Tag Archives: Ravnedalen

Norway — August 20-30, 2017

We flew from Amsterdam to Norway on August 20, and were met at the Kristiansand airport by Lars Helge and Tove in one car, and Rasmus and Kari in another, since we were four with luggage.   We all gathered for an official welcoming and dinner at the home of Rasmus and Kari, where we four Americans would stay during our time in Kristiansand.

Sailing

The next day Rasmus took us all out for a sailing cruise through some of the waters around Kristiansand.  We stopped for a time at Bragdøya, an island in the archipelago in the Kristiansandsfjorden, just south of Kristiansand.  The island has been owned by the municipality of Kristiansand since 1969 when they bought it with a government grant as a public open space. It was purchased with the requirement that the islands would be a recreational space for the city. During the summer, the island is used as grazing land for sheep.

We saw the sheep, but we were especially interested in the works of Bragdøya Kystlag, a voluntary association which aims to preserve local maritime culture along the coast.The warehouse complex of the Bragdøya Coastal Heritage Centre contained many interesting examples of restoration and authentic reproduction using traditional tools and methods.

Ogge Gjesteheim

In anticipation of our visit, Lars Helge had arranged for a gathering of all of the Norwegian friends we have met in our visits to Norway.  We gathered some 38 km north of Kristiansand at the Ogge Gjesteheim, where we would spend the night in a set of yurts.

The Norwegian guests included Lars Helge & Tove Brunborg, Rasmus & Kari Morvik, Per & Ingunn Skretting, Mardon & Marie Meihack, Rune Teisrud & Bodil Fjelde, Terje With & Mika Andersen, and Harald Knudsen.

It was fun to see them all again.  We had some fantastic meals, competed in an improvised game of “toss the milk can”,  took a walk along a path that had posted questions, spent some time picking blueberries and lingonberries and a few cloud berries, and spent a lot of time just visiting.  And of course, we slept in the yurts!

In & Around Kristiansand

We went on several walks in the neighborhood.  One was along the scenic waterfront, where we had lunch and visited the sea food market.  We paused for photos at the Christiansholm Fortress. The fortress was finished in 1672 and formed a part of King Christian IV’s plan for defense of Kristiansand when the city was founded in 1641.   It was built on an islet, about 100 yards from shore. Today the fortress is connected to the mainland.

The only time the fortress has been in battle was against a British fleet force in 1807 during the Napoleonic Wars.  The fortress was decommissioned by royal decree during June 1872 as part of a major redevelopment of fortifications across the nation.

Today, Christiansholm is a tourist attraction by the Kristiansand Boardwalk and venue for a variety of cultural events and festivities. It is now owned by the municipality and is a site used principally for recreation and cultural events.

We also went to the nearby Kilden, the new (January 2012) performing arts centre for Southern Norway.  It  is used for concerts, theatre, opera, dance and entertainment.  The building itself is spectacular.

On another day we parked the cars and walked through woods to Ravnedalen, a nature park with scenic surroundings. In the park there is a grand outdoor stage for summer concerts.  We had lunch at the associated Café Generalen, known for its impressive hamburgers.  On the way back to the cars we took another route that took us to an overlook of Kristiansand.  Later that day we all visited Lars Helge’s and Tove’s son Erik Brunborg.

The Morviks were warm and gracious hosts that excelled at keeping us entertained and making us feel welcome, to say nothing about feeding us delicious meals.  On one occasion, Bill noticed a set of wooden blocks in their home.  An query revealed that they actually didn’t know what the blocks were for.  But Bill did.  And so we all competed in a contest to see who could remove a block without the structure collapsing — a task that became increasingly difficult as the structure became increasingly unstable.

Morvik Hytta

We spent the 26th & 27th at the Morvik’s hytta.  Our first walk was along a small river near their cabin, where we found blueberries.  On the second day, we parked the car and first visited a spectacular cliff and waterfall, and then took a much longer hike through the woods to the site of an old old cabin.  (A date carved into a door header reads “1660”.)  The cabin survives because the Government has paid the land owner to keep it sound.  Tools and bottles and old shoes can be seen inside.

We made a fire in a meadow near the old cabin and had a yummy lunch of pancakes and coffee.

