Oslo, Stavanger and Bergen
I already promised in my last story that I would tell about my autumn holiday that was not that long ago. After completing our first exam we got a week off. I have I spend it travelling by myself, something that I really like to do. Even though I love it here: the mountains, the fjord, the river, I was secretly missing bigger cities. So time to fix that! I started of pretty good, by going to Oslo, Norway’s biggest city and capital.
Here I visited friends from Wageningen that are also on exchange and are studying in a town close by. Of course I also took some time to check out Oslo: from the cathedral and the royal palace, to the Nobel price museum and the opera house (with a lovely view over the city). The city is a really nice mixture of old and new, and I quite liked it.After Oslo I continued with the night train (where I even got a pillow and a blanket) to Stavanger, Norway’s third city if I’m not mistaken. I also took there a look at the harbour and the city centre, with another cathedral and a very nice watch tower. It was obviously smaller then Oslo but nice in its own way.
Since I had the biggest and 3rd biggest city, I was only missing number 2. So the trip ended up in Bergen. This was I think my favourite, not too big and not too small. On the picture you can see Bryggen, a world heritage site with medieval buildings that were used for trade. These buildings are protected and maintained and still in use. Apart from this old street at the harbour there were other old buildings, including a ford. And there were enough mountains, of which I climbed one, giving a beautiful view on the city. As you can see on the picture, the weather was not that good, which is not surprising, since Bergen is the rainiest city in Europe. Actually the whole week was raining. But I’m getting used to it now. And as the Norwegians say: there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing!
From Bergen I took a ferry back, all the way over the fjords to the Sogndalsfjord, my home fjord, completing a nice round tour. There is one other exciting thing I’ve done in the break, but I leave that for the next time, since I think it deserves its own picture and story. To be continued…
Ha det bra!