Manchester 

After a great stay in Edinburgh, we hopped on the train down to Manchester, England. We had chosen to stay right in the old centre of town in a hotel that was built in 1815. It is situated right beside Manchester Cathedral and Manchester’s oldest standing building—it holds the Old Wellington pub and restaurant, and the first floor was built in 1552! The upper floors were added later (like the 1600’s) and at one point the entire building was moved about 300m. To do the move, they had to take apart the entire building beam-by-beam and reassemble it like a giant jigsaw puzzle at the current location.

We met up with my mother’s brother and his wife (visiting from Canada), and Mum’s cousin from Australia, so that we could all go on a tour around the countryside to see where my maternal grandmother grew up. We had a beautiful day to drive!

 




Our first stop was in the “cool old town” of Chester, where we checked out an incredible medieval cathedral—I couldn’t believe the detailed stained glass windows and mosaic work depicting scenes from the Bible, or the fine woodwork in the choir stalls!

 After that we went to Bebington and Birkenhead to see where Gran lived as a girl and where her father’s family had come from. It is pretty country in which we managed to find her actual childhood home (in spite of the best efforts of the GPS)!

After the family-members had moved on to London, we took a day trip to Skipton in Yorkshire to check out England’s oldest standing castle that still has its roofing. There was also a market on the High Street that day, so we enjoyed that as well. this picture is of the southward view from one of the castle towers down over the main gate and then the high street of Skipton in the distance:

 

Scotland!

After an amazing couple of months in Scandinavia, we flew south and spent almost three days in Edinburgh, Scotland! Unfortunately, the rain which had accompanied us for so much of this summer had not been leaving Scotland uncared for. Our first day was mighty wet! Thankfully, it cleared up in time for the evening. This was really important, because we had tickets for the closing show of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo! What an amazing spectacle that was! "Smashing!" says my son.

The combination of narrative as the announcer guided us through stages of Scotland's history--from the Ancient Celts to the modern digital age--and the truly impressive musical and precision performances of the various military groups from Scotland and around the world, was just astounding!

They also tied in impressive visual effects using lighting on Edinburgh castle, itself, and with pyrotechnics.






On our second day, we woke to the impressive sight of Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags in the sunshine right outside our window!  How's this for a start to the day?

Taking advantage of the improved weather, we went shopping and sightseeing in the city and visited the Camera Obscura and World of Illusion. That was fun!!! We saw the whole city laid out before us; we walked down hallways through a vortex and a hall of mirrors; we looked at holograms and optical illusions. It was really neat.

The camera obscura has been in place next to Edinburgh Castle for over 150 years and uses much the same technology as a periscope to show realtime scenes of the city, complete with moving people in the streets.

Our time in Scotland was short, but we certainly found it interesting! Perhaps one day, we'll make it back again.

Back Across The Country Again!

We did some serious zigzagging in our last week in Norway! Having returned to the eastern province of Hedmark, we spent a few days with my father's second cousin (a different cousin than in Ålesund) in the town of Elverum. She and her husband welcomed us, made us comfortable, and took us to some great, local landmarks! One of them was the Skogsmuseum (forestry museum), which has impressive displays of historical logging and forest management practices both in the museum and involving a series of small outbuildings shown in the surrounding woodlands. We went on a walk through the outer section, including an island in the river Glomma or Glåma (both spellings are accepted and tend to shift by region). This is Norway's longest river and it is named for the old Norse word for thunder. Fortunately for us, we did not have reason to respect that name as we saw it in fine weather conditions.

However, there was plenty of evidence for other, past incidents of massive flooding, as we saw on this flood-stone which showed the water levels at the spot near the Skogsmuseum that the river had reached at critical points over the past few centuries. (Flomhøyder means flood height)

The other impressive landmark we visited during our stay was in the nearby city of Hamar, where we went to see the preserved ruins of the original Roman Catholic cathedral, called Domkirkeodden in Norwegian. The limestone walls were severely damaged over the ages by the Reformation protestants, marauding Swedish armies, and local farmers who needed building materials. However, in an effort to preserve the remaining limestone ruins from the deprivations of acid rain, conservationists have constructed an impressive glass enclosure around the rest of the church:



Unfortunately, I don't seem to have a single picture from the day in Hamar, so this one is from the website (http://www.kmb.no/vare_turer.htm) of a Norwegian tour company that takes its customers to a wide variety of Norwegian cultural sites.