Farewell Dinner

On our last day in Kristiansand we had dinner at the Brunborgs.  Tove served a dish that had us all swooning and asking for the recipe.  Now I just need to translate it into English.  And the dessert kept us coming back until it was all gone!

 

Oslo

 

Next day we took a bus to Oslo, where we rented a car and spent a frantic two days absorbing as much of the sights as we could.

We visited the Fram Museum, which tells  the story of Norwegian polar exploration. It is located on the peninsula of Bygdøy,  an area with several other museums, including the Kon-Tiki Museum and the Norsk Folkemuseet (Norwegian Museum of Cultural History), as well as several others that we didn’t get to.

The Fram Museum is centered principally on the original exploration vessel Fram. The original interior of Fram is intact and visitors can go inside the ship to view it.  In May 2009 the museum also took over the exhibition of the Gjøa, the first ship to traverse the Northwest Passage. Roald Amundsen and a crew of six traversed the Northwest Passage aboard the Gjøa in a three-year journey which was finished in 1906.

The Kon-tiki Museum houses the Kon-Tiki, a raft of balsa wood of pre-Columbian model that Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl used to sail from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. Another boat in the museum is the Ra II, a vessel built of reeds according to Heyerdahl’s perception of an ancient Egyptian seagoing boat. Heyerdahl sailed the Ra II from North Africa to the Caribbean after a previous attempt with the reed boat Ra failed.

The Norsk Folkemuseet is dedicated to Folk art, Folk Dress, Sami culture and the viking culture. The outdoor museum contains 155 authentic old buildings from all parts of Norway, including a Stave Church.

On our way to Frogner Park, we stumbled upon the Oslo City Museum, which holds an interesting permanent exhibition about the people in Oslo and the history of the city.

We went to Frogner Park to see the well-known Vigeland installation, a permanent sculpture installation created by Gustav Vigeland between 1924 and 1943.  Although sometimes incorrectly referred to in English as the “Vigeland (Sculpture) Park,” the Vigeland installation is not a separate park, but the name of the sculptures within Frogner Park.  The sculpture park consists of 212 sculptures as well as larger structures such as bridges and fountains.

The Oslo Opera House is the home of The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the national opera theatre in Norway.  The main auditorium seats 1,364 and two other performance spaces can seat 200 and 400.  The angled exterior surfaces of the building are covered with marble from Carrara, Italy and white granite.   Construction started in 2003 and was completed in 2007, ahead of schedule and 300 million NOK ( about US$52 million) under its budget of 4.4 billion NOK ( about US$760 million).  The roof of the building angles to ground level, creating a large plaza that invites pedestrians to walk up and enjoy the panoramic views of Oslo.

It had been a tremendous three weeks in Europe, made all the more special because of our companionable traveling mates, Bill and Colleen.  We flew back to the USA on August 31, arriving in Portland, OR to discover that the western United States was ablaze in wildfires.  But that is the subject of another blog post.

 

Back to Kristiansand — August 19-23, 2013

Ever hear someone describe a horrible accident as one in which they were “lucky”, because they were “only” hurt and not killed?   That has always seemed to me a bit strange; what is lucky about having an accident?  But now I understand.

When we finished our visit to the Frogner Park on August 19, we began the four-hour auto trip back to Kristiansand.  I was driving, as I had for all but five minutes of all of our rental car travel in Norway.  About 30 miles outside of Kristiansand, while driving in the left lane of a two-lane-each-way section of the highway, with a sturdy guardrail separating the two directions of traffic, I momentarily fell asleep and was awakened by the sound of the car scrapping along the rail at a speed of about 100 k/h (62 m/h).  Fortunately (or should I say “luckily”) upon awakening I pulled away from the rail and we were not injured.  In fact we didn’t even slow down, let alone stop, although Barb’s initial reaction was that we should stop and assess the damage and call the police.  I reasoned that a) the car was moving along fine and b) since no other vehicles were involved, there was nothing to report and c) there was no immediate space into which to pull over and d) whatever damage was done, it was a fixed fact and would not be affected by our stopping.

