Vic on the Sognefjord

Our bus trip to Vik was great; the rural areas of Norway have very good service subsidized by the government (one place that oil money and taxes are put to use). We check into Dampen Inn and meet Patrick Timmers, the owner, who is from the Netherlands but wanted to get away from it all. So, he moved to Norway. He says, “You go to Norway for the scenery, not the people.”

The Dampen Inn, it's about a 100 meters from the Sognefjord.

Pølse from the Mix

We were to meet Gunnar at 13:00. We had time to kill and we were hungry. The obvious choice was a pølse, that’s a hot dog in Norwegian. It is pronounced pool-sa not pole-sa; the latter will get you some strange looks or something that you did not order. It seems that like Iceland, Norway has a love for snacking on pølse. I felt it was up to me to do a hot dog investigation; so, this will not be the only reference to pølse in the next entries. The first pølse was encountered at the Mix (kind of a convenience store found all over Norway) in Vik. The results of the tasting resulted in a grade of C+.

Beth, Randeen, and Jay doing the pølse.

A boat tied up near the Mix, where we were dining on pølse

Gunnar and Lily met us at 13:00. He had arranged for a rental car for us. Details were beyond his English vocabulary. We are confused but get over it.

Gunnar leads us to 2 of the main attractions in Vik both are churches. The first was the Hopperstad Stavkirke or stave church. It was built in the 12th century. The construction was accomplished be building the structure around a number of structural pillars made of tree trunks that were seasoned prior to cutting them down.

Scaffolding, as expected As we approached the church, I knew it immediately as it was covered in scaffolding. I’ve explained my scaffolding issues in an earlier post, but in a nutshell, if it is worthy of being photographed, it will be shrouded in scaffolding.

Another view of the scaffolding

Gunnar treated us to a guided tour (by a guide whose English was pretty good) of the stave church and a stone church, Hove Kirke. The Hove Kirke was not covered in scaffolding; perhaps, because it was unremarkable in appearance. Gunnar pointed out all of the soapstone used in the construction of the church. He seemed to be somewhat of an unofficial expert on soapstone.

Hove Kirke

Gunnar and Lily left us with an invitation to dinner at their home. We had some time to kill; so, we explored the commune of Vik. It is comprised of just a few towns linked by a road along the Sognefjord. The road wasn’t in place for these towns until 1974 according to Gunnar; I know the road across the mountain was not in place until 1957). Prior to that, boat was the main method of transportation. We visited all of the towns: Arnefjord, Fromfjord, Vik, Vangsnes, Feios, and Fresvik. We stopped in Fresvik to inquire about a friend of Jay’s. No one spoke English, but one fellow had us follow him to the home of the name we had. No one was home; we left a note and departed.

Gunnar, Lily, Randeen, Jay, and Beth (no scaffolding in this view)

Waterfall in Framfjord

We arrived at the home of Gunnar and Lily. Framfjord is a smallish place of about 50 people. Remember, the road just got to Framfjord in 1974. We sat to eat a typical, welcome the relatives’ dinner. We started with some kind of cheese soup that Gunnar warned us we may not enjoy (the vote was split on liking the soup; 2 of us politely took seconds). The remainder of the meal consisted of cured meats (ham, salami, etc), cheese, flat bread, regular bread, romme (a high butter fat cream thick enough to spread like soft butter), butter, lax (cured salmon), and a scrambled egg dish (the name escapes me). All of this was washed down with coffee and a fruit juice (fruit from Lily’s garden). No alcohol is the norm as the drunken driving limit is .03 which can be exceeded with one drink. I must admit that I would have enjoyed a beer.