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Day visits in Scandinavia, suggestions?

Which company did you cruise with?

I do cruises. In fact, I got back from an RCI cruise just 9 days ago, France and Spain.

On drinks packages. Someone has to drink an awful lot in general, or drink the very pricey stuff for a drinks package to be good value at least on RCI. I would have needed to drink 10 cans of guinness or 10 bottles of corona/Bud etc every day, and my wife drink 9 x gin and tonic just to break even.

Next one is with P&O on the Ventura. 14 nights.
 
ks.234 said:
Just back from the cruise, a good time was had and many thanks for all the excellent suggestions of places to go. Only managed a few due to time constraints, but a good time was had.

I did have a weird experience though, and wondered if it was a known thing. Walking up some circular stairs in the National Gallery in Copenhagen it felt like the building was swaying and I felt decidedly woozy. Thought I was coming down with something but after a sit down and a coffee decided I was just suffering from boat~lag.

Same thing happened in next two stops.

Is this a common thing among cruisers?
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Can’t speak for others but not for me and I’ve spent a few years at sea.
 
ks.234 said:
Just back from the cruise, a good time was had and many thanks for all the excellent suggestions of places to go. Only managed a few due to time constraints, but a good time was had.

I did have a weird experience though, and wondered if it was a known thing. Walking up some circular stairs in the National Gallery in Copenhagen it felt like the building was swaying and I felt decidedly woozy. Thought I was coming down with something but after a sit down and a coffee decided I was just suffering from boat~lag.

Same thing happened in next two stops.

Is this a common thing among cruisers?
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It happened to me at an art gallery in Amsterdam, and I hadn’t even been cruising (or drinking or smoking). It was as if the floor was undulating slowly. I had to leave after a while because it was making me so dizzy. Once outside, the feeling stopped.
 
Joe Hutch said:
It happened to me at an art gallery in Amsterdam, and I hadn’t even been cruising (or drinking or smoking). It was as if the floor was undulating slowly. I had to leave after a while because it was making me so dizzy. Once outside, the feeling stopped.
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Yes. I do think my symptoms were also due to a slightly asthmatic sensitivity to recycled air
 
Dear KS,

I am glad you had grand experiences in Scandi. My Mother was Norwegian, and I had the joy of visiting my grandparents in Norway from 1962 to 2000 at least every second year.

I have seen the sights, and yet it was like visiting local attractions for me. The Viking Ship Museum. Kon Tiki, Fram, Holmenkoln, Akerhus ... Rjukan [Heavy Water Plant] and so on ...

I am glad you you have had pleasure in my Mother's homeland. More important is that we in the UK could learn a lot from the Norwegian Political culture. Not perfect, but far more enlightened than ours or indeed most others, if I may be so bold to say so.

Best wishes from George Fredrik F J

PS: Been on ships and ferries to Norway several times. Never had sea-sickness or subsequent land-sickness, but that may be a genetic immunity!
 
George J said:
Dear KS,

I am glad you had grand experiences in Scandi. My Mother was Norwegian, and I had the joy of visiting my grandparents in Norway from 1962 to 2000 at least every second year.

I have seen the sights, and yet it was like visiting local attractions for me. The Viking Ship Museum. Kon Tiki, Fram, Holmenkoln, Akerhus ... Rjukan [Heavy Water Plant] and so on ...

I am glad you you have had pleasure in my Mother's homeland. More important is that we in the UK could learn a lot from the Norwegian Political culture. Not perfect, but far more enlightened than ours or indeed most others, if I may be so bold to say so.

Best wishes from George Fredrik F J

PS: Been on ships and ferries to Norway several times. Never had sea-sickness or subsequent land-sickness, but that may be a genetic immunity!
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Many thanks, it was a good trip. Would love to go back and have more time to explore Oslo some more. We only had time for the Opera House, Munch and the Castle, really would like to see the Viking ship and more of the history and get to know more about the political culture, which as you say, seems to be a model we could learn much from.
 
Dear KS,

My first visit to the Fram Museum was in 1973, and I developed a lifelong interest in Polar exploration as a result. Amundsen was a chancer in many ways, but an absolute genius at risk assessment and planning. Almost genius, but that is an over-used word. However Greig WAS a genius.

As this is a hifi and music forum, although the off-topic area rival the kit section, may I suggest you investigate the music for Peer Gynt, for which Grieg wrote the music and Munch devised the sets! Albeit that was in Copenhagen, initially.

When I visited the Munch Museum there were three [different coloured] versions of the Scream on display, before the grand theft of the main one. I do believe it has been recovered.

