Finland/Norway Blog

Days 1-2

Hi folks! I'm writing this at 3.30 am with the sun shining outside my hotel window. Weird, huh? (The fact that I'm writing this at 3.30am is also weird.) It's day 3 of the Northern Highlights tour and we're in a Finnish town called Kuopio en route to the Arctic Circle. The tour began yesterday with a drive around Helsinki then a couple of hours of independent exploring of the harbour precincts. It's a nice town with some lovey old art nouveau buildings and interesting statues, but I'd been there before so there were no surprises. The afternoon was basically a four-hour drive to Kupio, passing through some nice, but unspectacular scenery consisting of mainly pine and beech tree forests and a million lakes. Weather-wise, the day was gorgeous: bright blue cloudless skies with cool but pleasant temperatures.

The great Lutheran Cathedral, Helsinki

Our group is 39-strong, one third of which are Australians. There are a half a dozen Kiwis, a few Poms, Irish and Scots, a Canadian woman and an American girl, then the rest are Asians (from India, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore). All in all a reserved bunch of mainly oldies (except myself of course), though a couple of giggly NZ women are good value. The tour leader is a bubbly young Hungarian girl called Judit who seems organised and efficient. She has two trainees with her: a Polish girl and a Swedish girl. The bus, sorry coach (it has a toilet), is brand new and fairly spoofy, so all things considered it should be a good tour. Apropos the toilet, we're not allowed to use it while in motion, so to speak, because of European traffic laws. If someone urgently needs to use it, the coach has to pull over and stop, which happened to a hugely embarrassed English lady yesterday who rushed up the aisle to the accompaniment of catcalls and smart comments. ("You shouldn't have had that second cup of tea, luv!") The laws also stipulate the compulsory wearing of seat belts, which all the Aussies ignored of course. Apparently when we get into reindeer country the driver often has to break suddenly because of straying Rudolphs. The consequences could cost us deerly.

Our group. I'm right in the middle.

Day 3

The third day of our Northern Highlights tour (which I've renamed the Snore-thern Lowlights Tour) was spent mainly in the coach as we drove north through boring scenery for 6 hours to Rovaniemi, capital of Finnish Lapland. As I remarked to one of the tour members, it's pretty sad when the highlights of the day are the toilet stops. Why we couldn't have flown there is beyond me. Anyway, the day ended with a potentially nice optional extra: a traditional meal put on by the Sami people, one of the ten indigenous tribes of Lapland, in a large tent-like structure with a fire in the middle and tables laid out around it. We were promised reindeer so I expected a large slab of the beast roasted over an open fire. What we got was minced meat sprinkled sparsely over a large bed of mashed potato. Still, I have to admit it was pretty delicious, just not as primitive and macho as I was expecting. Dessert was a traditional Lapp pie made of local lingonberries. Also delicious. All in all, however, the evening was pretty boring. Only half of the group attended - mainly the Asians, who hardly ever open their mouths, and the rest seemed to be the dullest of the already dull group. (Where were the riotous NZ women when you needed them?) I was praying for some Lapp dancing (!) to spice the evening up, but that never eventuated. I did discover, however, that the Canadian lady is from Quebec and is French speaking so I might practice my Frog with her some time. By the way, speaking of languages, I really don't feel comfortable in Finland. As you know, I usually travel to places where I can communicate with the locals, but here it's like being on another planet. In Denmark I could always read signs and menus as Danish and Swedish are so close but Finnish is not one of the Germanic languages (it's closer to Hungarian and Estonian) and I can't understand a single word! I can't wait for the Finnish leg to finnish (pun intended) and to get into Norway where I should be able to speak Swedish.

Our tour guide Judit, giving us instructions on how to eat our reindeer meal

Day 4

A much appreciated "veggie day", with just one organised activity: visiting the Santa Claus Village, a kind of theme park which was as crass as its sounds. I declined to line up and have my picture taken with the big fella (at 25 Euros a shot). That was a Lapp experience I could live without. Instead I just wandered around the souvenir shops and soaked in the atmosphere, enjoying the superb sunny weather. The only mildly interesting thing about the place was that the Arctic Circle ran through it. 

Straddling the Arctic Circle with Yvonne and Meg from NZ

In the afternoon I visited the impressive Arktikum (arctic museum), where, amongst other things, I lay on my back and watched beautiful footage of the aurora borealis, which was definitely NOT a bore. (About the only thing in this trip that hasn't been.)

