IT’S BEEN a long-standing car game for the kids to yell “Tunnel Time!” every
time we drive through one. In England this is a harmless enough diversion;
in Norway they find they have bitten off more than any of us can chew.
Disembarking from our boat from Newcastle to Bergen, our two-hour drive north
turns out to be mostly through solid rock, and as we disappear into the
mountainside for the 30th or so time, “tunnel time” is wearing a bit thin.
What with all this excavation — not to mention the well-maintained roads and
the neat little towns — it makes you wonder at the sheer effort that has
gone into this country. Where we just plonk something on the surface, the
inaccessibility of much of the terrain means the Norwegians must have
drilled, blasted, shifted and hewn countless millions of tons of granite
just to achieve the basics.
“I feel like a troll,” says husband Jon after another five minutes without
daylight. So it’s something of a relief to reach our chalet, halfway up a
mountain with a stunning outlook across the valley and lake below. We’re
staying just outside Voss, 100km north of Bergen and gateway to the western
fjords; a winter sports haven, it produced no less than three ski gold
medallists in the last winter Olympics — not bad for a town of around
14,000. But there’ s no sign of snow as we bask in the unexpected sunshine —
it’s warmer here than England and Spain.
Shift beyond the veneer of Norway’s very civilised civilisation, and what you
find is wild and elemental. It’s a land of stone and wood and water that
makes you respect Viking toughness. It’s also extravagantly beautiful.
Undisturbed, between the ubiquitous firs and pines, the rock attracts a thick
carpet of beautiful pale-green moss that is somehow quite magical. And you
have to admire the tenacity of pines with only an unlikely spit of rock and
barely a foot of topsoil to cling to.
The kids, however, are more captivated by the grass roofs on some of the
houses. Many are so overgrown they resemble small meadows. “Just how would
you get a lawn mower up there?” muses Flan, 10. He has a point.
Driving along the path of an ancient glacier, looking up at the granite
cliffs, is a humbling experience and induces a dizzying kind of reverse
vertigo. Indeed, even the animals seem dazed. We come across a dozen or so
goats reclining in the road. Furious horn-honking makes no impression, and
they only shift when we’re literally beard to bumper. The boys are most
amused.
They’re less enthusiastic about getting out of the car and facing the elements
head on, but I insist. We climb a very modest-sized “mountain”; Josh, 12,
gives up halfway, but Hetty, 4, valiantly makes it to the summit.
It’s a wonderful place, covered in chunks of white quartz and fluorescent
green lichen, and what look like blueberries growing on tiny bushes. Except
for the rush of warm wind past our ears, it’s completely silent, and we
assemble a small tower of rocks as testament to our ascent. “I bet it will
still be there when I’m grown up,” says Chip, 8.
A nice man who sells coffee by the fjord ferry, and who like all Norwegians
speaks excellent English, says the berries are edible, if not particularly
tasty. But there’s nothing more attractive than free food, so on our return
lap we stock up with a couple of cups of them to put in pancakes. Just below
is a small lake, and for a moment I’m tempted to strip off and swim. But it
looks deep and dark and murky, and I lose my nerve.
Still, I get plenty of excitement on horseback, heading off to a stables in a
pretty valley near our chalet. A tough-looking lady called Aud takes us up
into the mountains, telling me as our horses huff up and down the hills a
suitably romantic tale of how she fell in love with an Englishman, now her
husband. Her riding business has a short season, I discover — for much of
the year, the area is covered in 3m of snow. I’m seeing the landscape at its
most benign.
There’s nothing benign about how I feel the next day, however. Only someone
who has been up and down a Norwegian mountain on horseback truly knows what
it’s like. So it’s with a fair display of wincing that I park myself on the
train from Voss to Myrdal, the first leg of our Norway in a Nutshell tour.
