VALHALLA BOUND- Part 4 (The last)

 

The fourth and final leg of the trek to the hall involved a cruise. The departure point was Bergen and our ports of call over the twelve day journey would include Eidfjord, Stavanger, Kristiansand and Oslo (all within Norway) followed by Gothenberg (Sweden), Alborg (Denmark), Berlin and finally Copenhagen.

Bergen was a revelation. Deceptively large, the joint was busy, beautiful and, in certain areas, boisterous. Its links to trade were obvious given the location and it had formed an important part of the Hanseatic League centuries ago. There were boats of all types in the harbour when we were there and it was quite a show.

The galleries and museums were tops. We walked around Bergen Art Museum uninterrupted. I think that at one stage we were the only ones there. Munch, Picasso, Klee and Christensen were all represented. Installations were in the city’s parks and Kerry and I, on our second night, walked in on a classical guitar performance happening in an old (I think ‘defrocked’) church. Hundreds of locals were present. These people must do such stuff all the time. Fuck!

The cruise was very good. It allowed us to cover a fair amount of territory around Scandinavia in a relatively short time. The Viking Sky was reasonably big. It carried 900 passengers with an equal number of crew. There were no casinos and no sprogs on this one and that suited me just fine………. and Kerry too. Food and drink were top-shelf and there was more than enough to do each evening when the ship was on the hop.

The only negative thing about this last phase of the journey to meet Odin lay in the fact that 898 yanks had the same idea. Don’t get me wrong. My experience with Americans over the decades has been positive and these punters on the boat were all friendly. But they looked and sounded the same. All white, all husband/ wife combos, all ex white-collared toilers and all ‘wide-eyed’……at least in appearance. Affirmative, I am aware of the hypocrisy of yours truly when making those generalisations. Mealtimes in the restaurants on board resembled a Howdy Doody revival meeting with cries of ‘Oh my gosh’ and ‘Absolutely!’ echoing around the poop decks and lift wells incessantly. For reference, the composition of the guests was in complete contrast to the diversity of the crew. I’ll wager that every continent, city and neighbourhood McDonald’s from the civilised and chaotic worlds was represented in the black pants brigade.

You do encounter some weird stuff in Norway. We were on a bus tour to Voringsfossen waterfall just outside of Eidfjord. As you’d expect, tunnels are a recurring feature of road travel in the fjord areas. Our bus enters a very large tunnel after crossing a spectacular bridge and a couple of hundred metres into the ‘cave’ our road meets another tunnel and guess what? There’s a bloody roundabout. Here we are in the middle of a Norwegian mountain and the evergreen Oz speed controller/ manager still comes into play.

Zig zag au go go in Norway

On occasions, issues with size seem unimportant.

Vigeland Park in Oslo had a nudist party happening. Bloody disturbing.

 

After the cruise was completed, we bunkered down in Copenhagen for a few days. Copenhagen is one of THE cities in my view for a whole lot of different reasons. It was our second visit and on this occasion we included a run on the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. There’s something quite ‘positive’ about interpreting a sculpture- in garden setting mode- with a backdrop of the Kattegat Strait and the outline of Sweden on the horizon. No happy snap can adequately capture that.

Things I learnt on our seven week ‘traipse’ (but with some intent)-

1.      There must have been a gang of medieval pyromaniac hooligans going around Britain and Europe. Every bloody city and large town we visited seemed to have major fires as markers in their history.

2.      Walking tours of alluded to cities and towns are very cool. All the organised ones we went on were cheap and accessible to most punters with varying degrees of mobility.

3.      Struggles can be transnational. We accidentally bumped against a large demo in Belfast calling for the end of discrimination towards refugees and an acknowledgement of their rights. Great stuff to witness.

4.      Kerry is a splendid organiser but I already knew this. Not one bloody problem on the whole fuckin’ trip. Detail is her business.

5.      ‘Uneasiness’ is as good a holiday outcome as ticking off some dumb arse bucket list entry. Status updates can only take you so far.

To conclude-

I’m not sure how close your intrepid pair came to Valhalla. I’m pretty confident that we were within a 7 iron’s carrying distance. However, the great fear is that in terms of time and space, those halls may be much closer than we care to imagine.

 

-Resume normal transmission-