Pics 1 (Belgium to Finland)

So far my time in Tehran has been rather mundane, with most of my time spent lazing at home, watching various films I'd picked up en route and sorting through my pictures, getting rid of duds and touching up the others. I'm about half way through them and so thought I might post a few of my favourites because when I'm on the road I don't always get the opportunity to add pics to my posts even when I would like to and along the way I've taken a few pics that I really like and would like to share.

Bruges canals by night.

Church door in Brussels.

Clichéd maybe, but still very pretty. Windmills at Kinderdijk.

The red light district in Groningen. The prostitutes sit behind the glass doors on show for prospective clients. During the day not so many of them are at work and they while away the time by reading, knitting or chatting with their neighbours. The setting is happily mundane and ordinary.

One of the main portals of Bremen's cathedral. As you can see Jesus looks all beatific whilst the evil Jews have devious faces and hooked noses. Obviously this door was made prior to WWII and so today, alongside the door, there is a plaque with a long apology for the Holocaust and explanation of the door's iconography.

Roof detail of Lubeck's Marienkirche.

Detail of the colourful houses in Ribe.

Grey day in Visby.

Obviously these stones do not roll as they have gathered some very photogenic lichen. Gotland.

Reflected trees in Stockholm's peaceful Skogskyrkogården cemetery.

Quiet little alleyway in Stockholm's Gamle Stan (Old Town).

Grave goods from a Viking burial, including a bronze Buddha. God only knows the things that little statuette must have seen on its voyage from the subcontinent to Scandinavia.

Amateur photographer and his muse on Oslo's cool opera house.

One of the many, expressive, enchanting statues in Oslo's Vigeland Park. Public art at its best.

The colourful, wooden, Hansa warehouses of Bergen's Bryggen district.

The wooden stave church at Urnes is almost 850 years old. Not bad going.

After attending a country music festival in the small town of Skjolden I couldn't be bothered to find a place to sleep and so just passed out on a bale of rock wool at the local port. It was quite comfy actually.

A good night's haul dumpster diving with Monica in Røros.

The incredible Lofoten islands.

Getting lost in Finland's Arctic forests in Oulanka national park.

Flowers by the window of an old, wooden house in old Rauma.

Cape Fear

Nordkapp (North Cape). The famed northernmost point of Europe. Even the name sounds foreboding. The ultimate goal for many who venture into these far-flung lands - the End of the Earth. Never mind that there's a good tarmac road that leads all the way there (€22 toll for the tunnel per car ... each way); never mind that there are petrol stations, supermarkets and hotels in almost every town along the way; never mind that the visitors' centre with the multimedia show that you have to go through (€25 entrance fee) to reach the majestic, 300m cliffs, with dominating views of unending Arctic sea as far as the eye can see: east, north, west ... hey, wait a minute! What's that land doing there? Indeed. Norway's premier tourist attraction pulls in visitors from far and wide, and charges them a pretty penny for it, so that they can go to the edge of the cliff and say "no-one in Europe is further north than I am now". Let's for a minute forget pedantic nit-picking that place Svalbard, Novaya Zemlya and Franz-Josef Land much further north, but far closer, the next headland in fact, separated by only a 2km bay, is 1.5km further north. Nordkapp's notoriety is based on fraud, but it's a fraud that most visitors want to believe because they would rather just take the car than have to hike the 18km round trip; because Knivskjellodden is not as easy to pronounce (or as flagrantly obvious) as Nordkapp; and because you can buy a postcard and a cup of coffee there.

Looking south (OK, actually east southeast) at the cliffs of Nordkapp, not Europe's most northerly point.

Something Fishy In Norway

Norway is a big country. Or at least it is a long country. Many Norwegians I have met have regaled me with the factoid that if Norway were flipped over, using its southern point as the axis, the northern end would hit Barcelona ... or Rome, or Morocco, or some other impressively distant southern point. The accuracy isn't too important, but suffice to say it's a long way to the top. A lot of my time spent since Trondheim has been in the pursuit of bridging the gap to the north. Such is the size of the country that in Norway (and Sweden) when people talk of distances they talk in miles (mil), but not our paltry 1.6km miles, no, Scandinavian miles are each 10km long; so beware if a Norwegian tells you that something is only a few miles away, it may be further than you think!

I spent quite some time hitching in the north of Norway. It's quite a boring way to pass the day and so any amusement, howeverlame, is always welcome. Like the sign in Mo-i Rana.

Afjordable

When I awoke the morning after the country music concert I had over 400km to cover to get to that night's destination, the small mining town of Røros. I consulted my map and saw there was what the key referred to as a "primary route" heading in exactly that direction and so I asked around town to see where and when I could catch the next bus along it. I finally found the manager of a camping who informed me that the next bus would be after Midsummer. I didn't quite realise that the road passed over some of the highest mountain passes in the country and that there was still plenty of snow up there. Going back by public transport would almost double the distance and so I put all my eggs in one basket and decided to carry on hitching. It was two and a half hours before I got a ride from a friendly retired vet. Unfortunately he was going up to the mountains to do some cross-country skiing and could only take me up to the pass. I was tired of sitting around in my spot and agreed to go with him, saying to myself that anywhere closer to my destination would be better than where I was. 45 mins later I was standing 1500m up, looking at snow in every direction, and quickly putting on my jacket and gloves before trying to get a ride any further. My luck was in and I didn't have to wait long before a couple, who had just been to help their daughter kit out her new student flat, picked me up almost all the way to Røros.

I slept in this goods dock after the concert. There was a soft bale of roof insulation and it was pretty secluded.

Line Dancing In Norway

From Oslo it was due west (when I say that I mean geographically, because due to the country's steep topography, there's no such thing as a straight road in Norway) to Bergen, Norway's second city, erstwhile capital and important Hanseatic trading town (those Hansa guys again). Bergen is renowned for the Bryggen, a neighbourhood of wooden wharfside buildings that date from the Middle Ages, although much more of the downtown area is made of quaint, wooden houses stacked up on the city's steep hillsides.

View of Bergen's Bryggen from across the harbour.

Timing

When going on holiday it's always nice to plan stays to coincide with local festivals and celebrations. With this trip, however, I am where I am when I am and there's little I can do to alter that, as I move inexorably onwards towards my final goal (wherever that may be). I therefore often just miss out on various events that I would dearly love to experience but just can't reach in time. For example here in Norway I missed out on the National Day festivities on the 17th of May, which is supposedly the biggest celebration of the year, where people go a little bit crazy, wrap themselves up in their flags, and get horribly drunk in the streets (the latter is a common theme in Scandinavia). I was also wanting to do a fair amount of hiking whilst here (the landscapes of Denmark and the Netherlands don't really lend themselves to mountaineering), especially in the Jotunheimen national park, which is said to contain some of Norway's most spectacular mountain scenery and highest peaks. Since I would be doing this alone it is imperative to get properly informed, so I made my way to the DNT office (Det Norske Turistforening - Norwegian tourist association specialising in trekking) here in Oslo to enquire about conditions and about getting a map. The guy at the office said that this would be difficult for two reasons: firstly there is still a decent amount of snow from about 1000m and above (i.e. pretty much the entire park) - he even showed me a real-time webcam to prove his point; and secondly that the temporary bridges that are removed over winter have not been replaced, and so all rivers, which are now high with meltwater, need to be forded. Needless to say I will be revising my plans in light of this and will have to opt for lower altitude hiking.

Oslo's funky new opera house, whose roof has become a favourite public space.