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Category: Ramblings | Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 6:28 pm

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We've had lovely weather for almost two weeks! What a nice change. :) The holiday weather wasn't much to write home about. I won't run out of fingers on one hand if I count the entirely dry days we had. Well, never mind. We had a very long holiday, and we drove a very long way. We estimated the total to 4,000 km or 2,485 miles, give or take a bit.

We started sight-seeing rather close to home, Briksdalsbreen, the Briksdal glacier, close to Olden, a popular tourist destination:



Scenery:



On our way up to the glacier:





There it is!



The glacier front position in 1870:



The area is a national park:



Lucky for these little beauties. They live inside the park boundary. This is a rather common orchid:



And this is, believe it or not, a white buttercup! I've never seen one before and was very excited:





Ok, back to the glacier. Ten years ago the front was at these sand hills, and covered the entire lake:



And this is how it looks today:



A few years ago tourists were brough up and down by horse-drawn carriages, but not anymore. This is today's "horse":



The road is rather steep and winding:



We got back to the car to drive back to Stryn. That road is rather steep and winding too:



We took off late June. By Grotli the snow and ice hadn't melted yet:



We stopped at my uncle's place in Skjåk, reputedly the dryest spot in Norway. They were watering their fields:



Uncle has a nice view over the northern part of Gudbrandsdalen - Gudbrands valley - from his house:



Our next stop was a bit further south, to have a look at the White Shroud Priests, a rather unusual natural phenomenon. The road up was strenuous, but a lot better than it used to be. There were stairs!



And more stairs:



And a few bits with no stairs:



At last we reached them. I found them spectacular. It looks as if they're ready to fall down, but they've been like this for about 9,000 years, so I hope they won't disappear in my life time:





The view point is well made:



Next stop was Gothenburg, Sweden, and the amusement park Liseberg. The girls like those.









View from the big wheel. It's 60 meters tall but it's on a hill so it feels a lot higher:



There were little park-like pockets all over the place:



After Gothenburg we went to Copenhagen, Denmark's capitol. We wanted to look at the Queen's castle, the crown jewels and Tivoli, the old amusement park.

We passed a lot of yellow fields on our way through Sweden:



Copenhagen. This little church is made of Norwegian marble:



Amalienborg, the Queen's residence consists of four identical-looking buildings. I wanted to weed in the Queen's garden but there wasn't any greenery at all:



Ok, then, maybe I would get lucky in the King's garden, surrounding Rosenborg castle. After all Denmark doesn't have a King now and maybe the gardeners were slack:



Alas, no. The gardens were well tended, not a weed in sight:





I did find someone who didn't care a hoot about who's garden it was. It was time for a bath:



Then we ventured inside the castle to have a peek at the treasures. And boy! were there treasures! The oldest items dated back to 1590something. We were overwhelmed.

A ship made from ivory:



A very big chest had the loveliest intarsia work I've ever laid my eyes on. This little piece measured something like 10x15 cm:



A chocolate can made from coconut and ivory:



The old crown, not in use any more:



There were shelves upon shelves of gold items:



One of the jewelry sets to be worn exclusively by the Queen, Margrete:



The regalia:



The crowns worn nowadays:



We were so dizzy at the end of the tour that we didn't appreciate the beautiful handiwork anymore. *sigh*

What we did appreciate was the sight of this huge snail. It's a delicacy, but we hadn't brough equipment for snail gathering or -preparing so we let it run:



The day after we visited Tivoli, situated in the middle of Copenhagen. There was lots to do and see.

The horrible loop - and I went in there!



The Tivoli brass band:



There were lovely garden arrangements too:







We concidered getting ourselves a new summer residence:



This peahen and chick walked about as if they owned they place. I imagine they do:



We wanted a couple of quiet days before moving on from Denmark, and camped here:







Some of the locals seemed a bit weird:



Fortunately a passer-by knew how to put them right:



A couple of riders passed through and stopped for a drink:



The swallows nested in the most curious places:



And we found a lizard too:



Then we left Denmark and spent one night in Germany. This little chap met me outside the camper in the morning. He was pretty rude and called me "cheap" until I found some bread crumbs for him:



We were ready for the last leg of our trip south. The landscape was so flat it disappeared on the horizon on both sides of the road. Then finally we crossed the Germany/Holland border.

