Wendy's Norway Adventure - Welcome to Oslo

 

VELKOMMEN TIL NORGE, 

Welcome back to those of you who have traveled with us before!  And welcome aboard to those of you who haven't. It's been quite some time since our last travel blog (summer of 2024 to be exact).   We've been doing this blog for close to 20 years with close to 300 subscribers.  Certainly, communication has changed significantly since we started and, for many, email is a total pain.  Additionally, we have not had any interaction with many of our subscribers for many years.  So, if you're not interested, you can "unsubscribe" in a flash. No judgment. 

As review (and for new subscribers), our blog enables you to travel to wacky, wild, exotic and/or just plain fascinating parts of the world . Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to read along-- no shots, airline hassles, masks, luggage fees, sea-sickness, jetlag, Montezuma's revenge, or altitude sickness.    

This time, Wendy is off to the fjords (and more) of Norway with two dear friends--Jane and Mona.  Wayne opted out. So, for long time readers, you'll get lots of attitude and photos and extensive food reports--but not quite as much history and/or nature-oriented detail. 

Here's the map--we'll be small ship cruising with Tauck (my 14th trip with them). I arrived in Oslo on Tuesday afternoon, June 23rd and will return to the States via Bergen on July 3 (just in time for the big 250 celebration wrap-up--timing I am pleased about).  Along the way, you see there are multiple stops with varying excursions--I'll blog about them all.  

Tuesday, June 23

Mona and I met up at the Frankfurt airport on Tuesday mid-morning and arrived in Oslo mid-afternoon. To fight jet lag, we immediately went out into the sun and walked for two hours with a little retail therapy thrown in. Even though Europe is suffering a huge heat wave, weather is extraordinary here so far— sunny and in the upper 70s, simply delightful.

Shortly after we checked in, we ran into one of our guides in the lobby. I told him he looked familiar and when he identified himself, I realized it was Larry Abbott from our 2006 Japan trip! OMG! Looks the same but both of our hair colors are a different color. Let’s just say we have evolved.

We then went out to explore the town.

What is something you think of when you hear Norway? Trolls of course!

and of course....donuts! (No eating; just a photo op.)

For dinner we chose Engebret Cafe — established in 1857 but you wouldn’t have known it from the food. Really delicious. Both of us chose fish— so fresh— Norway is known for its fish so more of that to come and I was ravenous as the food on the airplane earlier (business class) was absolutely inedible; shame on you. United Airlines. 

We started with crab bisque. Mona chose turbot and I had red fish with scallops. We topped it off with a blackberry mousse on a chocolate cookie. yum! 

We returned to the hotel to greet Jane and went off for some well-deserved and needed sleep. This may be the land of the midnight sun, but my eyes were closed so not an issue.

Wednesday, June 24

We had a Jewish tour this afternoon, but Mona and I decided to do some morning touring, so we left the hotel around 10:15 and set off for the National Museum (which has had a recent renovation).  Along the way, we marveled at the statues outside City Hall. This city has statues everywhere!

Our mission was to see the Edvard Munch's "The scream".

Just like the actual Mona Lisa at the Louvre, this painting is actually quite small, In the galleries surrounding it, we saw many famous paintings, including a copy of the Mona Lisa , and a Van Gogh self portrait. They have done an extraordinary job with this museum.  

We then went across the plaza to the Nobel Peace Prize Museum. We had been told it wasn’t worth the effort, but it was really quite lovely and refreshing to see Barack Obama in several exhibits. Just to clear the air, when we bought the tickets, I mentioned to the ticket agent that we were American and we hated Donald Trump and he said “I hear that from a lot of Americans and I also hear them make a strong request not to award him the Noble Peace Prize”.

Both the National Museum and the Peace Museum sit right at the dock.

