Weekly Photo Challenge: Forward

Leif Erikson contemplates a Voyage of Discovery…

There is no real evidence that Eiriksson discovered America but his statue faces to the west as though in expectation of belated recognition for his achievement.  Today he looked out over Viking skies full of Nordic drama with mountainous clouds as big and as grey as a medieval cathedral.

Read the full story…

 

 

Review of the Year 2012

Please excuse me a self-indulgent blog to begin the new year.  The top ten most hit blog pages in 2012 on my Travel Blog have mostly surprised me but then I don’t understand how search engines work.  I say hit blog pages rather than read because I am neither conceited enough of sufficiently naive to claim that a hit equals a read.

In 2011 the blog recorded 151,493 hits and the upward trend continued until May when there were 17,845 in one month and I was optimistic that this number was just going to keep going up but then it stopped and fell back and has never recovered.  I have finished the year with 170,900 hits which is an increase of 13%.

A reason for this may be that I have been removing old posts and archiving them in a separate blog called ‘Another Bag, More Travel’.  The main blog was running out of space so being a skinflint and not wanting to pay for extra space this was my cunning solution.  This blog has recorded 43,600 hits so if I add them together then the annual increase on my travel blog pages is increased to 43% which is much more respectable.

This however is nowhere near as good as performance on my memories blog ‘New Light through Old Windows’ which has increased by 84% from 100,671 views in 2011 to 185,700 in 2012.

These are the Top Ten blogs of 2012:

No. 1 (for the second year running)

Norway, Haugesund and the Vikings.  

I travelled to Haugesund in January 2011 and visited a Viking monument and blogged about it.  This post has had 14,755 hits which is over 10,000 more than the post in second place.  Over 9,000 hits have been recorded from the single word ‘Vikings’ in various search engines!  I have concluded that this is because there are a lot of people using the search engines to find content about the Minnesota Vikings American Football Team and they are probably disappointed when they come across my page about a wintery day spent next to the North Sea in Norway. Without any shame I have exploited this opportunity by adding a paragraph about the Minnesota Vikings.

No. 2

Onyx UK and an Inappropriate Visit to the Moulin Rouge

Straight in at no. 2 with 4,416 hits.  I have written a few times about my recollections of working in waste management in the private sector in the 1990s.  All of the posts manage a respectable number of hits but this one gets the most.  I don’t suppose for one minute that people are interested in my stories of mismanagement, incompetence and rubbish collection but they do like to read about dancing on a nightclub stage in Paris.

No. 3

Krakow, Wieliczka Salt Mine

Dropping a place from last year at No 2 with 4,342 hits. I posted this in April 2010 after returning from a visit to Krakow in Poland.  It was a good trip but I am not sure why so many people would hit on it.  It is not as interesting as my trip to Auschwitz or the Crazy Mike Communist Tour.

No. 4

Norway, Europe’s most Expensive Country

3,975 hits and up from eighth to fourth place  This was a second blog about my trip to Haugesund in January 2011. It contains some interesting facts and figures which might explain the number of hits that it has received but I am not really convinced that this is the reason unless top European economists are using it for research purposes!

No. 5

Mount Vesuvius

3,326 hits and a second year in the Top Ten and up two places.  A bit of a surprise because this is the account of a day trip to Mount Vesuvius whilst on a holiday to Sorrento in 1976 with my dad.  From my memories of the same holiday I posted several blogs about visits to Capri, Naples, Pompeii, The Amalfi Drive and Rome but these have only achieved a handful of hits between them.

No. 6

Pula, Croatia

2,916 hits – twice as many as 2011.  A bit of a mystery to me how this one gets so many visits.  I have blogged two or three times about Roman Amphitheatres – Rome, Arles, Merida, Segobriga and about larger Croatian cities at Dubrovnik and Split but this one gets the hits and I don’t know why?  The Pula is the national currency of Botswana so perhaps they are intended as exchange rate enquiries?

No. 7

Royal Garden Party

2,625 hits and staying in the Top Ten despite dropping 3 places from last year at no. 4.  This one has always been popular especially around the Spring and Summer when invitations to the Royal Garden Party are going out and when people are wondering how to get one or what to wear if they have one.

No. 8

Travel Tips when Flying Budget Airlines

1,800 hits and new this year.  I first wrote on this subject in 2009 and it immediately started getting hundreds of hits and then in 2011 it just stopped completely.  I reviewed and reposted it and changed the title from the specific ‘Travel Tips when Flying Ryanair’ to the more general title that it has now and hey presto the hits started coming again.

