This is the Droege's Norway trip 2022 We planned this trip for 2020 but, as you all know, covid kept us home. We went to Norway in September of 2022. We first visited Oslo for 4 days and then took a train from Oslo to Bergen on the West coast of Norway. We then boarded a Hurtingruten boat for the trip up the coast of Norway for 12 days. Here is the picture of our hotel entrance in Oslo. We took the Fly Train from the Oslo Airport to the central Train Station. The hotel was in the train station. How lucky can you get?
This is the Oslo Cathedral. It is right downtown. Everyplace we went, there were several churches. This church was on the Grand Boulevard which led to the royal palace. We spent an evening walking along the boulevard where you would find government buildings, hotels, shops and dining.
This is the view to the Royal Palace along the Grand Boulevard.
We spent some time along the waterfront in Oslo. There is a ferry that goes out to the Bygdoy Peninsula. We took the ferry to see the Kon Tiki Museum, the Fram Museum (Arctic exploration exhibits) and the Maritime Museum. The Kon Tiki was by far the best of the three. We learned a lot about the exploration from the exhibits.
We took a train from Oslo to Bergen. The train was 8 hours and very scenic.This is a photo from our hotel room up the slope to the funicular (very uphill tram). There is a scenic overview of the city.
This is a photo looking down at an Italian restaurant from our hotel room. We ate there for our first dinner in Bergen. It was outstanding (nice view from the table).
This is the Bergen waterfront. It was a busy place for residents as well as tourists.
The first day in Bergen, we were looking for the tourist bureau to get a Bergen Card. It would have given us access to all the museum and public transportation.We were pretty early so a lot of things weren't open yet. This is the fish market.
The first thing we did was ride the funicular up to the top to get the view of the entire city. Fortunately, it was a beautiful morning.
This is the funicular on its way back down the mountain.
The view of the city is actually quite spectacular.
A member of our handbell choir suggested we go to see the Stave Church. A "stave" is a piece of wood. This church was constructed entirely of fairly short pieces of wood. It is in a residential area.
This is the interior. It is made entirely of beautifully carved wood.
One of the museums that was open was the wonderful Bergen Archaeology Museum. They had a nice display talking about the Runic Writing System. This system could be written using only a knife. The Christians later brought the Latin Alphabet to the area.
We had dinner at the Fish Market. Excellent fish and chips. Much better than Ivars in Seattle!
They actually had a lot of fish at the Fish Market.
This is the sunset from the first night on the boat.
This is the first stop when we could leave the boat. The town is Hjorundfjorden. We were here for 3 hours. We had to take a tender boat since there is no large wharf. Before we left the ship, we were hailed by two people on the boat. They turned out to be two of Alonda's former Biology stedents from Steilacoom. They were travelling to Trondheim to visit relatives. Small world! We had a nice visit!
We walked around this small town a little. The town only had one small grocery store.
There was an actual camping ground. It might be a good place to come back to in the summer.
They had actual cabins, too.
We took this picture from the town looking out at our "cruise" boat. The boat is actually a ferry boat, mail boat and cargo ship that services Norway up and down. They have cabins so they run a "cruise" for the tourists. This includes an expedition team to interpret what we see on the trip. Our "cruise" included full room and board for all 12 days.
On the third day, we stopped in Trodheim. This is the Nidaras Cathedral.
This is the organ console. It is a bigger deal than you might think.
This church has the largest pipe organ in the world.
This is the view of Trondheim from its highest point.
This was our fourth day on the boat. On the upper deck, we were getting ready for our Arctic Circle marker view.
We crossed the Arctic Circle at 8:14 am. This globe is the marker.This means that the sun north of here never sets in June and never rises in December. On the boat, there was a contest to see who could most closely guess the time we would cross the Arctic Circle.
This was our first stop above the Arctic Circle. The towns were very picturesque.
At about 10:30, the Explorer Team gave the prize to the passenger who most closely guessed the time we crossed the Arctic Circle. The winner got a flag signed by the captain and
had ice water poured down their back. After that, anyone could also receive the same treatment.We declined to participate.
We were disappointed that we couldn't go in the Salmon Center in Boda. They were closed for a private party. Boda was a nice little town and we got to walk around in it.
This is one of the churches in Boda. Every town in Norway has at least one large church.
After we entered the Arctic Circle, we started seeing the fall colors. Since the predominate trees are birch and pine, the predominate color was yellow. It was still very scenic.
