Norway

Waterfront at Bergen

And then we were off to Norway – Sylvia, friend Bonnie and me. Ryanair flies from Beziers to Oslo Rygge and none of us had been to any Scandinavian countries before, and it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. So we booked a car to be picked up at the airport, planned the route and booked the accommodation. 

Seven days driving a loop from Oslo, across to Bergen and back around the south coast. What a beautiful country it is. 

For the first time we used AirBNB for a couple of nights’ accommodation and both turned out really well. The first was a large room that slept three, in a private flat in Oslo. Such a different experience from a hotel. The owner and his partner lived there and were charming …. we could use the kitchen and their bathroom – well that whole flat actually. 

The second AirBNB experience was a basement flat in Bergen, right in the down-town area and only about 100 metres from the waterfront. In this instance we didn’t meet the owner – she just left the door unlocked and we let ourselves in and spent two days there. 

The view from our room

The most interesting accommodation experience was in Stavanger. I thought I’d booked a triple room in a regular hotel. But when we turned up, we noticed quite a few people outside in wheelchairs – and some with oxygen bottles. 

In the reception, we noticed two desks. I didn't know that Sykehus means “Sick House” i.e. hospital. The rooms that are rented are also part of the hospital – often used for patients’ families or recuperating patients.

So our triple room (two singles and a folder bed – this is a normal ‘triple’ room in Norway we were told) was not only very compact, but very safe – safely rails in the bathroom and an emergency button on the wall. 

The lobby was also full of the walking wounded and their families and visitors. Breakfast was delightful – not only because the self-service cafeteria food was excellent, but because we were surrounded by new-borns and their parents. While we were having breakfast we counted twelve!

Driving was easy on really good roads, if a little slow – very few stretches of road were over 80 km/h. Though I imagine with the snow in winter, that’s more than enough. The scenery and the fjords were as beautiful as I imagined, and everything was just as expensive as we’d been warned. But we were prepared and budgeted accordingly, and ate in our accommodation when possible.  On our last day in Oslo we had a meal in a Vietnamese restaurant with some friends of Bonnie’s and had one dish each, with I think one beer – cost €35 per head.

And here - a few photos of our week in Norway:

Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo

The Viking Ship Museum, Oslo

Houses with sod roofs

Hardangervidda plateau

A Norwegian friend who lives here in France said we had to try to Norwegian meatballs - delicious, served with Lingonberry sauce and mashed kohlrabi.

Stave church

Grass AND flowers 

Vøringfossen waterfall near Eidfjord

Bergen

Beer break - Bergen

We did see rather a lot of whale meat for sale - in its different forms.

Bergen

Bergen

Bergen

Bergen - monster wooden sculpture of a dried cod

Steinsdalsfossen waterfall - one you can walk beneath!

Stave church outside of Bergen

Stavanger - we were lucky enough to arrive on a day with stunning weather - AND a music festival

Stavanger

Stavanger

Stavanger

Oslo - new Opera House

Vigelandsparken sculpture park Oslo

Ceret Cherry Festival

I finally managed to get to the Cherry Festival in Ceret in May – south-west of Perpignan down towards the Spanish border. When part of the previous group went back to Australia, my friend Sylvia stayed on and we had a few days to get out and about.

I have no idea what was going on with my satnav but we ended up getting there after lots of back-tracking via a rather convoluted routes, and a very long time! I finally resorted to using Google maps on my phone which I’m reluctant to do as I have a pay as you go plan that costs an arm and a leg for data (I hardly use it as a phone!). And it got us there.

What a pretty town and it was understandably bursting at the seams when we arrived. And there were still plenty of cherries to be had.

As we were quite close to the sea, we drove home via Banyuls Sur Mer, just south of Collioure. A decadent ice cream followed by nice coffee at a little café overlooking the pebbled beach. It was a relatively deserted beach that afternoon, being off-peak season, but I imagine it’s wall to wall at the height of summer.

Lunch at the salt pans

I had a friend plus four old work acquaintances here in May for 12 days - four of them were new to the region, so we covered all the usual interesting places. 

One place I hadn't been to before was the restaurant next to the Salt Museum at Gruissan – La Cambuse du Saunier. Between us, we had a delicious selection of seafood. Not surprisingly, some of the specialities of the house are fish, chicken or duck cooked encrusted in salt.  I think they will need to be tried another day…...

Salt encrusted chicken. While no one had this on the day, we saw someone else's lunch being served as the staff remove the salt and prepare it at the front counter.

 

And a few photos from some of our other 'out and about' days:

Tromp l'oeil at Agde

The oyster beds at Bouzigues

Picnic on the river bed at Roquebrun

Sunday markets at St Chinian

Uzes and Pont du Gard

OK I have a little catching up to do here ….. things have gotten away from me these last few months, to say the least. I have no visitors or plans for the next 6 weeks or so, so am looking forward to things slowing down, especially as the temperature is climbing and it seems summer is well and truly here.

Back in April, our village group did a day trip by bus to the village of Uzes and the Pont du Gard, north of Montpellier. A 7.30am start from behind the post office – a full bus – and we were off.

Uzes is a beautiful town, very much on the tourist map, but at that time of year not overly crowded. We had a local guide and an interesting and informative walk around. But given the distance we’d had to drive, and the fact that we had to allow 2 hours for lunch (of course), I would have like to have spent a little more time there. Perhaps another time.

So it was on to the Pont du Gard. I’d visited before but it was really just a short stop on the way back from somewhere. This time we again had a guide who had the keys to unlock the barrier and took us across the top from one side to the other. Quite a different perspective and a great view to boot.

Yep - full bus-load of us.....

Pont du Gard, the Roman aqueduct – 51 kms long, constructed in the 1st century to carry an estimated 200 million litres of water a day to Nimes.

This is the walkway across the top, through the viaduct itself. The bulging rock-like stuff is a build-up of calcium and mineral deposits from all the years of its use.