At 1:30 we met up with our guide Rami Kafarov— a Jewish transplant from Azerbaijan— Mona found this five star guide for us and he was fantastic, highly recommended. Over the next 2 1/2 hours, Rami stepped us through the history of the Jewish community in Norway. There are approximately 2,000 Jews in total in the country today and, under the Norwegian constitution in 1825, Jews weren’t even allowed in the country. As in other countries throughout Europe, we saw buildings that had been occupied by Jewish businesses, but perhaps one of the more interesting spots was the Oslo Cathedral, a famous Lutheran Church built in 1697, which Mona and I had visited yesterday. There is a painting of the Last Supper above the altar. Apparently, originally the participants in the Last Supper in this particular painting were depicted with distinctive (stereotypical) hooked noses. The painting was “updated” in 1825 through “plastic surgery“ to give the participants more Nordic noses.

The rationale given for this update was clear in a brochure set outside the sanctuary. Specifically, it mentioned the update happened because of the change to the Constitution (see above). Interestingly, the brochure was available in French and Norwegian (not English!), so I did the best I could to translate it.

Rami shared a number of other stories about the Jewish community. It has historically received less than open arms in Norway. Antisemitism is rampant but because the community is so small, people tend to keep a low profile. He made a particular point of sharing that the government has gone as far as forbidding Israeli manufactured products and that pro-Palestinian protests are quite common. He also said that there have been some instances of anti-Semitic graffiti tied to the war in Gaza.

He also shared that two of the other reasons the Jewish community in Norway is so small (particularly for observant Jews) are: first because of the midnight sun - observing the technical rules of Shabbat become challenging to say the least!! Second, kashrut butchering was outlawed several years ago (though apparently there is ONE Kosher butcher in the Jewish Community Center; not quite sure how that works). 

Unlike in Denmark (where so many Jews were spared transport to the concentration camps), because the Norwegian government did not cede to the Nazis, Jews in Norway were not protected. Of the 1,800 Jews there in 1940, a full 800 were deported and sent to Auschwitz. The remainder, through the resistance movement, were able to escape to Sweden, where they were safe and returned to Norway after the war.

Another highlight was a visit to the synagogue (modern Orthodox). 

The was the first Siddur (prayer book) published in Norwegian.

A full day and that doesn’t even include our stop for ice cream cones after the tour insert picture… or the welcome dinner where our tour officially starts.

 

On Thursday, we tour Oslo. Then all 153 of us (with our 5 tour guides) get on the ship!

love,

wendy

Bem-vindo a Portugal!

Ola to our Portugal adventure (with a dash of Spain added)!

We'll travel on land and eastward on the Douro River--starting in Lisbon (Lisboa to the locals).

We love having you along with us as we explore the culture, architecture, history, and of course, the food of these countries. We have been blogging for 22 years and this blog represents our 22nd blog entry--not bad considering 2 years of stay-at-home adventures.  If you're new here, know that you'll get all the advantages of travel plus some attitude--with none of the hassles. And we are always happy to get your comments, especially if you have visited any of these places. 

Here is the official Tauck itinerary. But, as usual, we have added a number of special side trips and activities! We'll note those as we go along. 

Monday and Tuesday, August 7-8, 2023

We flew to Lisbon via D.C.  The temps were at 100 the last few days, but are predicted to be in the 80s this week (whew!). And the Pope was here over the weekend, but he left town before our arrival. The actual tour does not start until tomorrow night (we always get in a day ahead just to be safe), so we had some free time to wander around. 

Our hotel is located in central Lisbon, right across the street from the Parque Eduardo VII. Apparently, this was where the Pope had a large gathering, as workers were still taking down the temporary stands and crowd barricades.  

One of the first things we noticed on our walk was that the sidewalks (and some streets) are mostly made of paving stones. These are not the large rounded cobbles that we might see at home (or the jagged and somewhat scary pavers in New Orleans), but rather each is a stone cube about 3" on a side. There must be 10s of millions of them! We'll be careful but don't feel like we're taking our lives in our hands with each step! 