Day 5

Wonder of wonders: a couple of interesting things happened today. We saw our first wild reindeer, we saw lots of snow and we visited a gold museum. We're still heading north, but strangely the weather is becoming milder! Our overnight stay is in Saariselka, on the edge of the "virgin wilderness" (I'm looking forward to seeing some) and part of Finland's major national park, a stone's throw away from the Russian border. In winter the village is a bustling ski resort; at the moment it's dead. But that's fine by us as we need our sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day - 25 hours in fact. Read on to find out why.

Our first wild reindeer. Looks like an albino to me.

Outside the Gold Museum. That's fools gold in the foreground, unfortunately.

 

The lookout at Saariselka

Day 6

Well, I can't complain today. The scenery was great: hilly pine forests, half-frozen lakes, reindeer by the sleighful, vast snow fields, spectacular fjords, etc, etc. In the morning, after visiting a Sami (indigenous) community, we crossed into Norway, gaining an hour on the way (thus the 25-hour day). Though the landscape became progressively spectacular the weather became progressively worse, until by late afternoon it was lightly raining. Our first spell of bad weather. However, the cold, rainy conditions kind of went with the wild terrain. Our night stop was the tourist haven (in summer, not now thank goodness) of Honningsvag on a small island, access to which is through three long tunnels. The beautiful little harbour town is the end station of the fjord cruise to Bergen which takes 2 weeks. (We'll be doing just a short leg tomorrow.)

The wild shoreline up to North Cape

That night we experienced what was billed as "one of the highlights of the tour" - a drive to North Cape, Europe's last northern outpost, on a sheer cliff rising 305 metres from the Atlantic Ocean. The idea was to view the midnight sun rolling just above the horizon. It was freezing cold (4 degrees) but I was dressed for the occasion: long johns, two coats, gloves, balaclava, etc. The long johns, which I'd found stashed away in a forgotten bag at the back of my wardrobe, had obviously been purchased decades ago when I was just a slip of a lad. Getting them on was a quite a stretch (literally) and left me speaking in a high-pitched voice. But it was worth it. The trip up the mountain was awesome, even though in the end the sun was hidden by the heavy clouds. At least it didn't rain.

Up at freezing cold North Cape

Day 7

By the time we got back from North Cape to our Honningsvag hotel it was 1am and we had to be up this morning at 5.15am to catch the 6 o'clock ferry for a 5-hour fjord cruise to Hammerfest. So as you can imagine we were all very bleary-eyed that morning It was a great cruise though, with magnificent snowy mountain scenery viewed from a luxury cruise-ship type vessel. 

Boarding the ferry to Hammerfest

After lunch we headed inland and southward through wide, flat snow fields to Alta, situated at the mouth of the world's richest salmon river. That night our hotel put on a magnificent buffet (the best of the tour), starting with an array of cold fish - at least six different kinds, including salmon of course.  Naturally I had to sample the lot. Alcohol was off the menu however, as Norwegian taxes makes the prices prohibitive. We were all well prepared though, having stocked up in Finland. I'd bought a bottle of Akvavit and a bottle of Jägermeister to have before each dinner. (I mean a bit of each, not a whole bottle!) I figured they should last me just over a week. So every night in Norway I would stagger down to dinner in a highly inebriated state, then sober up during the meal.  Consequently it didn't really matter what I ate in Norway as I was always too drunk to care.

Day 8

A long day of driving (over 500ks) which was made palatable by the breathtaking scenery - fjords and snow-covered alps surrounded us the whole time. I've never seen anything like it. Norway is truly a scenic wonderland. That night at our hotel in Narvik I spoiled myself with a traditional fish meal that cost over $50! It was delicious but of course not worth the money. Norway may be beautiful but the prices are horrendous! Everything is almost twice as much as in Australia. For example, a glass of beer costs over $10; I was never game to find out how much a glass of wine would be.

A sample of the beautiful scenery, shot through the bus window

Speaking of money, I just want to make an interesting observation. Norway is a cashless society - the first I've come across. Everyone uses a credit card for everything, no matter how trifling: a cup of coffee, a loaf of bread, whatever. For the first time in my travelling life I haven't bothered to get any of the local currency. (I just have to be careful not to run into a toilet that requires a coin - and there are some, apparently. It could be nasty.)

