These are some of the words we have used to describe yesterday: huge, incredible, awe-inducing, ridiculous, gorgeous, the most beautiful thing we will ever see. We hiked up to Preikestolen, or Pulpit Rock, which is a small mountain plateau with an almost 2000 ft vertical drop down to the water in the fjord below. It is one of the most famous sites in Norway, and is the one place my co-worker Bill said I must go to. And he was right. The entire hike up was absolutely gorgeous, varying between dense woods, wetlands, and …
Bergen
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Saturday was an incredible travel day. We started on a train heading from Oslo to Bergen, which is consistently voted one of the most beautiful railway trips in the world. Up and over the mountains to a high plateau that still had ice on the lakes and snow on the ground. We got off in Myrdal to take the Flam Railway, a short (20 km) trip, but breathtakingly scenic. It was built right down along the walls of the top of the fjord. Steep lush cliffs and waterfalls everywhere.
That took us down to Flam where …
Oslo, Norway
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I arrived in Oslo on Wednesday and was met at the bus station by a friend who I had met on the Camino. What a wonderful feeling it was, to arrive and see a familiar face there to greet me, not have to figure out yet another public transportation system by myself or worry about anything. I actually met two people from Oslo on the Camino and they happen to be best friends; Linda and Hasti. I stayed with Linda in her tiny apartment Wednesday after a wonderfully filling one-pot Camino style meal. She lives …
Gothenburg, Sweden
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I don’t have much else exciting to share about Hamburg. Two days ago I basically walked the entire city. My general impression: pretty sleepy except for the designated drinking (Reeperbahn, the old red-light district) and touristy (docks, fish market, cathedral) areas. There are lots of nice parks and of course canals and waterways.
No really old architecture basically because it’s been bombed so many times over the years. I did walk through one nice neighborhood with a lot of little shops and cafes but that was pretty early and nothing was open. To …
Hamburg
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I was planning to put all Hamburg together in one post tomorrow, but two good things happened today so here you go!
First, I decided to walk the couple of kilometers to the wharf area, which is supposedly the most tourist-visited place in Hamburg. I oriented myself on a map and ended up walking through a cute little park (complete with enormous statue of centaurs wrestling a fish, of course) and to this big building that perfectly matched the grey cloudy sky:
Then down a busy street and then along a path parallel to the water. It …