And in the park are two pathways that are about 20 yards wide and run the entire length, and the stones are set in designs of lighter and darker ones! Think of the man-hours this must have taken to construct!

In the distance is a statue of Eduardo overlooking the Tagus River.

We were mostly out to stretch our legs after the looooong travel day, but of course, we did have one destination in mind: Crush Donuts.  It was fairly close by (how fortunate!), but we did have to experience some of Lisbon's hills along the way. 

 

Beautiful and very sweet (the donuts and the taster!).

                                                     

Then we headed back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We wanted authentic local seafood, and the concierge recommended 5 Oceanos. This required a cab ride, and along the way our driver pointed out many of the tiled walls. Tile is really big in Portugal. Some of the walls were just very pretty colorful patterns, others represented scenes from the town's 800 years of history. Alas, we could not get any pix as we were zooming by. 

5 Oceanos was right on the edge of the Tagus. 

There is a large statue of Christ (similar to Christ the Redeemer in Rio) on the other side, and a bridge, linking that peninsula, which was built with US materials by the same company that built the Golden Gate Bridge! Note the similarities, though this one also has a deck for trains!

The restaurant did not disappoint. Note: our tour packet included this important nugget: restaurants in Portugal will often bring you a basket of bread and a plate of olives....just like they do at home. But here they charge you for it! So it is perfectly fine to say "nao abrigado" (no thanks) if you don't want it. 

We started with a plate of fried whitebait. You eat the entire fish, head and all!

Then Wendy had Dourada escalada, dorado. Delectable, with a coating of salt....so very fresh. 

Wayne had the Catapana de Bacalhau com Arnejoas......cod and clams stew! Filled with potatoes, peppers, onions and little tiny clams! So delicious, but there was easily enough there for 3 people!

Then, we walked down the pier and had some outstanding ice cream...pistachio for her chocolate for him....

then back to the hotel to try to catch up on our sleep before the tour officially starts tomorrow.

Interesting factoid: Portuguese is much different than Spanish, but to our ears sounds similar to Polish! A Google check shows that we are not the first to notice this. However, the "similarity" is only in some of the sounds, as the two languages have entirely different origins and etymologies. 

Ate mais tarde (see you later)!

love, 

w&w 

Sintra

 Wednesday, August 9, 2023

The Tauck tour starts tonight with the standard welcoming dinner. Although with this group of about 60 people, it may be slightly different than we are accustomed to (our groups are normally about 15 - 25 people). So to fill the day we had previously booked a day tour through Tours By Locals. We have used them in other places and the tours are always top notch.

Our tour guide, Gloria, picked us up at 9:30 and we headed north to Sintra. This ENTIRE TOWN is a UNESCO World Heritage site, due to its collection of castles, palaces, and its special ecosystem (the first place to be recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its ecosystem). 

Sintra has seen occupation by the Romans, the Moors, and even an attempted invasion by Norwegians, until it was finally taken once and for all by Alfonso Henriques in 1154. Much of the town was severely damaged by the massive earthquake in 1755.

The two main attractions now are the Pena National Palace and the Sintra National Palace. Both started as summer homes for the royalty, and were added to and remodeled over the centuries. We only had time to visit one. Gloria explained that the former (the model for the Cinderella castle in Germany) has that "this is a palace" look from the outside, but the inside is rather plain. The latter, is not so impressive from the outside (except for its two 100 meter tall massive chimneys), but the inside is quite impressive. So (despite Wendy's FOMO concerns), we went for the latter. This palace was originally built in the 15th century.

Yes.....those are chimneys!

Here we are standing in an archway near the entrance. On the top of the hill behind us is the Moorish castle.

Gloria explained that technically a "castle" is the wall or fortification, and the "palace" is where the royalty actually lives. We tend to use these words interchangeably

For a hundred years or so, this palace was the center of economic and legal administration throughout the region. As we noted in yesterday's post, tiles are big in Portugal. So as you might expect in a palace, nearly every room we visited (and some of the outside walls) had beautiful tiles on the walls. Many were geometric patterns, others featured leaves symbolizing the various plants in the area, and others were like giant mosaic paintings!

