Scandinavia 2019 Travel Blog – June 17

By Kim Andersen

Scattered between 9:25 a.m. and 3:25 p.m. on Monday, June 17, 2019, all 18 participants in the Honors College faculty-led trip to Scandinavia arrived Flesland airport outside Bergen, Norway. Here we begin a 15 day travel adventure through Scandinavia: from Bergen to Copenhagen, Denmark, finishing in Stockholm, Sweden, on July 1. Much is planned during this time: visits to castles and museums, to city halls and cathedrals to get a grasp of those cultures as they are now and how they were in the past. Not least we will pursue the Vikings as we will investigate up close the Viking ships in Oslo and Roskilde and the exhibits in national museums. Tomorrow morning we start with a guided tour of Haakan’s Hall and the Rosenkrantz Tower built in the 1100s and still sitting prominently at the entrance to Bergen harbor. More on that in tomorrow’s report.

Clinging to the edge below mountain sides Bergen is famous for its rain and temperamental weather. The first half of Monday we had beautiful sunshine. But as the students started arriving Flesland airport it was as if ancient Norway was sending us a message: we are not just a pretty tourist destination but an an ancient land of trolls and tales, of seafarers and hardy Vikings who carved out a meager living in narrow fjords. No wonder they also went abroad.

Tired from long journeys across the Atlantic in narrow tubes everybody was clearly stoked at the adventure to come. The rain didn’t stop us from a fun walk through the narrow streets of Bergen where we scoped out the famous stand for the world’s best reindeer-hotdogs and the always bustling fish market at the pier. And then we all crashed, finally, in our hotel beds – to get ready for an active day tomorrow!

Travel abroad students with luggage at the airport.