Summer Vacation in Scandinavia

It was quite a trip. We traveled from Hildrizhausen all the way to the Songe Fjord in Norway. Over two and a half weeks we stopped along the way to explore cultural sites and natural beauty. Some of the highlights were the Lejre Experimental Station that is an interactive outdoor museum devoted to Stone and Iron Age culture. Here children can learn to make fire, or learn some Viking battle techniques, including how to break through a shield wall (there was no class in pillaging and other useful skills). One of the most memorable was to see the demonstration of the wounds the different types of arrow heads cause on a real pig (it was already dead, and suspended from a rope), followed by an autopsy for the children to see. Victoria could not take it, but the Danish children (think descendents of Vikings) were delighted.

We also rode in a Viking ship (Roskilde Viking Ship Museum), where with fellow tourists we had to row, steer and sail the ship (there was a guide, that told us what to do, but we did the work).

In Sweden we visited a fortified Viking village and saw a lot of Bronze Age petroglyphs. I thought that they were really cool, though Mark called them scratches. Sweden and Norway totally reminded us of the good old Pacific Northwest.

In Norway we visited the famous Viking Ship Museum of Oslo, and before reaching the Songe Fjord we did a 10mile hike in the Yotunheim National Park. The trail lead along a ridge above a beautiful turquoise colored lake.

The further north we got the worse weather we had (see picture above indicating 4 Celsius about 39 Fahrenheit at two in the afternoon on August 13th!). So we had to cut short our Songe Fjord visit. We sill had time on the only good afternoon to ride on kayaks in the fjord. But our glacier hike was done in the rain, and ferry ride was done in rain. To the kids delight we stopped in Denmark for a couple of days and visited Legoland, and the old capital of Denmark (Ribe). In all of Denmark we had gorgeous weather. We also stopped at my aunt in North Germany, and did a side trip to Greifswald (Northeast Germany), where I was born.

Pig autopsy in Denmark:

Fjallbaka fishing village in Sweden:


Yotunheim National Park hike in Norway: