Arrival in Norway

I've been a bit lazy in describing Norway. It's now my last night in Bømlo with Tom and Lise, friends I met in Perth. Tomorrow I visit Oslo for a night, arriving on Tuesday to visit another friend from Perth, in Hamburg, Germany.

First, the journey. From Madrid to Barcelona (autobus). 4 nights there with day trips to Tarragona and Figueres.

Barcelona to Girona (train). An old town with few attractions. I visited yet another cathedral. Girona airport to Pisa, Italia. Now I can say I've been to Italy! The plane from Spain arrived at about 11:45 and like about a dozen other passengers I curled up in a chair, awaiting my flight to Norway. Then the police came around an hour later to say the airport was closing. Cold and dark we went outside. I managed about 45 minutes of dozing on a bench just outside the doors before the cold became unbareable. So, for 3 hours we waited, pacing up and down, curling up and trying to forget the cold before the doors reopened at 4:30 am. Perhaps they had a problem with homeless people at the airport?

So, make sure your airport doesn't close before spending a night there. Remember Ryanair have cheap flights but you may get stranded!

The next day the plane took me from Pisa to Torp airport. This is near the town of Sandefjord, south of Oslo. I spent the day there before another flight to Bergen where I met up with Lise.

Here are some photos of Sandefjord, a seaside town which I'm assured is lovely in summer and indeed does seem picturesque near the harbour. My first day in Norway rained all day long and there was no sun! Surely there was a reason I left sunny southern Europe? So I visited the whaling museum. It describes the uses of whales from the period of the vikings to the present day with pictures of ships, hunting equipment and photographs of whaling stations near both poles. It also includes stuffed animals of the arctic circle. I was reminded of the IMAX film the staff at Sensis were treated to one day, "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure". They mentioned that the Norwegians had built the ship for the voyage. The exhibit reminded one of the danger inherent in whaling, so Moby Dick was also in my mind.