We learned that most of the tiles are 14 cm square. Why? In the old days, you didn't order say, 100 tiles. You would order sheets of clay by the meter. 14 x 7 = 98, which is almost 100cm (e.g., 1 meter). So you could get 49 squares out of that. 

Here are some examples:

This is "The Magpies Chamber", because of the 136 magpies painted on the ceiling. The story behind this is that King Joao was once caught in the act of kissing a lady-in-waiting by Queen Philippa and to put a stop to all the ensuing gossip he had the room decorated with as many magpies as there were women at the court (136) with the immortal words por bem (for honor) written over their beaks! Those wacky kings!!!

This tile is one made using the "relief" technique, where the glazing colors (made from natural elements such as copper and iron oxide) were applied to the raised areas.

The next group of pix is from the Heraldic Hall, deigned by and for King Manuel I. 

Remember: all of these were made by hand! Truly impressive

These next photos are from "The Water Grotto". This is a small building off of an outside courtyard. The courtyard itself had a shallow pool, but that was mostly used for the cooling effect of the water as opposed to actual swimming. So the royals and their guests would go into this room. Why? It may be hard to see, but there are hundreds of holes in these tiles, and water would be pumped through these to create what we might call a spa shower!  Just imagine!!!!

We left the palace and walked into the town itself. Yes...one of those medieval towns with the narrow winding "streets" (all cobblestones of course!). 

 

 And, the "Jewish Street"--the only remaining sign of the Jewish population in Sintra. (More on the Jewish history of Portugal after our Thursday afternoon tour.) 

We had been told by many people that the special thing to eat in Portugal is the pastries. There are so many different fillings. Too many to try to remember, so here is a post from another blogger that has already done so. So we HAD to stop in at Piriquita....a bakery that has been turning these out since the 1830s. That is not a typo....1830s!

Our driver Andre treated us to a half dozen queijadas (almond egg custard cookies; top left in the photo). They were  amazing. 

A final view of the palace as we drove out of town.

We then drove toward the ocean. It was about a 20 minute ride. In the time of the monarchs, this would have been an 8 hour carriage ride.

The most notable point here is Cabo da Roca (Cape Roca). This is the westernmost point of continental Europe.

Hard to see from where we were, but there is a lighthouse at the top, one of several along this part of the coast. 

We drove farther along into the town of Cascais (in Portuguese, it is pronounced cahsh-cah-eesh). This town also started as a seaside retreat for the royals and nobility, in this case King Luis I in the 1870s. It is now a resort town and has one of the highest cost of living and real estate markets in the country. 

Here is a photo of some nobles currently visiting:

Then it was back to the hotel to get ready for the kick-off dinner. Along the way, we asked Gloria about the Portuguese language. She said it has 7,500 different sounds...way more than English. She explained some of the rules...."s" between two vowels has the "sh" sound....you can't have 3 consonants in a row (like we do in "street")...and lots of different vowel sounds. The alphabet has 23 letters, no "w", no "y" and surprisingly, no "k". So we would be Ouendi and Ouaine!! Languages are so much fun.

Our Welcoming dinner was at the Queluz (Quel-ooz) National Palace. This was the last great Rococo building built in Europe (mid-eighteenth century). It was another summer getaway place for the King and his court. It is often referred to as "the Portugal Versailles".  And it is the venue of choice when foreign dignitaries visit.  Because the "usual suspects" (kings, queens, prime ministers and presidents) weren't in town, we were able to have our reception here. The grounds and gardens were stunning, especially as we walked around and were offered hors d'ouevres and drinks!

The dinner was a typical Tauck food-a-thon....way too much....pretty tasty, but not picture worthy. And, as is the custom in these parts, food was not served until 8 pm!  How in the world did we even stay up until 10:30? 

Til next time, 

love w&w.............