Welcome to Holland:




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eileen wrote on Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:03 pm:

Oh boy Droopy what marvelous photographs!!
Where do I start? Well of course with the white buttercup - I didn't even know they existed - how lovely they are. I hope they self seed and spread over the years.
Your uncle's place is so beautiful and what great views he has of the surrounding countryside.
I'm sorry to say that I wasn't impressed by the Queen's garden BUT the King's is out of this world!!
What strange structures those white shroud priests are.
I loved all the shots you took of the royal treasures. That chocolate can looks as though you could actually eat it.
The old crown is gorgeous but must have been so heavy to wear. The modern ones look much lighter and are magnificent. I would have been so overwhelmed by all that gold and I wouldn't have known where to look!!
Lastly the Trivoli gardens are somewhere I'd love to visit and spend time drinking in their beauty.
Many thanks for all you holiday pictures. How I would have loved to have been there with you.

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blissful photons wrote on Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:00 pm:

Very interesting.

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Netty wrote on Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:28 pm:

Awesome photographs Droopy! What a wonderful vacation!

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Kay wrote on Wed Aug 22, 2012 12:31 am:

Hi Droopy, I enjoyed your holiday photos and stories very much! Beautiful land!

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toni wrote on Wed Aug 22, 2012 5:09 am:

Glad to see the camp ground has the Texas Flag hanging right side up, many places in Texas don't know how to do that.
It's the flag on the lower right of the photo of all the flags.

The weird looking locals are called 'mountain men' they were trappers who hunted any animal with a pelt they could sell, lived off the land and sometimes were pretty weird since they had very little contact with other people.

The helpful passerby needs a less decorative shirt, that's more 'urban cowboy' than wild west. And what is with that hat??? :0

But I nit-pick, sometimes a lot when it comes to anything connected with Texas. :)

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Droopy wrote on Wed Aug 22, 2012 6:46 am:

Thanks for liking my blog entry. :D Eileen, my fingers itched so bad when I spotted that buttercup, the girls threatened to tie my hands to my body. *lol*

Toni, nitpick away. I love to learn. :D For some reason the Texas flag is very popular among the country 'n western lovers. I can't guarantee that all of them know which side is "up".

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toni wrote on Wed Aug 22, 2012 7:07 am:

Of all the states in this country, Texas is probably the most recognisible in the world by it's shape. But then that IS the way it should be!!! :)

Anyway, think of the star in the abstract shape of a person....head up, two arms out and two legs...with the white bar on top/red on bottom.

I have lost track of how many places...i.e. business, apartment complexes, etc ...even schools...I have had to call or email informing them of proper flag etiquette. Then there are the bootleg flag makers who place the star upside down on the blessed flag to begin with.

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Frank wrote on Wed Aug 22, 2012 8:02 am:

Oh wow, this is some vacation :) Such beautiful scenery and cheeky birds. Looking forward to Netherlands!

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Droopy wrote on Wed Aug 22, 2012 12:32 pm:

Thanks, Toni, for enlightening me. Now I know enough to put things right if I ever spot the Texas flag upside-down. :D

Thanks Frank. I'll post as soon as the weather turns nasty again. *lol*

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Philip Nulty wrote on Wed Aug 22, 2012 3:24 pm:

Great pictures Droopy,..and you sure covered a lot of ground,..interesting locations and well spotted with that white Buttercup.

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Droopy wrote on Wed Aug 22, 2012 3:40 pm:

Thank you Philip, we did! There were several white buttercups, and from my reserch I gather they're not endemic to that particular area. I think I need to go back and see if I could gather some seed, since I think I saw one growing outside the National Park boundaries. *lol*

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Sjoerd wrote on Thu Aug 23, 2012 9:52 pm:

What great pics! You guys really made the best of your time, didn't you? I especially liked the landscapes, flowers and gardens.
....a white butter cup. Hmmmmmm. That in itsself was remarkable.

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cherylad wrote on Thu Aug 23, 2012 11:36 pm:

I was hooked from the first photo! I don't wish foul weather on anyone... but I do hope it's "bad" enough to chase you inside to show us more! :-)

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