No. 9

Onyx UK and the Dog Poo Solution

The third new entry in the Top Ten this year with 1,7066 hits and the second post about life in the Waste Management industry.  Some people have accused me of writing crap but others clearly like to read about it!

No. 10

Andrew – The About Page

The final new entry this year with 1,358 hits and which demonstrates the importance of an About page.

If you have read one of these posts or any of the 921 others on my site ‘Have Bag, Will Travel’, then Thank you very much!  I guess it proves that George Bailey (It’s A Wonderful Life) was right when he said:“The three most exciting sounds in the world are anchor chains, plane motors and train whistles.”  

Dropping out of the Top Ten this year were: The Colossus of Rhodes, Cofete Beach, Spartacus the Gladiator and Love Locks on the Ponte Vecchio

Around the World in Eighty Minutes – Part Eight

So, that’s it, I started off with a simple recollection post about EPCOT World Showcase at Disney World, Florida and then I took off around the World to compare Disney with the real places that I have visited.  I have taken a look at the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Norway and Morocco but I can’t post about Canada, Mexico, China or Japan because I haven’t been to those places yet.

In the course of writing, dragging up memories and doing some research I started to think more deeply about World Showcase and became intrigued by the rationale behind the concept, design and construction and in particular the reasons why these eleven countries in particular were chosen for inclusion in the park.

This is partly explained by the fact that the Walt Disney Corporation, strapped for cash, tried to find sponsors for the showcased countries and failed in all but one attempt – Morocco.  This in turn explains why some of the Pavilions are so disappointing, the absence of rides and attractions and the over reliance on shops and restaurants all designed to get visitors to part with their money.

But the failure to attract government sponsorship or private sector investment still leaves us with eleven countries and no explanation why these eleven so I have been giving the matter some thought and whilst at first the inclusion appears to be rather random I think there is a credible explanation for almost all of them.

The United States is of course obvious and requires no explanation for its inclusion or for the fact that it occupies the prime position on the World Showcase Lagoon and is the biggest and the most lavish and expensive of all the Pavilions.

  

Canada and Mexico are easily explained.  It would be rude I suppose not to have your nearest neighbours but there are some important statistics that reveal that it is not just about being neighbourly.  In terms of tourism by international visitors these two countries make up over half of all travellers visiting the United States and according to official data in 2011 Canada with over twenty-one million visitors provided 38% of all international visitors and Mexico with thirteen and a half million contributed 24%.  The inclusion of Mexico is even more easily explained by looking at population statistics that reveal that the second highest number of foreign born residents in the United States (by a very long way) is Mexican.

It is easy to see therefore that the inclusion of these two countries makes obvious commercial sense.  Strange however, and this is just a personal view, that the two Pavilions provide the contrast between the best (Mexico) and one of the worst (Canada).

   

And so we move on to Europe with five of the eleven Pavilions coming from the second smallest continent but why these five, why not Spain or Greece, Poland or Sweden and once again I am convinced that it is based on US ethnic ancestry and visitor numbers.

In terms of ancestry the top ten European nationalities (in this order) are Germany, Ireland, England, Italy, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland and Sweden.  Germany (at 17%) genuinely surprised me and explained immediately why it is at World Showcase but (at almost 11%) why no Ireland? Why Norway and not Sweden? I suppose Poland, at the time of construction, was part of the Warsaw Pact alliance and that might have ruled it out but why not Holland because surely all of those windmills and canals would have made a great attraction.

Visitor numbers also explain why these countries are here because four of the five (but not Norway) are in the top ten of international visitors to the United States.

  

Japan and China must be explained by visitor numbers.  After Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom Japan contributes the fourth most visitors to the United States and China is firmly in the top ten. Conversely, in the top ten but not represented at EPCOT are Brazil, South Korea and Australia.

Of all the countries at the EPCOT World Showcase I suppose the easiest to explain is Morocco and this is in part due to the fact that the Pavilion was the only one in which the country’s government aided in the construction and they did this so that they could retain some measure of Islamist control over the design of the mosaics and to ensure that everything was as authentic as possible in the representation of the Muslim faith.

I cynically conclude that any country could potentially be included if the government of that country was prepared to stump up the cash.

So who is missing?  Well, there is nothing from South America but the United Kingdom itself provides more visitors to the USA than the whole of Latin America combined so perhaps there is a clue there?  And apart from state funded Morocco there is nothing from Africa which might be considered surprising when 13% of the US population are of African descent but (and here is the crucial commercial factor) visitor numbers from the African continent are the smallest of all at only three hundred and twenty-seven thousand in 2011.  There is a small African Trading Post and Disney excuses the omission by pointing out that there is an entire African themed park at the nearby Animal Kingdom.

Finally, I have been giving some consideration to an alternative World Showcase and here are my suggestions:

  

First, Australia with an IMAX film narrated by Rolf Harris and Kylie Minogue.  Russia  because now the Cold War is ended there must surely be space for Red Square and the Kremlin.  Brazil, with a ride based on the Rio Carnival.  Peru because Machu Picchu would be a good replacement for the Mexico Aztec pyramid. Egypt with a Nile Cruise ride.  India and a train journey ride to visit the Taj Mahal and the Golden Temple of Amritsar.  Equatorial Africa, which was once suggested but abandoned.  And from Europe:  Greece with a visit to Mount Olympus to meet the mythical gods; Spain and the legend of El Cid and the Conquistadors and the Netherlands with a cruise of the Amsterdam canals (leaving out the red light district as not being entirely appropriate).

And finally, wouldn’t it be fun to include the World’s smallest sovereign state – The Vatican – with a roller coaster ride around St Peter’s Basilica!

  

Whoops, Sorry, I nearly forgot Ireland, lets have twelve countries (it’s my list and my rules) and let’s  have a visit to the Giant’s Causeway.

Please let me know your suggestions, I would be interested in your views…

Freshly Pressed

WordPress seem to go to a lot of trouble to convince users that ‘Freshly Pressed’ is fair, impartial and based on critical selection.

Consider this then from a blog page I chanced upon…

It has been interesting to look back over 2012 to see which posts were the most popular. Bagni di Lucca and Beyond has been Freshly Pressed twice this year, which has been great fun. Thank you WordPress for choosing.

It is a nice blog but it isn’t brilliant (sorry).

I say no more…

Around the World in Eighty Minutes – Part Five, Norway

The Disney Website simply introduces Norway with the words “Welcome to the land of the Vikings!”

Disney of course had a Wooden Longboat and a shop that sold Viking helmets based on the traditional image of the Norsemen but whilst we tend to retain the school boy image of them it actually becomes increasingly evident that Viking society was quite complex and popular conceptions of them are often in conflict with the truth that emerges from archaeology and modern research.

A romanticized picture of Vikings as noble savages began to take root in the eighteenth century and this developed and became widely propagated for over a hundred years.  The traditional view of the Vikings as violent brutes and intrepid adventurers are part true, part fable but no one can be absolutely sure of the accurate ratio and popular representations of these men in horned helmets remain for now highly clichéd.

In Florida in October the sun was permanently shining and the Viking story was played out under blue skies but I visited Haugesund in Norway in January and this was a very bleak experience.  On an especially depressing morning, the city crippled under the weight of a leaden grey sky, we set out in a northerly direction along the black granite coast towards Haugesund’s most famous visitor attraction, the Haroldshaugen Norges Riksmonument a couple of kilometres outside of the city.

At EPCOT the Norway Maelstrom ride is on water with the occasional splashes that leave a few damp patches on your summer clothes but Norway in January in the rain and drizzle is a much more authentic getting wet experience!  We joined a handful of local people in brightly coloured ‘North Face’ kagools and hiking boots who were wandering along the coast line cinder path stopping occasionally for no apparent reason to stop and stare out into the grey nothingness of the North Sea.

We found the monument and it struck me as a bit strange for an Anglo-Saxon to be visiting a monument that commemorates the Viking Age and a starting off point for longships full of heathen bullies on their way across the North Sea to rape and pillage a part of England where I now live.

Disney and the Real Thing

   

Haraldshaugen was erected during the millennial celebration of Norway’s unification into one kingdom under the rule of King Harald I and was unveiled on July 18^th 1872 by Crown Prince Oscar to commemorate the one thousand year anniversary of the Battle of Hafrsfjord. Truthfully I found it a bit disappointing I have to say, a seventeen metre high granite obelisk surrounded by a memorial stones in a Stonehenge sort of way, next to an deserted car park, a closed visitor centre and an empty vending machine but I’m sure I am being unfair because places such as these are not really meant to be visited on a cold, wet day in January.

We walked back along the same route and into the suburbs of the city which felt rather like a deciduous tree coping with winter; existing, hibernating, waiting and watching for the first signs of spring.  The people with pale complexions, weary streets, grass burned brown by frost and houses battered and besieged and firmly closed to the outside world, a city beaten to the edge of submission by winter and still only part way through.

By contrast, in Florida in October we left Norway with the sun beating down and moved on to China…

 

Read the full story of the Minnesota Vikings…

Around the World in Eighty Minutes – Part One

“Taking a trip around the world can be easier than you’d think at Walt Disney World’s Epcot World Showcase. Visitors can drink a margarita in Mexico, eat traditional German bratwurst in Germany and encounter Norwegian trolls in Norway, all within a few steps of each other. Eleven countries are represented in the showcase, each with a wide variety of food, rides, attractions, shopping and culture that can only be experienced Disney-style.”                                          USA TODAY (Angela DeFini)

Whilst it is true to say that I almost certainly wouldn’t go back again, twenty-five years ago I did enjoy three trips to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida in the USA.  The memory of these visits has mostly disappeared into a blur of credit card debt, white knuckle rides, the quicksand of commercialism and the exploitation by the Disney machine but one experience that I do remember was a visit to the World Showcase at EPCOT.

EPCOT, it has to be said, is an odd place – at the same time both intriguing and disappointing.  It was the vision of Walt Disney himself to build a new 20^th century city but after he died the Disney Corporation accountants gained control, declared it too expensive and everything was downsized until it became nothing more than an add-on theme park to Magic Kingdom without any of the investment.

Without Walt, Disney tried to turn it into a future world experience but couldn’t help sliding back into the present when they built World Showcase which promotes eleven countries from around the World. Eleven itself seems a strange number and I can’t help thinking why not ten or twelve which seems to make a lot more sense in a logical sort of way.

We entered World Showcase from Future World and for no real reason took a clockwise route around the countries and started with Mexico.  The entrance into the Aztec temple of Quetzalcoatl was through a display of ethnic artwork and then into the main exhibition, a twilight-lit Mexican marketplace, Plaza de los Amigos with a Mariachi band playing folk music next to a restaurant, the San Ángel Inn, overlooking an indoor lagoon and a boarding area leading to a boat ride El Rio del Tiempo which carried us on a slow boat ride through various scenes from Mexico’s history with audio-animatronic figures clad in authentic folk clothing, singing, dancing, and playing music.

We enjoyed our visit to Mexico and looked forward to more rides around the World.

Next we were transported to Scandinavia and to Norway which is designed to look like a traditional village that includes a detailed Stave church and a replica Viking longboat but then there was a restaurant and here things started to deteriorate because much of Norway was simply shops decorated with large wooden trolls and selling assorted Norwegian goods, including clothing, sweets and a bakery featuring assorted pastries. Luckily however not at traditional Norwegian prices!

But after the shops there was a water ride that took us back to a mythological version of Norway’s Viking days. Boats passed through scenes of seafarers and Vikings and then through an enchanted swamp and was then forced backwards down a waterfall by angry trolls. The boats floated rapidly past scenes of polar bears and living trees, before coming to a stop on the edge of another waterfall and after again rotating to a forward-facing position plunged down into the stormy North Sea then passed dangerously close to an oil rig before coming to an abrupt end in a calm harbour and after that there was an obligatory film about the history and folklore of Norway.

Next came China which we entered through a large gate that reminded me of China Town in London into a courtyard dominated by a replica of the Temple of Heaven, which contained the entrance to a Circle-Vision 360° film exploring China’s history and scenery, as well as a museum containing several ancient Chinese artefacts.  Decorated with ponds and crossed by bridges the courtyard was inevitably bordered by shops selling Chinese merchandise and two Chinese restaurants.

After three countries I was beginning to get both disappointed and bored in equal measures!

It was back to Europe next and on to Germany which was designed to look like a typical German town but with architecture from different eras and regions which made it all rather comical. The Platz was decorated with a statue of St. George and the Dragon and a clock tower and the Biergarten, at the rear of the courtyard, sold traditional German food. The pavilion also had inevitable shops selling German goods, including dolls and cuckoo clocks and outside adjacent to the pavilion was decorated by an extensive model village with working model trains.

Germany was a real let down and this is because the original design of the pavilion included a boat ride along the River Rhine that was to have focused on German folklore, in a similar way to the Mexico and Norway rides. According to the Walt Disney Company’s 1976 annual report, the ride was to be “a cruise down Germany’s most famous rivers — the Rhine, the Tauber, the Ruhr and the Isar. Detailed miniatures of famous landmarks will also be seen, including one of the Cologne Cathedral.”

Though the building was built, Disney did not complete the ride construction by opening day. It was announced to be part of “phase two” of expansion but to cut costs, Disney dropped all phase two attractions and decided that any expansion projects would only be allowed if a host country funded for it. Germany declined and the ride was never completed.

We stayed in Europe for the next stop which was Italy where the Disney interpretation featured a plaza surrounded by a collection of buildings rather badly resembling Venetian, Florentine, and Roman architecture. Venetian architecture is represented by a re-creation of St Mark’s Campanile and a replica of the Doge’s Palace

The original plans for the pavilion called for an expansion that would be built in Epcot’s “Phase II” of construction, thus leaving a wall with nothing behind it at the rear of the pavilion. The expansion would have included a gondola dark ride and a Roman ruins walk-through. When “Phase II” was cancelled, the pavilion was left incomplete and later franchised to a pizza restaurant chain.

Surely the USA attraction would have a ride?  Sadly not! Instead “The American Adventure”  is a colonial-style mansion based on the architecture of Independence Hall, Boston’s Old State House, Monticello and Colonial Williamsburg surrounded by gardens planted in hues of red, white and blue and with rose varieties all named for U.S. Presidents. It took us on a trip through America’s history narrated by Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain and was little more than an outrageous show of unashamed  jingoism designed to make everyone else in the World feel grateful and inferior.

“Mr. Twain, pride is one of our nation’s passions.”                                                       Benjamin Franklin - The American Adventure

The show was presented in an auditorium with sets and characters rising out from the stage floor to represent scenes from different historical periods and the characters provided skewed historical insight into American life of the past through conversations in which they discussed the current events of their time all of which left me desperate to move on.

To Japan. The Japan pavilion is one of the original World Showcase attractions and had been in planning since the late 1970s. Many attractions have been proposed for the pavilion and one show building was built, but left unused because management thought that the Japanese film’s omission of World War II might upset many Veterans and it was dropped. The whole experience was becoming tedious but at least there was some entertainment in Japan and there were some traditional Japanese Matsuriza drummers who performed a time-honoured form of very noisy drumming.

By this time I was beginning to wish it would all end but there were still four countries left to go beginning with Morocco.  The Moroccan Pavilion, designed to look like a Moroccan city with a realistic Minaret, features the only pavilion in which the country’s government aided in the design. Guests to the pavilion are supposed to gain an insight on the lifestyle and culture of the Moroccan people through the Gallery of Arts and History and the Fes House showed what was supposed to be a typical Moroccan house but since going to EPCOT I have been to Morocco and I can tell you that it is about as authentic as powdered egg!

And so to France which had another boring film about how wonderful the place is and some external sets representing Paris with authenticity provide by men in striped shirts and berets playing the accordion.  My only recollection is that I was seriously underwhelmed!

Next to France was the United Kingdom, designed to look like a typical British village with shops, thatched cottages and gardens. The shops sold British goods, such as tea, toys, clothing, and Beatles merchandise. I was fed up with it all by now and bypassed Hampton Court and the Cotswold village and aimed for The Rose & Crown Pub which at least served English beer.  I ordered a pint and so did an American guest but he took one sip and his face distorted in agony at the taste (English beer has flavour whereas American beers do not), he said ‘What the hell is that?” and slammed it down on the bar and left.  I was tempted to take it but the bar staff, obviously used to this reaction, swiftly took it away and poured it down the sink.

Thankfully it was nearly all over and only one country left – Canada.  Sadly after the colourful entrance of totem poles and ethnic art all that there was another boring 360° film about the great outdoors and now I was really ready to leave.

Disney World Showcase might be better now (my visit was twenty years ago) but my assessment is that this was the worst attraction in my fourteen day holiday to Florida – and that includes Gatorland!

Norway – an Impressive World Performer

One of the reasons that we have tended to avoid travelling to Scandinavia is because of the notoriously high cost of living and the lofty prices relative to southern and eastern Europe. Read on…

Norway, Haugesund Museum

On the way back it started to rain again so we quickened our pace and returned to the hotel and made for the tea machine and the television lounge.  Twelve o’clock was checking out time so we completed the formalities and then wondered what to do.  The city museum, that was closed yesterday, was open from midday today but I couldn’t persuade Kim to step out in the drizzle for a second time so I left her in the comfy chair next to the log fire that was crackling in the grate and went back out by myself.