From Myrdal we board the Flam railway for a 20km-long, 55-minute plummet down
the Flamsdal, one of the steepest valleys in the world — thankfully the
train is equipped with five separate sets of brakes. It’s more a theme park
ride than a train journey, with 20 tunnels and as many dramatic vistas —
sheer cliffs, cascading waterfalls, towering peaks and rivers.
From Flam we cruise up the Aurlandsfjord. It’s a monumental landscape of giant
Vs and Ws, an ancient geological alphabet that has your head turning
constantly to translate all its angles. Factlets eke out over the
loudspeaker at regular intervals. “On your right you can now see the
smallest church in Scandinavia.” I’m intrigued by the hamlets lining the
fjord, several with no road and only a couple of dozen inhabitants. Sailing
past in August, they look idyllic, but in February?
But nothing takes our breath away like the prices in the supermarket — £2.50
for a beer, £5 for a jar of coffee.
We round off the week with a quick trip to admire the spectacular Tvinde
waterfall. It’s only afterwards that I find out that drinking the water here
is supposed to increase your sexual prowess. Damn. Still, it makes a good
excuse to come back.
Need to know
Getting there: Emma Haughton and family travelled with the
Norwegian Tourist Board, and Fjordline (0191-296 1313, www.fjordline.com)
which offers a ten-day holiday at Vesterland in August from £280 per adult
and £220 per child under 16, based on four travelling together and including
return North Sea crossings in a cabin and with a car, and seven nights’
self-catering. Norway in a Nutshell tours, including Sognefjord and Flam
Railway, cost from £79pp.
Further information: Norwegian Tourist Board (0906 3022003,
50p per minute, www.visitnorway.com).
SCANDINAVIAN SUMMER
Bear necessities
Take the kids on their very own bear hunt to Finland. From the safety of
special hides, you can watch the wild brown bear in its natural environment
against a backdrop of spruce, pine and birch forest close to the Russian
border in the west of the country. Complete the rural idyll by staying on a
working farm — there are plenty to choose from.
Emagine (0870 9025399, www.emagine-travel.co.uk) offers a one
week fly-drive holiday in Finland, including overnight in a bear hide, from
£665 per adult and £345 per child (aged 2-11 sharing parents’ room). The
cost includes flights, B&B in hotels and car hire.
Whale of a time
In Iceland, nature provides all the entertainment. It’s one of Europe’s top
whale-spotting locations where, during the summer months, there are regular
sightings of minke, humpback and blue whales as well as orca, white-beaked
dolphins and porpoises.
Arctic Experience (01737 218800, www.arctic-experience.co.uk)
offers three-night whale watching tours from £1,013 per person including
flights, excursions and full board accommodation.
Mountain cabin
Stay in a cabin in the wild, central highlands at Gudbrandsdalen in Norway.
You can take a moose safari, go pony trekking, mountain biking or fishing,
or just swim in the nearby hotel pool. There’s a choice of self-catering or
using the hotel facilities. Cabins, sleeping four to eight, have satellite
TV and wood-burning stoves. Larger ones have their own sauna.
Inntravel (01653 617906, www.inntravel.co.uk) has self-drive
weeks in two- bedroom cabins from £415 per adult and £238 per child,
including Newcastle-Bergen Fjordline ferry crossing.
Fairytale in Denmark
Celebrate Hans Christian Andersen’s 200th birthday this year at the Funen
Holiday Centre in Denmark. Bungalow accommodation includes use of two
swimming pools, mini-golf, tennis and fishing in the nearby Little Belt Sea.
Andersen’s nearby home town, Odense, is holding anniversary events this
summer. Within an hour’s drive are Legoland and Givskud Safari Park.
DFDS Seaways
(0870 5333111, www.dfdsseaways.co.uk) offers a week
self-catering, with Harwich-Esbjerg crossings for car and a family of four
in a cabin, from £645 (a discount of 45 per cent) if booked by February 28.
CHLOË BRYAN-BROWN and CAROLINE HENDRIE
