Last blog from Norway!

Today's blog is dedicated to my great uncle Ron who passed away yesterday. He was a wonderful man who used to tease me about everything but I will always remember him for asking me every time he saw me to get him a permit to fish in the aquarium. He read my blog when he was able to do so and it was good to know that I was providing some entertainment for him. Thoughts and love go out to all the family.

Yesterday was Constitution Day here in Norway. As I think I mentioned previously this is the celebration of independence from Sweden in 1814 and the establishment of a constitution for Norway. It is celebrated with parades for all the children through their towns and city centres. This year's parade in Levanger was the biggest ever as the parade included all the school children from the outlying areas as part of the celebrations for 1000 years since Levanger was established. The weather did not play along but Charles and I still got dressed up and walked into town to watch the parade. It was freezing cold and raining but fun to watch anyway. I felt really sorry for the kids at times because they, unlike us, could not shelter under umbrellas. It was nice to see a lot of the ladies in the crowd dressed in their traditional clothes and the men (Charles too) in suits and ties. Below are some photos from the parade.












The children's parade seemed to go on forever but as soon as it seemed to start ending, we walked back home. By that time I was frozen and was really looking forward to a hot cup of tea. Along the way, there were Norwegian flags everywhere ... from the houses, to the bridge to the historical buildings.




As soon as we got home the kettle was on and then tea and coffee were made. We celebrated the day by eating marzipan cake decorated appropriately for the day.

In the afternoon the weather cleared enough for us to go for a little walk along the edge of the fjord.



Originally we had planned to go to Trondheim today but after looking at what sights we could see there we decided that we had already seen most of the good stuff so took a drive up to Steinkjer again. This time we didn't just go shopping but we visited a few cultural sights too.

The first up was Skeifeltet. This is the largest burial site in North Trondelag. It was really confusing trying to find it but we were lucky and did find it in the end. It consists of three monument stones placed on mounds. It is a strange little place that is not well marked and has 2 little signs telling very little about the place.

The views of the farm lands around these relics were beautiful.


The next stop was the Bølareinen or the Bøla reindeer. This is one of Europe's most well known stone carvings and dates back to the early stone age between 5000 and 6000 years ago. it is, as the name says, of a reindeer. There was also a lovely waterfall there. The place has a restaurant and souvenir shop but these were closed and we were the only visitors.



Our final relic visit was to the Stone Ship which is located in the grounds of the Tingvold Park Hotel. This is another burial site that dates from 600 to 1030 AD. The symbolism behind the shape of the burial stones is that the "ship" would take the souls of the departed Vikings to another world. It is a very beautiful setting in the hotel's gardens.


That was the end of our cultural experience and we returned back to the present by going shopping at the electronics shop in Steinkjer - my favourite shop :-) After those needs were seen to we returned to Levanger. The sun was out and the countryside was looking gorgeous!



Tomorrow is my last day in Norway. I can't believe the time has gone so quickly! It has been really good and I have seen some amazing things. Tomorrow will be spent doing some last minute shopping and packing my suitcase. My flight to Amsterdam is really early on Friday so I will be up at 3am to shower and go to the airport. It will be a long day but I do have seeing Jo and Diets in Jo'burg to look forward to when I get there late on Friday night. Then it will be a short flight home to Durban on Saturday afternoon and back to reality ... and my little kitty!

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