Day 9

This morning we visited the Narvik war museum where we learnt heaps about the naval battles that occurred here between the British and the Germans and what life was like during the Nazi occupation. Interestingly, there are still dozens of warships at the bottom of the waters of the fjord. In the afternoon some of us did an optional tour of the city that ended with a gondola ride up a mountain for a spectacular view of the city and the surrounding alps.

Day 10

Another long day travelling (440ks), but the weather was glorious and the scenery constantly spectacular. In the late afternoon we crossed the arctic circle again - back supposedly into the world of sunrises and sunsets. Huh, someone forgot to tell the hotel where we stayed that night (at Mo I Rana). The sun was so bright and so intrusive my room was like a furnace and I was forced to sleep practically naked and wearing eye shades like they give you in planes. How's that for a mental image?!

The Arctic Circle again

Day 11

An even longer day's coach ride than the one before, but, with the scenery changing to lush pine forests à la the Black Forest,  we hardly noticed. Got into Trondheim very late in the afternoon and were immediately struck by the beauty and allure of the place, especially the unique, historic warehouses (now chic apartments) on stilts lining the water. We were shocked to realise that we had only one night in this charming place, with no opportunity to check out its major attractions like the new Rock House (not a geology museum, but a museum of pop music) and the ancient monastery lying on an island off shore. Absolutely criminal. Everyone was angry. We wondered if the people who organise these itineraries actually do them themselves...

The beautiful Trondheim

Day 12

Today's seemingly endless drive took us through lots of tunnels, over three ferries, along the Atlantic Road and around hairpin mountain bends to reach Geiranger, a small tourist village and cruise ship port of call at the base of the Geirangerfjord. The setting is the most spectacular I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot. Can't begin to describe how beautiful it is, so I'll just let the pictures to the talking. And we have two nights here!

One of the dramatic bridges on the Atlantic Road

The spectacular Geirangerfjord

A cruise ship calls in to Geiranger

Day 13

A welcome "veggie" day with nothing organised except a 90 minute morning cruise around the fjord The weather, which had been very overcast for the past couple of days, started to clear and by the end of the cruise there was glorious sunshine - the first time in 3 weeks, so the locals informed us. So we were very lucky. The cruise itself was of course spectacular, with a myriad waterfalls cascading down the precipitous slopes, fed by the melting spring snows. 

Cascading waterfalls. (How's that for stating the bleeding obvious?)

Day 14

A shortish trip to our second last stop, Lillehammer, host city of the 1994 Winter Olympics (and don't they flog it), along a road that only three days before had been washed out by devastating floods. Once again our timing was impeccable. We made a morning stop in Lom, a scenic mountain village famous for its stave church. (A stave church, according to Wikipedia, uses free standing inner columns to support a raised section in the ceiling of the main nave. Don't worry if you can't understand that - I can't either!) The church dates from the 12th century and is only one of a couple of dozen left in Norway. 

The stave church at Lom

Day 15

Our last drive took us past rivers and lakes, swollen from the previous week's flooding rains. Arrived in Oslo around 11am and were given a couple of hours free time to check it out. It seemed a nice clean city, very much like Helsinki. At 1pm a local guide gave us a more in-depth tour of the place, beginning with the famous City Hall where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held in the ornate surroundings. 

An ornate mural inside the Oslo City Hall

 

After that we drove around looking at the many grand buildings, finally ending up in Frogner Park filled with sculptures of nude figures of all ages and sexes by Gustav Vigeland,  Norway's most famous sculptor of the early twentieth century. The "Vigeland Sculpture Arrangement" covers 80 acres and features 212 bronze and granite sculptures all designed by Vigeland. The sculptures culminate in the famous Monolith with its 121 figures struggling to reach the top of the phallic-like sculpture. Staring at it made me a little cock-eyed (so to speak) and I can't say it was my cup of tea, but it certainly is unique and dramatic, as you can see in the pictures.

This is supposed to have a symbolic meaning. Just don't ask me what.

Naked bodies galore.

That night half of the group (me included) elected to have a farewell meal in this restaurant that had a spectacular view of the city, quite near the famous and stomach-turning Oslo ski jump. We had a lovely time, getting pissed by the piste. It was a fitting end to a nice tour.  (Or should that be "an ice" tour?)