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Oslo, Norway
No spoken words, just a scream
Oslo is the largest city in Norway and home to the Edward Munch Museum (featuring various depressing Norwegian paintings), the Thor Heyerdal Museum (featuring various primitive boats) as well as the way cool Viking Ship Museum (featuring various recovered Viking Ships, although you probably could figure that one out on your own).
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway, seven hours by train west of Oslo and within easy striking distance of the better fjords.
A few days earlier I bought my “Norway in a Nutshell” tickets at the train station in Oslo, it’s a train-bus-boat-train-train ride that takes you from Oslo to Bergen or, in my case, Bergen to Oslo (the Oslo tickets were already sold out). The highlight of the Nutshell is definitely the boat ride on the Sognesfjord, arguably the most impressive of all the fjords in western Norway, its longest and deepest fjord and also the only fjord I visited.
The “Norway in a Nutshell” trip is more than just the boat ride on the fjord, the train (and even the bus) rides went through some downright spectacular scenery making this part of the travel a little better. It seems like a lot of my time so far has been spent traveling and not actually being places so far this trip, it took seven hours yesterday during the day to get to Bergen from Oslo and then all day today getting back, although admittedly today’s travel was more of a highlight than yesterday.
Another night train, another country, another city- this time it’s Copenhagen, a truly wonderful place where, according to the canal boat tour, Hans Christian Andersen constantly moved around (he is credited at living virtually everywhere, including on the left in the wharf picture).
After a busy day that included a lot of walking as well as a trip up to Louisiana to see a terrific Rene Magritte exhibit, I had some time before my next overnight train, and luckily Tivoli Gardens is right across from the train station. I was there for an hour or two, more than enough time to wander around, listen to a classical music concert, eat some 20 KR chocolate ice cream, watch some fountains, wonder why an elephant is walking around the place, enjoy the tiny little streetcars and internally debate whether or not it was worth waiting on the lines to ride the rides.
