombs in 1940 and had to be rebuilt. We were impressed by the community recreation center carved into the side of a mountain and containing a fitness center and an Olympic-size swimming pool — truly magnificent! Evidently, Norway’s defense department contributed to the construction since the facility could be used as a bomb shelter/hiding place if necessary.
On the second afternoon, all the local relatives met at the Røthe Café for a party. Everyone seemed to enjoy looking on my computer at a slide show of the photos Dad had taken back in 1962. We updated that with a family group photo.
So we were successful in meeting relatives of both our Norwegian grandparents and encoding more data on the family tree.
The Freia milk chocolate with hazelnuts that I bought in the duty-free shop is long gone, but my little doll dressed in her bunad (the traditional dress of the region) smiles at me from her new place of honor on a living room table. Of course, I bought other souvenirs and gifts, but I cherish the memories of those three weeks we spent in the Land of the Midnight Sun.
CAROLYN RANDINE
CASPERSON, Banning, CA