We Visited Hoth

We visited Hoth…and didn’t even know it.

It is perhaps a little delayed, but I thought I would write a little bit about our holidays around Sweden and our trip to Norway with my ma and pa. I especially wanted to update you on an interesting li’l tidbit I only just found out today, but I’ll get to that later.

Summertime in Umeå is a pretty wonderful time. Now that I know to expect work and businesses to nearly shut up shop completely for two months, I am much more adapted to the slow pace of life here in the summer. It is very different from Edmonton, in the sense that Edmonton really comes to life in the summer, with so many activities and festivals going on (I miss you, Edmonton Fringe Festival).

The beauty of Umeå is that it is so quiet here, that summertime is really just a time for relaxing, enjoying the sunshine, and spending time outside. A typical Swedish summer day would be spent with a morning ‘kaffe och fika’ outside as a picnic, then maybe a cykel ride on one of the trails out to the Kolonilottet trädgård (or in your own garden if you have one), then probably a picnic dinner -grill style- at the side of Nydala lake, followed by an evening in the floating sauna on top of the lake. The especially lucky Swedes will spend all their days out at their red-painted sommarstuga (summer cabin) gardening, swimming, cycling, hiking, berry picking, kayaking etc.

We’ve begun to enjoy these types of activities ourselves, and we were very happy that my parents came to visit at such a time that the weather really allowed us to do a lot of these things. We spent time together around Umeå, and I even learned a few new historical things about the city that I never knew before.

We also spent a day out at an island south of Umea called Norrbyskär, which was once a working colony island for a wood mill. It was very interesting to see a ‘model society’ where the mill worked with the philosophy that if you treat your workers well and provide them with good living conditions, they will work hard and show loyalty to you. In some ways this reflects the socialist principles of modern Swedish society which still stands strong today.

From Umeå we ventured a bit further afield, and wanted to spend our holiday seeing a bit of Norway. We flew to Bergen, the second largest city in Norway (pop. 250,000). It is a city with an amazing history. It was the capital of Norway long before the creation of Oslo/Kristiania. Bergen’s roots reach back as long as 1070 AD, which for me is still very hard to comprehend things that old. It was an important city in the Hanseatic league in the 13^th century, and has a rich history of being a important trading centre. The old wharf, Bryggen, is now a protected UNESCO heritage site.

Bergen is also a former culture capital of Europe (Umeå is set to be a culture capital in 2014), and in it stands the home and final resting place of Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg. Grieg is most famous for composing music inspired by Norwegian folk tunes and Norwegian scenery, but he is absolutely most famous for composing the incidental music for Henrik Ibsen’s ‘Peer Gynt’. Still don’t know who I’m talking about? Check the link. You will know immediately.

After hearing the soaring melodies of Grieg were inspired in part, by Norwegian nature, we spent a day-trip outside of Bergen getting inspired by the beautiful scenery of the Bergen-Myrdal, Myrdal- Flåm railways, which are listed as two of the most scenic rail-lines in the world. The Flåm railway was especially stunning as the train switches back and forth along a very steep gradient as we made our way down from the plateau to the water level of the fjord. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon cruising a portion of the Sognefjord. The scenery is so spectacular I was a little disappointed, but not entirely surprised, to find that my camera failed to capture how truly beautiful it is. It must be seen to be believed. (hint hint: come visit us!!)

From Bergen, we caught the train from to Oslo, which also was an incredibly beautiful journey. We left from the fjords and inlets around Bergen and slowly crept up and over the Norwegian mountains, passing glaciers and mountain plateaus along the way.

The train paused in a place called Finse. It is the highest train station in the Norwegian train system, resting at 1,222m above sea level. It looked so beautiful there, I was really wishing we would have had time to get out and do some hiking there. As I sat down to write this post, I googled Finse to see what I could find out about it, and it turns out Finse is where the scenes for the ice planet ‘Hoth’ were filmed for the movie ‘Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back’. My favourite Star Wars geek can hardly believe that we were actually in Hoth, and didn’t have time to look for any banthas, wompas, tauntauns or AT-AT walkers. Oh well. Next time.

When we arrived in Oslo, we were dropped into a great, cosmopolitan city. We really enjoyed wandering around town and even shopping a little bit. We got to see some beautiful art at the National Gallery, including famous works by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch – such as ‘the scream’, ‘madonna’, and ‘puberty’. We also toured the Royal Palace in Oslo, which was very interesting. We got to go into Palace rooms which are still regularly used, like the bedroom where visiting Heads of State have stayed such as Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama. I must mention though, the ticket system for touring the palace was the strangest I have ever encountered. I’m not sure I even understand it now, but it somehow involved the fact that you can only buy tickets at 7-11.

We also saw some beautiful historical folk buildings at the NorskFolkmuseum which showed the traditional way of life of the Norwegian people. The most impressive to see were the wooden Stave churches. Having just seen the movie "The Two Towers" on TV last night, you can certainly see the influence of the Norse culture on J.R.R. Tolkien.

We had a wonderful time visiting Norway, and were happy we got to experience so much in one short trip AND spend time with my parents at the same time. Beautiful nature, astounding history, and world class art and culture. Would I go back to Norway? Definitely! But future trips to Norway would include a visit to a really remote, natural place like Finse, or a trip WAY up north to the Lofoten Islands, Tromsø, or Nordkapp. Again, the more we travel, the more we see that there is so much in this world. I wonder if I will ever be able to see all the places I want to see.