So here we go: Norway!
We visited our dear friends Heike and Matthias and their one-year old son Karl. This wonderful friendship, which started many years ago during Kamil's PhD-time in Basel, is one of the long-lasting ones, for which we are really grateful! Sporadic mail contacts and even more sporadic visits did not harm our friendship, as we could experience this during our stay! And enduring this invasion of four (with two small kids) for more than two weeks, staying in a hut and their apartment together, really is a thorough proof an intact friendship, right? Thanks so much, Heike and Matthias, for this magnificent time we had with you!
As mentioned, we stayed in a lovely (Statoil-owned) hut in the Hardangervidda, a vast mountain plateau, which is Norway's largest National Park.
As we were extremely lucky weather wise, we were hiking a lot. Well, let's say we did not hike long distances, but carrying the kids and all the stuff you need with kids, short distances become quite demanding, too....
The kids in the Fjell:
In the hut, we celebrated Anna's saint's day. Heike made a beautiful "Cat-in-the-Moon" cake. (She is a passionate cook and pastry chef - we often had the great opportunity ti enjoy her fantastic creations!)
Heike and Kamil payed a visit to one of Norway's most famous attraction: the Preikestolen. This massive cliff of 604 metres offers a spectacular view across the Lysefjorden.
We then spent about a week in Stavanger, a lovely mid-sized town in the South of Norway, situated between coast, fjord, islands and mountains. (Actually it's the fourth largest town in Norway having the impressive number of about 126.000 inhabitants!) Here is a view on "Gamle Stavanger", the old district of the city.
We there visited the "Hermetik Museum", a museum dedicated only to the former production of canned brisling and fish balls, the main industry of this area before the discovery of oil. This museum is really fun also for kids as you can mimic the different steps of the fish can production using millions of rubber one-to-one replica of brisling fish.
To sum it up, we had a wonderful vacation in Norway - special thanks to Heike and Matthias!!!And here some last photos of our little Norway fan!
