Day 9 - Friday, July 29 - Stavenger

 Another beautiful morning - we were told we were very lucky as this city is said to have even more rain than Bergen. Stavenger used to be a sleepy city until oil was discovered in 1969 and is now home to the oil industry with many companies located here.

Our first stop was to the Iron-age museum, a re-creation of stone houses above the actual foundations of the 6th and 7th century farm. The floors were the same dirt and stones that were lived on 1500 years ago. It was really fascinating to hear of what life was like then, when a matriarch was in charge of the family group of 20-30 people. The house was quite spacious, with a large living area for cooking, eating and sleeping, a separate large room for ceremonial purposes and a large room at the end for the sheep. The sheep lived pretty much with the family and they weren't sheared - the wool was pulled from them. The guides wore wool and linen clothing that they said was authentic to the period. The one guide seemed like a real Viking woman - she towered over me!

We traveled through a 4-mile long tunnel that runs through the granite about 800' below the surface of the water. It was quite an engineering feat at the time it is built. Now, an almost 20-mile long tunnel is being constructed under the water to connect two areas. This is all courtesy of the oil wealth.

From there we went to the Utstein Abbey which was built in the 1200s over the home of a Viking king. The oldest part is in Norman architecture and the main structure is Romanesque. The 20-30 monks, all from the continental Europe lived in the Benedictine manner of study and total silence. After the reformation came to Norway in 1532, the church fell into ruin until it was purchased in the 1700s and turned into a personal mansion. It changed hands a number of times until being restored in the 1900s and is now a spiritual retreat center.

The ship departed for Oslo in the early afternoon. The sea is almost completely still.

We had a pleasant afternoon tea aboard the ship. 

Alter in Utstein Abbey

Iron-age house & sheep



Iron-age house

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 21 - Wednesday, August 10 - Returning home

Image
 Things went pretty smoothly most of the day, up at 6:00, breakfast at 6:30, leave hotel at 7:10, get on train at 7:20, arrive at airport at 7:40 and complete check-in, security and passport control by 8:40. We go on the train seconds before the door closed. It is an exceptionally smooth and fast ride with the speed up to 120mph for the middle of the trip. It probably takes 5 minutes to get up to speed and 5 minutes to slow down. The train goes right into the airport terminal so one just needs to take the escalator upstairs. The flight departed about on time and was pretty smooth although there was a strong headwind which reduce the ground-speed to only 480mph at times - it was about 525mph when the wind letup. We splurged on business class which is very pleasant with lie-flat seats, free beer/wine and food at least as good as any we had on our trip. The complications started when the plane landed. There was congestion which kept the plane from reaching the gate for a while. When I tur
Read more

Day 15 - Thursday, August 4 - Bornholm, Denmark

Image
 Another beautiful sunny morning as we sailed into the port of Ronne on the small island of Bornholm which is about 12 by 20 miles.  Outside our ship are a set of large wind turbine generators (the large housing one sees at the top) and what looks like sets of 3 parts for each tower. There are huge cranes to move the parts around. Our guide today said they were likely for installation at sea as due to NIMBY, no more wind turbines were going up on land and the existing ones would probably be removed over time. This morning we took the shuttle bus into the small town of Ronne adjacent to the ship. We are actually at an industrial dock about a mile from the center. We walked up to a 12th century stone church and then through narrow winding streets lined with brightly colored Tudor-style half-timber homes, some of which had strangely sloping walls - not sure if it was intentional or not. There were tall hollyhocks growing out of the cracks in the paving stones next to the houses - very col
Read more

Day 6 - Tuesday, July 26 - In Bergen

Image
 Another rainy and blustery day in Bergen with temperatures only in the 50s. It was so windy this afternoon that my umbrella blew inside-out but fortunately, could be restored. We left the hotel around 11 for a short bus ride to the ship which is docked just on the other side of the harbor, only 10 minutes walk from the main harbor area. We went through the embarkation procedure, mandatory life-preserver training and then upstairs for a light buffet lunch. Our room wasn't available until 2pm so we decided to visit the Hanseatic Museum just 10 minutes (supposedly) walk away. Unfortunately, Google Maps was confused and we lost a GPS signal so it took a bit of searching. The main museum building is closed until 2026 during repairs - since the 1700s it has sunk almost 2 feet and there is quite an effort to raise and stabilize the building. We were fortunate to arrive at the current exhibit buildings just as an English-language tour was being given of the history of the Hanseatic trader
Read more