FJORDS!

Sent postcard I thought he might like the pun on fjords — a popular car ad at the time. to Jim Bain in North Carolina. Jim was a friend since elementary school. In high school, I suggested he learn oboe so he could play in the band. He went on to major in music in college and now he was playing oboe with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. I will visit him and his wife Jan on the way back home. So far, I am only half way there. Oh, for the comforts of a soft familiar bed again.

nudes

Norwegian bodies complement their scenery: big, round, and nude. Statues of naked children are illegal pornography in the USA, but in Norway, where summers are short, they celebrate weather warm enough to shed all wrappings. Norwegians most likely think Americans are rather strange. They are correct. Puritansk has a different meaning in Norway.


battle


Explored the Narvik area. Discovered some landmarks from the 1940 naval battles of World War II. Narvik was a strategic harbor in the Nazi plan to control the North Sea and the Arctic region. The British sank the German ships but could not win the land war. So the Brits went home for a while, sipped some tea, and reconnoitered for four years.

There are no trains from Narvik to Fauske, but a bus ride was included in the Eurail pass. For 150 miles, in about 4 hours, both ocean and mountains afforded the most scenic day of my entire 100 day adventure. And I paid for my share of it in this the most expensive country Scandanavian countries seem to compete with Switzerland for most expensive country. Would I have gone broke if they had let me into Finland? in Europe. But the lights scattering through the ocean mist were worth every kroner of it. I imagined the Norse gods emerging from that mist: Tyrsday, Wodensday, Thorsday, Freyjaday...

Narvik to Fauske



Rikgränsen ⇒


Narvik


Narvik


Fagernes Fjellet


Ofotfjorden Bridge


Ofotfjorden


Narvik


Hurtigruten


Harstad


Lodingen


Ofotfjorden


Ofotfjorden


Ofotfjorden


Lofoton


Ankenes


Ankenes


Efjord


Efjord


Bjorkasen


Forsa


Forsa


Ulvsag


Skarberget


Tysfjord


Tysfjord


Tysfjord


Tysfjord


Bognes


Bognes


Bognes


Bognes


Innhavet


Rosvik


Rosvik


Fauske


Fauske


Fauske


Skjerstadfjorden


Skjerstadfjorden


Skjerstadfjorden


Slept, or tried to, somewhere in Fauske waiting for the morning train to show me more splendors of Norway...