Norway

Duration: 7 days

Let me remind you first that Ragnarok awaits us all.

First will come the winter. It will be an unnaturally cold and dark winter, with no end in sight. Fimbulwinter. Then the wars will begin. The days will be dark, and cities will burn in the fires of war. In the third year of this dreadful winter, earthquakes will come. Those who did not perish in the wars or from the cold will succumb to the earthquakes. From the earthquakes, tsunamis will arise, and the ocean will overflow its shores. And then the gods will awaken and begin the great battle.

The seas will freeze to the bottom, and Loki will traverse them on his enormous ship Naglfar as if on a sled. Naglfar is made of the nails of the dead, and although the Vikings trimmed the nails of their dead to prevent the construction of this dreadful ship, it will still be the largest and heaviest ship ever to exist.

All gods and giants, dead and alive, will gather for the final battle on the plain of Vigrid. And in this battle, the wise Odin, the tempestuous Thor, and the fearsome Loki will perish (and Loki, I suspect, will indeed be fearsome, for only now will he be freed from his long captivity and will finally tear apart the sons of Kishi with whom he was bound). It will be a bloody battle, one that no one can prevent. Thus will end all nine worlds.

Will this happen soon, or will we live a little longer, who knows? Although I've been waiting for Ragnarok for a long time (I'm not sure what exactly broke my psyche, the choices are wide these days), but it's still interesting to see the places guarded by the Norse gods.

And so we set off to Norway. The boys were choosing the destination for our summer vacation. Since I have a great love for both Norse mythology and the Viking era, I was thrilled with the boys' choice.

We flew with Irish airlines, with a layover in Dublin. You couldn't find a greater contrast between the airports. Oslo, in contrast to Dublin, was empty, sterile, and gleaming. We immediately began to admire it, of course. And it must be said that we had plenty of reasons to admire Norway throughout our journey.

Here, at the airport, we rented a car and, already quite exhausted from two flights, set off to our first hotel.

In Norway, it was already evening at this time, or rather the white night was approaching, and according to our biological clocks, it was morning after a sleepless night. Well, it was the usual jet lag when crossing the ocean. We checked in and crashed. The road day ended, which doesn't really count.

The first day

began with a fantastic breakfast. The day before, we had read an article about the white nights in Norway, which mentioned the long winter polar nights that provoke depression among Norwegians due to the lack of sunlight.

"I think in a country where people have breakfast like THIS, no one can possibly have depression," remarked Arseniy, looking at all the abundance before him.

After breakfast, we went for a walk around Oslo. Of course, now it's a modern and stylish city, but it was founded about a thousand years ago by the last true Viking, Harald Hardrada, one of the many powerful heroes who fought everywhere from Norway to Africa, traded and plundered endlessly, wrote complex and refined poetry, and were extremely romantic (especially in the sagas where heroes split their enemies' ribs, extract lungs, and always recite poetry).

I mentioned Harald in my story about England and Emma of Normandy. This is the same Harald who, after receiving a refusal from Elizabeth Yaroslavna, traveled the world and wrote numerous verses in the Viking tradition, each of which ended the same way:

"However, the girl in Gardar doesn't want to show affection towards me."

Eventually, Elizabeth did become his wife, and by "Gardar" or "Gardariki," the Vikings referred to Rus. Sailing on their ships along the Volga, they saw numerous fortresses, so all of Rus seemed to them like a chain of cities, which sounded like "Gardariki" to the Scandinavian peoples.

Harald Hardrada perished trying to conquer England, marking the end of the three-hundred-year Viking era. But thanks to him, we can now stroll through the beautiful city of Oslo.

We parked in the city center. Even the tram tracks set a certain mood.

Here we're walking on the roof of the opera house.

From above, we gaze at the woman-troll and decide to head towards the Royal Palace.

By the way, the current King of Norway is also named Harald, and he is a true Viking. At the age of 79, he took second place in the world championship in sailing.

We got a little lost, but we weren't bothered at all. Walking around Oslo is very pleasant - it's just drowning in flowers and greenery, and the weather was perfect.

Finally, we reached the palace, which turned out to be rather modest.

After walking around the city, we decided to visit some museums.

