Ah yes. The most exciting city in Australia, if not the world. This was supposed to be a post full of pictures to make you jealous that you are not here with us, but someone who is a dumbass (that would be me) brought the wrong adapter to transfer photos from the camera to the iPad, so they will have to wait until we get back. Never mind. The professional writer will do her best to stun you with her words. ::cough::
Sognefjord
So this is what we did yesterday. We caught the train from Bergen to Myrdal, then the Flåm railway to Flåm. From there we took an express boat along the Sognefjord back to Bergen, a boat journey of 250km and five and a half hours. All in all it was nearly nine hours of trains and boats, but it was simply fucking amazing.
Bergen
I have to break the report on Bergen into two post because no kidding, the scenery is so amazing and we took soo many phots, I’m afraid I’ll break wordpress if I post it all in one.
Oslo
Well, we’re on our last night here, and I’m just getting around to posting about our first. I suck.
Oslo is lovely. It’s beautiful and easy to get around, and makes good use of its bounteous coastline and many hills. The architecture, whether civic, commercial or domestic, is pretty much all atrractive, with many stunning buildings, most of which I haven’t photographed, because other people will have done a better job of it.
Continue reading “Oslo”
Turku
The Lonely planet website describes Turku thus
This one-time capital of Finland has a very historic feel, being the country’s oldest city. While hardly any mediaeval buildings remain, a visit to the doughty castle and superb archaeological museum will stimulate your imagination into populating the riverbanks with bustling crowds of merchants receiving and dispatching Baltic cargoes
While its guide book called it ‘intriguing’. We thus had high hopes for the place, which were sadly dashed because very little remains of Turku’s visual heritage thanks to multiple fires and so on.
Tampere
Today we made a dash northwestwards to the strangely popular lakeside city of Tampere.
Helsinki
Helsinki is great, but it helps we have had more glorious weather – to the point of getting sunburnt!
It’s not a beautiful place like Stockholm but it is stuffed with beauty, great architecture and amazing public art
Uppsala
Uppsala is a university town north of Stockholm with a rich historical and scientific heritage. Among other claims to fame, it was the home of Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy.
Stockholm syndrome
You may or may not have noticed that I went quiet after we arrived in Stockholm. To be honest, I’m horribly guilty about the fact I went to the most beautiful city I’ve ever been in – and that includes Paris and San Francisco – and all I really wanted to do was hide in the hotel. The problem was that Stockholm is so fucking overwhelming. It’s big, gorgeous, self-assured – fantastically expensive – and was just too much to consume even in little bites. Also, it rivals Rome for the volume of tourists and the annoyance and traffic caused thereby. It’s exhausting struggling through rude,yelling teenagers, and clueless Italians, and everywhere I might have liked to have gone was chockablock with groups.
Lund
Lund is a medieval town a short (but expensive) train ride from Malmö, and a true delight in every way. We travelled on a train that should have been taking us to Ystad, i think 🙂 Continue reading “Lund”