When we arrived at the condo of Lars Helge and Tove, I found that I could not open my car door, and so I had to exit out of the small vehicle by climbing over the manual shift lever on the floor and then out the passenger-side door.

Accompanied by Lars Helge as a translator, we took the auto back to the rental agency the next morning.  The boss man was not there, and so we dealt with a young man who had been washing the cars.  Lars Helge completed the agency’s form for reporting the sites of damage, and we departed, making certain that we had left Lars Helge’s phone number.  Later, we got a call saying that the car would be taken elsewhere so the extent and cost of the damage could be assessed.  We had been given to understand from the bossman when we took possession of the car that the rental fee included insurance for everything but liability, with the condition that a relatively small fixed fee would be assessed if the insurance was invoked.  Barb thought all but liability was covered by our credit card, so with no personal injury and only minor cost if the agency insurance was invoked, and presumably no cost if the credit card insurance was used, we had been “lucky”.

Then we learned that since we had not (!!!) taken out insurance, we would be responsible for up to 43,000 Norwegian Kroner ($7,800 US).  Later the damage was pegged at 37,000 NK ($6,092 US).  The bossman claimed that he had told us that if we wanted insurance it would be an extra charge, and that we had declined.  Then the credit card company said that they would pay everything, but only if we had not taken out insurance with the rental agency.  So we were “lucky”.  Maybe.  We got an email from the agency asking about a police report, saying that it was required in Norway.  We responded that a) there had been no other vehicles involved and b) as foreigners we were ignorant of the requirement and c) no one in the agency had told us about the requirement.  We have our fingers crossed that all works out well with the credit card company settling with the rental car company.  Wish us “good luck”!

Later on the 20th Kari and Rasmus picked us up and took us on a sightseeing trip around Kristiansand.  It was nice since we really hadn’t seen much of Kristiansand since our first trip there in 1997.  We visited the new Kilden Performing Arts Center, an impressive facility right on the waterfront.  We popped into the fiskebrygga (fish market), where there are also several, mostly maritime, restaurants around the central waterfront. During summer, locals arrive in their boats and anchor up here. We visited Odderøya, an island right next to Kristiansand that was the site of a fort that was attacked by the Germans.  Many of the German shells flew over the island and did extensive damage to Kristiansand.  We visited Ravnedalen (Ravens’ Valley), a lovely park just outside the city centre.  It is surrounded with steep cliffs and presents the visitor with lush flower gardens and manicured lawns perfect for picnics.  There is also a café here, and we each had massive American-style hamburgers with all of the trimmings.  Later we took a walk with Lars Helge and Tove in the huge forest area near their flat in Baneheia.  There are wide gravel paths that are furnished with “street” lights to facilitate cross-country skiing during darkness in the winter, and much smaller foot trails that wind up and down through the rocky and boggy forest.  We found blueberries, and more solemnly, the burial site of Russians executed by the Germans in WW2.

Next day Barb decided to do the walk on her own.  Unfortunately, she got lost and had a heck of a time finding her way back.  She even got a ride part way from someone when she eventually found a paved road.  Her main concern was being late for our trip out to Ogge for a farewell party which Lars Helge and Tove had arranged while we were in Rørvik.

We arrived at Ogge early, and had time to plant some grass around the Brunborg hytte, and time to go for a walk in the area, where we found wild blueberries.

Since it was in the middle of the week, many of our friends couldn’t make it.  But some that we hadn’t seen earlier were able to come, namely Mardon, Marie, and Harald.  We were glad to have the opportunity to visit with them again.  We also saw Lars Helge’s new container cabins that he has had installed near his cabin, in the hopes that they can be rented to temporary workers that will be working on various projects in the area.

On our last full day in Norway, we went down to the waterfront with Lars Helge and Tove for a belated celebration of her birthday, which had passed while we were in Rørvik.  We were also celebrating her soon-retirement, which by the time this is being posted, is a reality.  (Congratulations, Tove!)  Next day, poor Lars Helge had to get up extra early in order to get us to the airport for our flight to Ireland.  It had been a tremendous visit, filled with so many wonderful experiences that it had required twelve separate posts to our humble blog.  We hope the depths of our enjoyment and appreciation have been visible beneath our modest prose.