We next visited Tromso. They had a great Troll Museum. It brought back memories of the children's tale: Three Billy Goats Gruff. It also reminded us of the Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter stories. Here is Jim with a troll.
Here is Alonda with her troll. We also visited the Polar Museum. It was all about explorations up to the Pole.
This is a church in the middle of Tromso Tromso is called the Arctic Capital of Norway.
Here is the market square. You will see a lot of people shopping here.
We next visited the Ice Bar. The first thing they do is give you a heavy cape.
Here is the interior of the Ice Bar. There are actually several Ice Bars around the world. We were served a wine drink in an ice glass. It was really cold!
This is the city of Honningsvag. As you can see, they also have trolls.This was outside a large souvenir shop
This is Bomse. We walked along the waterfront looking for the dog. This dog is quite famous in Norway. He was a hero during the war.
This is our ship at the waterfront in Kjollefjord. We got to walk around, but it was pretty gray and misty.
Remember that this was not just a cruise boat. It was also a ferry boat. People rely on it to get from one town to another.
It is also a cargo ship. Many of the towns ship their products over the Hurtigruten boats. The dinner after this stop was very exciting. The dining room was at the back of the boat. The entire back of the boat was open windows. Our dinner table was along the windows. This night, the boat crashed around a lot in the waves. We could watch the boat going up and down. We hit a "big one" and dishes flew off the tables. They lost a lot of wine glasses. The captain advised us to stay in our cabins for the night.
This is the town square of Kirkenes. This was the furthest north town of our trip. It was a Sunday and drizzling. Everyone from the boat was walking around town looking for something to do since we had a 3 1/2 hour layover. All the stores were closed and we didn't even see any people or lights in the houses along the way. It was rather eerie. Remember that this town was the closest town to Russia and we were warned to NOT cross the warning signs.
This picture shows the radar and surveillance domes that every country close to Russia has to have.
This is Hammerfest. We had to take a long bus ride into town. We had a short stay and a long walk.
This is the Hammerfest Town Square.
This is very narrow, shallow channel that Hurtigruten got the government to deepen and widen so ships could come through.
Here is Stokmarknes where Hurtigruten has its museum. They have a full size ship inside (Finnmark from 1956). It is amazingly similar to the Nordnorge which we were on. From here we went through a very narrow fjord called the "Troll Fjord". The captain took us there to show off that he could go through a narrow passage and turn around. We made no stops.
We walked along the pier. You can see the fish drying racks. It is fortunately (or unfortunately) not the season to smell all the fish.
We took an evening walk around Svolvar. Very few restaurants and bars were open. Little did we know that this would be our last day before we got Covid (even though we were fully vaccinated, had all the boosters and wore masks the whole time). We seem to have only gotten a light case. We were able to still get around. In Norway, they don't wear masks and they consider Covid to just be a version of the flu.
This was a short stop at Nesna. There were people waiting to board. It was only a day and a half down to Bergen.
These are salmon pens. We saw them all along the trip. They do a lot of fish farming.
We took the 8 hour train back to Oslo from Bergen. The route is very scenic.
Back in Oslo awaiting our return to the US. This is the main plaza outside the station. A WONDERFUL trip and we would recommend it very highly.
This machine and several others are in their outdoor exhibit. These mining machines show the use of many Simple Machines. The indoor part of the exhibit was very interesting and well done. We highly recommend it if you are ever in Mariposa.
One of the two days we were visiting Yosemite, we entered the Park through the south gate and visited the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias.
Our friend, Erna Faruqui, who we met in Pakistan, was with us for this trip. She lives in Oakland, CA and we were able to pick her up and took her with us.
There was a very nice trail along this grove of sequoias.
Along the trail is a set of 4 large sequoias. They are known as the "Batchelor and the Three Graces". This is bottom of the set of trees ...
This is the middle ...
Here is the canopy. The sequoias are very large.
We walked through several of the meadows in the park and enjoyed the wildflowers.
We think this is a picture of a Hartweg's Iris. 
We visited Yosemite Falls. This has been a very good year for all the falls because of the snowpack. We had planned to visit Vernal Falls, but there were so many people in the park, the Rangers stopped the traffic and we could not go there. We did see Bridalveil Falls from a distance, but could not get close. The fire damage this year made it impossible.
This is El Capitan. This is probably the best known sight in the Park. There were supposedly two climbers there when we were there, but we could not see them.
We returned to Oakland and stayed with Erna for another day. She took us to the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley. It was a beautiful garden and everything was well labelled. The exhibits included all habitats.