While we were there, we were extremely fortunate to hear not one, but two individual singers perform Gregorian chants for us, showing off the amazing acoustics of the enclosure. We were told that the acoustics were an unintentional side effect of enclosing a building the size of a cathedral, and not part of the design of the enclosure! 

After a few lovely days of pre-fall splendour in the east, we were on the road again--back to the west coast of Norway! We took the stunning train journey from Hamar to Oslo to Bergen. Although all of the scenery was impressive, nothing could be so startling as the return to near-winter conditions at Finse (elevation 1222m above sea level)!

Our stay in the Bergen area was at the home of one of my grandfather's cousins with whom I had visited a few times previously. She made us both welcome and helped us find opportunities to visit not only Bergen, but also the coastal town from which my great-grandfather had come: Salhus.

In Bergen, we explored some shops, gardens, the fish market (which, although very famous, was not to the taste [smell] of my son), and the Rosenkrantz tower at Bergenhus fortress.

Despite my best efforts, this picture looks like the buildings are leaning--they are not. The tower was simply high enough that, with the limited space to back away when taking the photo, perspective took control and I have leaning towers where they don't exist! We did climb up through the tower on some ancient stairwells, so we know!

When we went to Salhus, we met two of our hostess' sisters and one's husband, had a lovely lunch, and explored several local sights. We found out how the town was named: It was the site of a ferry service to islands across the fjord during the salt trade. If one arrived too late in the evening for the last boat, one could overnight at the "sail house." Over the years the name shifted to "Salhus" instead of "Seilhus" which caused some confusion about the origins of the name, as "sal" is the Norwegian word for "room". This would also carry some authenticity, however, as folk who stayed at the sail-house were rooming for the night. The original sail house is still standing, occupied, and beautifully cared for:

We also saw the old knitting factory (now a museum), the impressive bridge that now completes the journey once involving the ferry service, a military battery operated by the Nazis in WWII to control marine activity in the area, and the community graveyard where we saw the graves of many of our ancestors.

Been a While

Well, it has been quite some time since I have had both the time and the Internet access to sit down and write here! As that infers, we've been really busy!

After we left southern Norway, we spent a lovely night in Stavanger with another cousin. Although we had a very short visit, as we were on our way up the coast toward Bergen, then Ålesund, on the following day, our cousin made us very welcome and took us on a side trip to share one of her favourite photography locations with us! We went to a fabulously beautiful stretch of beach along the Atlantic coastline! I hope I've remembered correctly that the name of the beach was Sola Strand.

The next day, we took a bus (and a couple of ferries) north to Bergen in time to catch the Hurtigruten cruise up to Ålesund. There are actually several different ships in the Hurtigruten fleet, some of which sail to other lands, but most of which cruise up and down the western coast of Norway from Bergen northward. The ship we were on was called the Vesterålen, and though we travelled only as far as Ålesund, she would continue north for almost two more weeks.

The weather in Bergen was wet (as a massive understatement), but as we pulled out past Salhus, we moved out from under the clouds, and by the time we had passed Askøy there was the most amazing double rainbow between us and the shore:

We had about a week in Ålesund, staying with other members of our family, this time on my great-grandmother's side. Up until now the family visits this trip have been from my great-grandfather's side. It was exciting to also share stories and look at pictures from the other side of the Norwegian part of our family! My son also greatly enjoyed spending time with his fourth cousin, who happens to be a boy of the same age, and many of the same interests! As a close friend of the family (same age again) joined them, the three fellows had a great time playing video games, talking, swimming, and once in a while conversing with grown-ups. One of the times that we convinced them to join us for a walk, we went up to Fjellstua to exercise their young dog (and the rest of us) and to check out the amazing view of the city:

Another amazing view I got to see when I went visiting with Dad's second cousin and a friend of hers (the young fellows decided to hang out in Ålesund, that day) was the impressive motorway, called Atlanterhavsveien, that runs along, and bridges between a string of islands northwest of Molde.

The above satellite image comes from Google Maps. I took the following photo of one of the most impressive bridges along the route:

All too soon, it was time to leave Ålesund, but our kind hosts drove us to our next destination via the most scenic route possible: via Geiranger Fjord!

 The first picture was taken by my son from the ferry as we crossed Storfjord on our way to Geiranger.


The middle picture is of the head of Geiranger fjord, itself. You can see that there was a bit of a temperature inversion holding that thin cloud layer half-way up the valley.

The last picture is up at the very top, on the far side of the fjord, as we continued our way up over the mountains to eastern Norway.


A few hours later, we were in Lom at the top end of Gudbrandsdalen, one of the major valleys in eastern Norway, where we saw this amazing stave church: