Julie and I have been fascinated by the Vikings for a long time and especially since we visited their original North American settlement in Newfoundland Canada and learned more about their amazing exploits across the north Atlantic over 1,000 years ago.  As part of our travels around Scandinavia we wanted to dive into the whole Viking thing in more detail and the perfect place to start was the cool Swedish city of Gothenburg.  Or so we thought.

Gothenburg is also the home of the oldest son of close friends of ours all those years ago in Sydney when our children barely reached our knees and life was simpler.  Since then Alan has travelled the world, teamed up with his beautiful now fiancé Anne, who originally hailed from near Gothenburg, and they were now settling down to make this pretty town home.

After exploring the old part of Gothenburg, admiring their slick trams, canals running through the town and lush parks we met up Alan and Anne for a delightful evening of drinks and dinner.  It was wonderful to see them in great form and hear about how their lives are evolving in this fascinating city.  On ya, guys.

And as to the Vikings, which were advertised as featuring heavily in the local Gothenburg Museum with the remains of original Viking ships, bronze tools, ancient artefacts, well, the museum is closed on Mondays which of course was the day we were there.  We’ll have to channel our inner-Viking somewhere else.

Sweden was shining in all directions and deserves a huge exploratory holiday all to itself but sadly we were planning to focus our time along the coastline and amongst the famous fjords in Norway.  So northward we moved, crossing beautiful green rolling farmland speckled in large farmhouses and red barns, everything looking postcard perfect.

We stopped at the Tanum Rock Carvings, a UNESCO World Heritage site of rock carvings dating back from 1800 to 700 BC.  The amazing pre-Bronze Age people who lived in this area carved pictures in the hard granite of their lives, their tools, their war, their ships and their ceremonies.  Today they are beautifully preserved for all to see and tell a fascinating story of what life was like over 3,000 years ago.

We passed into Norway and camped the night in a expansive grassy campground on the outskirts of their capital, Oslo.  The Europeans’ mini RV’s were parked everywhere, a little city that changed its citizens every day.  Curiously, as we travelled north the skies turned to clear blue, the temperatures climbed and it really felt like we were following the sun.  As it should.

Oslo is a city that punches above its weight in terms of its global contribution.  Home to the Nobel Prizes that are awarded each year, site of a range of outstanding museums that chronicle all things Scandinavian – including the mighty Vikings! – a world-class opera house on the waterfront, a beautiful setting on the harbour with green rolling hills in the background, unlimited healthy blond people who all seem to speak perfect English and worship their very limited summer sun.  And just as well because on the day we arrived the sun set at 10.54pm and rose at 3.45am.  The land of the midnight sun is not far away.

We gave Tramp the day off and walked down into town, great views along the way of this beautiful harbour city with very modern edgy architecture and a very affluent feel to it.  The new Opera House had pride of place on the water’s edge, sparkling in the 28C/82F sunshine, looking like the city icon it has become.  We loved the water’s edge, the imposing Rathaus – City Hall – overlooking the quay with its ferries and tourist boats coming and going all day.

Oslo has museums to suit everyone’s tastes and over the next afternoon and following morning we all had a chance to satisfy our personal cultural and historical desires.  For me the highlight was a ferry across the beautiful Oslo Harbour and a visit to the amazing Vikings Museum with its three Viking ships dating back more than 3,000 years and the Fram Museum celebrating the arctic and Antarctic exploration of Norway’s famous explorers.  Notwithstanding the raping and pillaging part, I think I would have slotted in quite nicely as a Viking.

But beyond all else Norway is probably most well know for, even famous for, its fjords.  The long west coast of Norway reaching high above the Arctic Circle has some of the most spectacular scenery in the world.  We left Oslo and headed west to take in some of these magnificent sites but to get there we had to follow winding two lane roads along raging rivers, through wide valleys and over green rolling hills with beautiful farm houses and freshly-painted barns.  When it comes to scenery Norway definitely delivers the goods.

We finished the day in the small mountain town of Al, the shortest name-place I think we’ve ever been to, and camped amongst the flowers in a green field on the banks of the almost unpronounceable Hallingdalselva River.  This was seriously good stuff.

The next morning it got even better as we climbed up on the Hardangervidda Plateau, peaking out at almost 2,300 metres (about 4,200 feet) weaving our way through the mountains, around the snow-melt lakes, endless patches of snow all around us, large traditional homes scattered here and there.  This drive rivalled some of the best we did in Alaska or the Andes, it was that good.

We stopped at the Voringfossen waterfall, a raging river tumbling over a 180 metre vertical drop into a spectacularly deep gorge filled with rainbows from the waterfall’s spray.  The Norwegians had done a great job providing trails and viewpoints to take in this spectacular site and we turned it into a long picnic lunch and Abby play stop.

The road followed a series of steep tunnels down into the bottom of the gorge, one of them corkscrewing down through the mountain in an amazing ear-popping engineering feat, until we hit sea level and the Hardangerfjorden fjord.  There are four spectacular fjords in southern Norway that help define what Norway is most famous for and the tongue-twisting Hardangerfjorden had us ooing and aahing all afternoon.  Steep granite walls sloped down into the dark blue ocean water, mirror-flat on this warm sunny day, the occasional farmhouse or village tucked into any arable land.

The road was another major distraction, transitioning sometimes directly between bridge and tunnel, the narrow winding road only wide enough for one Tramp at a time, all the while providing highly distracting views of the water and mountains.  It was a day to remember and we knew Norway would provide many more days like this in the weeks to come.  What a shame.

We camped that night on the water’s edge in a small town called Grimen, not far from the large historic port town of Bergen.  The next morning we caught the light rail into Bergen and spent the day exploring this historic port and trading town.  Bergen had its heyday in the middle ages as a leading trading port of Scandinavia and the capital of Norway.  Its oldest building, St. Mary’s Church, dates from the 12^th century and the famous waterfront buildings of Bryggen were rebuilt in the 1700’s after having been completely burned down.

We wandered through the fish market on the waterfront, sleek upmarket boats in the harbour, stylish homes built up the steep slopes overlooking the town.  After lunch we took the funicular up the slopes of the mountain to the top at Mt. Floyen.  The scenic lookout provided helicopter views of this spectacular city, its port, the many boats and ships coming and going from its picturesque harbour.  From this point we could also see the three cruise ships that were in town, helping to explain why the town’s historic centre was so completely bogged with tourists.

Our first few days in Norway had been absolutely spectacular and we wanted more. From Bergen our plans were to head north, explore more of the fjords that make Norway famous and see what the northern reaches of this country had to offer.  Can’t wait!