My Aunt has an original Munch in her stairway, being a draft of a painting called "Death" in which a lady corpse lies eighteen inches above her deathbed. Not big, but certainly unique. In the family from being done.

Best wishes from George
 
George J said:
Dear KS,

My first visit to the Fram Museum was in 1973, and I developed a lifelong interest in Polar exploration as a result. Amundsen was a chancer in many ways, but an absolute genius at risk assessment and planning. Almost genius, but that is an over-used word. However Greig WAS a genius.

As this is a hifi and music forum, although the off-topic area rival the kit section, may I suggest you investigate the music for Peer Gynt, for which Grieg wrote the music and Munch devised the sets! Albeit that was in Copenhagen, initially.

When I visited the Munch Museum there were three [different coloured] versions of the Scream on display, before the grand theft of the main one. I do believe it has been recovered.

My Aunt has an original Munch in her stairway, being a draft of a painting called "Death" in which a lady corpse lies eighteen inches above her deathbed. Not big, but certainly unique. In the family from being done.

Best wishes from George
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On another level, we spent a pleasant hour at the very top of the Munch Museum listening to music by black metal band Satyricon inspired by Munch. Big room, very dark, with some of Munch more somber paintings on display. Could’ve done with some decent HiFi but very nice.

When we went there were 3 different version of Scream, but only one was on display at a time due to preserving them from light
 
George J said:
Dear KS,



PS: Been on ships and ferries to Norway several times. Never had sea-sickness or subsequent land-sickness, but that may be a genetic immunity!
Click to expand...
That’s right George, generations of your forebears were comin over here pillaging and plundering in those shallow draught long ships. All the vomiting propensity must have been selected out. I just want you to know if your relatives there are considering doing it again that we’ll be ready for them, we won’t be cowering in brochs. If a single Nog steps ashore trying to reclaim Rothesay Castle, I’ll bottle him.

I believe the then Labour Foreign Secretary was given this to read during the Icelandic cod war. After reading it, it’s reported he said “we’ll never beat them”-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_People
 
ks.234 said:
On another level, we spent a pleasant hour at the very top of the Munch Museum listening to music by black metal band Satyricon inspired by Munch. Big room, very dark, with some of Munch more somber music on display. Could’ve done with some decent HiFi but very nice.

When we went there were 3 different version of Scream, but only one was on display at a time due to preserving them from light
Click to expand...


You may well imagine that I never had that experience! Sadly I have never been to a concert in Norway. This, due in large part to my grandmother's own experience. Her parents were very cultured musical people. My great grandfather [Ivar Fiske] played a Bach Partita to me on violin in 1966. Not all amateur violinists could play a Bach Partita!

So while my grandmother grew up in a musical and widely cultured home, while she was in courtship with my grandfather, she thought she would treat him with an Oslo recital by the great Polish pianist Ignaz Friedman [in 1939], and he got her to promise her never to take him to another concert. Sadly, she apparently never attended another concert in her life.

My grandfather was not a complete monster, in fact he is someone I admire to this day, but my grandmother only told me this story after he died. Marriage was a different sort of thing eighty years ago.

Your thread has brought back lovely memories for me. Thanks.

Best wishes from George
 
Spraggons Den said:
@Sonority great pictures - always thought Stockholm and Oslo look like they are from another world rather than a few hundred miles across the North Sea.

Never been lucky enough myself to go to Scandinavia but apart from KS’s sojourn I only know of one tale from that part of the world. I remember a mate telling me what happened to him during a work trip to Copenhagen. He’s always been a bit of a night owl and managed to find a late opening bar to carrying on drinking. The music and chatter stopped as he entered the bar, the serving staff suddenly froze apart from the shaking of their heads. Out of the gloom and cigarette haze, a biker/heavy metal type strode over, pulled out a knife and put it against my mates throat. He was trying to explain he was English and the chap with the knife must be suffering from a case of mistaken identity when there was a lot of shouting and another biker/HM type appeared and pushed blade man to the floor only to then pull out a gun and put it to my mates temple. He said he heard the cock of the hammer beside his temple.

Put me off a bit.
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Probably stumbled on a bit of Hells Angels action. It's quite the thing in Scandi.
 
I had a mildly amusing experience in a supermarket in Copenhagen last year.

Ahead of me in the queue for the one checkout were, at the front, three mildly tipsy young women. Next in line, just ahead of me, was a young-ish, smartly dressed man. The cashier accidentally added the bloke’s three items to the young womens’ bill. They were saying ‘It’s OK, we don’t mind paying’, but the bloke got all het up, and said firmly ‘No! It is very much not OK!’.