Read the full story…

Norway, Haugesund and When Vikings Ruled The World

Sure enough, in the morning, it was still steadily raining and over the first cup of tea of the day there developed an awful realisation that this might turn into a ‘killing off time’ sort of day.  We took our time getting ready for the day and then stretched breakfast out for as long as we realistically could and discussed our rather limited choices.  I could read but Kim hadn’t brought a book with her and she wasn’t excited by my spare one which was a rather heavy going ‘history of modern Spain’ so that meant that a library sort of morning also seemed to be ruled out.

As we lamented the weather and talked through the options however the rain started to ease off and by half past ten, although it had not stopped completely it was at last possible to go outside.

It was another depressing morning, the city crippled under the weight of a leaden grey sky, as we set out in a northerly direction along the black granite coast towards Huagesund’s most famous visitor attraction, the Haroldshaugen Norges Riksmonument a couple of kilometres outside of the city.  We joined a handful of local people in brightly coloured ‘North Face’ kagools and hiking boots who were wandering along the coast line cinder path stopping occasionally for no apparent reason than to stare out into the grey nothingness of the North Sea.

We found the monument and it struck me as rather strange for an Anglo-Saxon to be visiting a monument that commemorates the Viking Age and a starting off point for longships full of heathen bullies on their way across the North Sea to rape and pillage a part of England where I now live.

 

The Vikings were Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe and the North Atlantic from the late eighth to the mid eleventh century.  These Norsemen used their famous longships to travel as far east as Russia, as far west as Newfoundland and as far south as modern Spain in a period known as the Viking Age.

Whilst we tend to retain the school boy image of them it actually becomes increasingly evident that Viking society was quite complex and popular conceptions of them are often in conflict with the truth that emerges from archaeology and modern research.  A romanticized picture of Vikings as noble savages began to take root in the eighteenth century and this developed and became widely propagated for over a hundred years.  The traditional view of the Vikings as violent brutes and intrepid adventurers are part true, part fable and although if these guys paid a visit it is probably true to say that you probably wouldn’t want to put a welcome mat by the front door or get the best china out, no one can be absolutely sure of the accurate ratio and popular representations of these men in horned helmets remain for now highly clichéd.

Norsemen from Greenland and Iceland were the first Europeans to reach North America in what is today Newfoundland, Canada when Leif Ericson reached the Continent via Norse settlements in Greenland around the year 1000.  Nearly a thousand years later many Norwegian immigrants went to the United States primarily in the second half of the nineteenth and the first few decades of the twentieth century. According to the most recent United States census there are more than four and a half million Norwegian Americans and most live in the Upper Midwest and currently comprise the tenth largest American ancestry group.

In Minnesota, 868,361 Minnesotans claim Norwegian ancestry, 16.5% of the population of the State.  No wonder then that in professional football the team from Minneapolis was officially named the Minnesota Vikings on September 27^th 1960; the name is partly meant to reflect Minnesota’s importance as a center of Scandinavian American culture.

The association between Vikings and sport is not surprising because physical strength, speed, resilience and endurance were important qualities for a Viking. As in the USA, England has its own Vikings with the Widnes Vikings Rugby League Football Club.  Widnes was one of the original twenty-two rugby clubs that formed the Northern Rugby Football Union in 1895, making them one of the world’s first rugby league teams. Their traditional nickname is ‘The Chemics’ after the main industry in Widnes, but the club now generally use their more modern nickname.

Haraldshaugen was erected during the millennial celebration of Norway’s unification into one kingdom under the rule of King Harald I and was unveiled on July 18^th 1872 by Crown Prince Oscar to commemorate the one thousand year anniversary of the Battle of Hafrsfjord. Truthfully I found it a bit disappointing I have to say, a seventeen metre high granite obelisk surrounded by a memorial stones in a Stonehenge sort of way, next to an deserted car park, a closed visitor centre and an empty vending machine but I’m sure I am being unfair because places such as these are not really meant to be visited on a cold, wet day in January.

We walked back along the same route and into the suburbs of the city which felt a bit like a deciduous tree coping with winter; existing, hibernating, waiting and watching for the first signs of spring.  The people with pale complexions, weary streets, grass burned brown by frost and houses battered and besieged and firmly closed to the outside world, a city beaten to the edge of submission by winter and still only part way through.

Reyjkavik, Vikings and Explorers

Norway, Bjørge Lillelien, Football and Winter Weather

The rain showed no sign of easing off so we settled in to an afternoon of sport on the satellite television which was promising a full afternoon of English Premier League football.  I sampled the first can of Frydenlund and was pleased to discover that it was very nice indeed and then sat down for the match.

Read the full story…