The main museum we wanted to visit, the Viking Ship Museum, turned out to be closed for renovation until 2026. So we continued on to the Fram Museum.

The Fram is a large sailing ship built at the end of the 19th century, which was first used by Nansen and then by Amundsen, both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. It circled the globe 2.5 times in total.

I hadn't read about the "Fram" before this trip, but just recently I've read Dan Simmons' "The Terror" about a maritime Arctic expedition. I was simply shaken by the details of the polar explorers' lives at that time. They had to stock up on everything - from fuel materials to food - for several years in advance. Yet, those lucky enough to return from such expeditions always suffered from scurvy, exhaustion, frostbite, and so on. Everything was distributed in such a way that in the first months of the voyage, the crew's exquisite meals included several changes of dishes, like in the finest restaurants. But by the end of the expedition, people were dying of starvation, having nothing left but spoiled canned goods and pieces of salted meat.

In such Arctic expeditions, there was always a very real chance for the ship to become trapped in ice. After that, the ship was at risk of being crushed, or it could withstand it, but such entrapment could last for several years in case of a cold spring and summer. Indeed, these misfortunes befell the "Erebus" and the "Terror," and not only them. Nansen, of course, was aware of this and therefore decided to improve the design of his ship. He made it round so that the squeezing ice floes wouldn't crush it but rather push it to the surface like an egg. And his calculations proved correct - the "Fram" was perfect for navigating through ice. However, the rolling on such a ship was much stronger, so even experienced sailors could hardly bear such a tossing, and dogs had to be constantly tethered to the ship's walls to prevent them from falling overboard.

Now you can walk around the ship, exploring everything from the cabins to the hold. Videos of the Arctic Ocean are constantly projected onto the museum's inner walls, rain lashes down, masts sway, sails flap, and you can even enter the pantry and the dead room, where the temperature is set to what it was on the ship during the voyage to immerse visitors in the atmosphere. So, there's darkness, a chilling cold, and frozen corpses. Pretty spooky. Overall, it's a fantastic ship and a great museum experience.

Next to the Fram, literally opposite, is another museum dedicated to maritime voyages - the Kon-Tiki Museum. The Kon-Tiki was Thor Heyerdahl's raft, on which he made his voyages across the Pacific Ocean. (Funny enough, despite knowing about Thor Heyerdahl from an early age, I never realized that his actual name was Thor, like the god of Thunder. In Russian it sounds like Thur)

Here in the museum, you can see both the Kon-Tiki raft, on which Thor and his team crossed the Pacific Ocean, and the Ra II papyrus boat, which became famous in the Soviet Union thanks to Yuri Senkevich, and on which they crossed the Atlantic Ocean, albeit on their second attempt.

Indeed, sailors like the Norwegians are hard to find. (Not to mention the Vikings, who sailed to America half a millennium before Columbus.)

Right here, on the Bygdøy Peninsula, not far from the maritime museums, is the vast Norsk Folkemuseum - an open-air museum.

It's absolutely delightful. They've transported historically significant buildings from various parts of the country here, forming a small town. The gem of the ethnographic museum is undoubtedly the 1157 Stave Church from Gol, which is truly remarkable.

It was painted in the 17th century - and what remarkable iconography! The atmosphere is truly incredible.

Where else can you see a Christian church where prayers to the saints were carved into the wood in the form of runes? For example, the runes on one of the wooden beams can be read as "Kiss me because I am in distress."

The houses here are also extraordinary - for example, this one dates back to the 1300s.

And many of them are almost like huts on chicken legs from Russian Fairy-tales.

Seeing such a pastoral scene in the center of the capital was somewhat unexpected, and it's often the things you don't expect that leave the strongest impression.

In the hotel, we were greeted by a beautiful pool and spa. Arseniy didn't like the saunas at all, but he and Ilya had plenty of fun with their game of "dip into the icy water, then run to the hot tub." Unfortunately, taking photos there was prohibited.

Second day

In the morning, we headed to the famous Vigeland Park to see Gustav Vigeland's sculptures.

I was curious to see what impression they would make on me in real life, as the photos I had seen the day before definitely didn't convey the scale and atmosphere of the park. I can confirm that the park is unique. All two hundred sculptures depict various human emotions and relationships between people of different ages.