The cashier was unable to sort out the mix-up, and called her supervisor over. The young women had a fit of the giggles, while the man stood there stony faced. Finally all was resolved and I got through the checkout OK.

When I left the shop, the three women were still laughing about the whole thing.
 
Joe Hutch said:
I had a mildly amusing experience in a supermarket in Copenhagen last year.

Ahead of me in the queue for the one checkout were, at the front, three mildly tipsy young women. Next in line, just ahead of me, was a young-ish, smartly dressed man. The chaser accidentally
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Sounds like a typical Scandi thriller with a cliffhanger ending... ;-)
 
TheDecameron said:
That’s right George, generations of your forebears were comin over here pillaging and plundering in those shallow draught long ships. All the vomiting propensity must have been selected out. I just want you to know if your relatives there are considering doing it again that we’ll be ready for them, we won’t be cowering in brochs. If a single Nog steps ashore trying to reclaim Rothesay Castle, I’ll bottle him.

I believe the then Labour Foreign Secretary was given this to read during the Icelandic cod war. After reading it, it’s reported he said “we’ll never beat them”-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_People
Click to expand...
Dear Dec,

It is important to remember that the founding stock of Iceland were too rough to be allowed to stay in Norway as Vikings! The toughest of the rather tough.

BUT and it is huge but. The Vikings, be they Danes, Swedes or Norsk, were above all else traders. They settled in the territories they infiltrated, and for a short while dominated. Go to Lincolnshire and do a DNA test on the average local, and it will show thirty or forty per cent Norwegian origins.

The local lasses clearly had no problem will their invaders. Vikings never let women on the warships ... However it must be said, Viking females had high chances of being in the highest social classes and often very powerful while their menesker were away creating fear and trade.

The most famous Viking ship - the Gokstad ship- was the burial tomb of a lady. It was a ceremonial ship and not particularly seaworthy. A good ship to cruise the fjord or coast-line in fair weather. For such a ship to be built for a lady says a lot about how ancient Norsk Viking culture valued its women.

They were not the savages that the much defeated Anglo-Saxons would like to portray them, but they were fierce, and if anyone thinks that went away, remember that in the Nazi occupation [1940-45] it took 300,000 Werhmacht and Luftwaffe to pacify only thee million Norwegians. Goebells noted that if they will never love us, they will certainly learn to respect us.

Norway may be be small, but she is fierce! Putin better not put one Russian Federation boot on Norwegian turf.

Best wishes from George
 
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George J said:
Dear Dec,

It is important to remember that the founding stock of Iceland were the too rough to be allowed to stay in Norway as Vikings! The toughest of the rather tough.

BUT and it is huge but. The Vikings, be they Danes, Swedes or Norsk, were above all else traders. They settled in the territories they infiltrated, and for a short while dominated. Go to Lincolnshire and do a DNA test on the average local, and it will show thirty or forty per cent Norwegian origins.

The local lasses clearly had no problem will their invaders. Vikings never let women on the warships ... However it must be said, Viking females had high chances of being in the highest social classes and often very powerful while their menesker were away creating fear and trade.

The most famous Viking ship - the Gokstad ship- was the burial tomb of a lady. It was a ceremonial ship and not particularly seaworthy. A good ship to cruise the fjord or coast-line in fair weather. For such a ship to be built for a lady says a lot about how ancient Norsk Viking culture valued its women.

They were not the savages that the much defeated Anglo-Saxons would like to portray them, but they were fierce, and if anyone thinks that went away, remember that in the Nazi occupation [1940-45] it took 300,000 Werhmacht and Luftwaffe to pacify only thee million Norwegians. Goebells noted that if they will never love us, they will certainly learn to respect us.

Norway may be be small, but she is fierce! Putin better not put one Russian Federation boot on Norwegian turf.

Best wishes from George
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There are “rumours” of a Viking longship under the pub car park around the corner from where I live in Wirral.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6986986.stm
https://www.wirralarchaeology.org/pages/project/the-boat-beneath-the-car-park/
 
ks.234 said:
On another level, we spent a pleasant hour at the very top of the Munch Museum listening to music by black metal band Satyricon inspired by Munch. Big room, very dark, with some of Munch more somber paintings on display. Could’ve done with some decent HiFi but very nice.

When we went there were 3 different version of Scream, but only one was on display at a time due to preserving them from light
Click to expand...
When's your next cruise,?
 
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