It is hot these days in Sicily. Temperatures are in the 90s every day and it has not rained since June. It is the perfect time to travel north to Scandinavia. On Friday, we flew into Oslo, Norway and by mid-afternoon we were being tourists. We stopped at the Royal Palace first and were fortunate enough to arrive in time to view the changing of the guard. The rest of the afternoon we spent on a walking tour of the city. 
Oslo is a very modern city, it is fashionable, clean and one of the most expensive cities in the world. The sun does not go set until 11pm each night. As a result, we had to get used to going to dinner with the sun still out and if we got a beer afterwards it would still look like it was the afternoon. The weather was nice- Cloudy to partly cloudy and mid 60s to mid 70s. It only rained one day. The next day we took a boat to Bygdoy Peninsula.
On the peninsula we went to the famous Viking Ship Museum housing the finest surviving example of a Viking long ship. There are other ships in the museum along with artifacts found in burial mounds. Also on the peninsula there is a Norwegian village where buildings from different periods and regions are moved from their original location to Oslo. In the village they have many traditional artisan shops, farms and houses with grass covered roofs. We also went to the Kon-Tiki Museum which holds the boats and artifacts from the famous ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl. Heyerdahl built the boats and sailed them across the Atlantic and Pacific to prove that ancient civilizations possessed the technology to make the journeys. 
To complete the boat museum tour we went to the polar expedition museum which tells stories of Norwegian expeditions to the North and South Poles. In the museum they have a boat built in 1892 that was used by Roald Amundsen on his way to becoming the first explorer to reach the South Pole. To round out the day we took the boat back to the central city and took a tour of Akerschus Fortress. Within the fortress there is a castle from the 13th century and also a museum dedicated to the Norwegian resistance in World War II. After dinner Shannon went shopping, Oslo has many great stores. 
The next day we took a scenic train ride west through Norway. The trip took us into rural Norway where we saw small villages, many waterfalls and even a glacier. Our train ride ended at the town of Flam where we would continue our journey by boat. Flam is at the inland end of Norway’s longest fjord, the Sognfjord. 
Our boat took usdown the entire length of the fjord to the sea and then south along the coast where our journey ended at the city of Bergen. The Fjords were really impressive. Glaciers carved them out of the mountains leaving salt water channels that are actually deeper than the sea floor off the coast. That is why huge cruise ships can go through such narrow channels. The scenery was incredible and there were very few towns, it was obvious that they were just too isolated to support anything larger than a village. In Bergen we checked into our hotel and went out to dinner. I had a whale steak. Norway is one of the few countries that still allows whaling and you can even buy it as street food. It looks just like a steak but has a definite fishy taste, I assume because of the whale’s diet.
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway but it seems like a small town. It has buildings that date back to medieval times that are still used as stores and restaurants (they are a little crooked though). For breakfast we walked down to the fish market at the edge of the harbor. 
The main products seem to be fresh salmon and caviar but if you ask them they will whip you up some open face sandwiches. We went to the art museum and the maritime museum but the town itself was the main attraction. That evening we took a night train to Gothenburg, Sweden.Gothenburg a cool city. It was designed by the same planners that created Amsterdam and Gothenburg also has many canals and bridges. Gothenburg is also a college town with Sweden’s largest university and the Institute of Technology. In older times it was the main push off point for Swedish Vikings and at the Gothenburg museum they have one of Scandinavia’s premier Viking Artifact collections.
Our next stop was Stockholm. Stockholm is Sweden’s capital and the city is built on 14 islands connected by a complex network of bridges. Our first stop was at the Royal Palace. At the palace we toured some of the historic apartments and chambers used by royalty and dignitaries. We also visited the armory which has many suits of armor and weapons from over the centuries. The armory also houses royal carriages. In addition we visited the treasury and got to see the crown jewels. We were lucky again and were at the palace during the changing of the guard.
The next day we took a ferry over to one of the island of Djurgarden. The island used to be the royal hunting grounds and today serves as a large public park. The island also has a museum dedicated to the Vasa. The Vasa was a 17th century warship that sank after sailing less than 1 mile on its maiden voyage. It lay on the bottom in Stockholm Harbor mostly undisturbed until salvaged in 1961. Today the 4-story boat has its own immense museum holding the boat itself and many of the artifacts found in the wreck. After the museum we visited a model Swedish Village and then it was time for Shannon to go shopping again.Our trip to Scandinavia was great. The people we met were friendly and everyone speaks English very well.
