06-22 Telemark Canal Cruise

Today is our Telemark Canal Cruise. Completed in 1892, we are cruising 65 miles, through 18 lock chambers, raising us 236 feet.

We started our cruise at 8:10 this morning in Skien (pronounced "she-en"), Norway with about 20 passengers.

As we make our way to our first set of locks, there are many beautiful homes on the hillside.

At Loveid, we went through our first locks. The locks here come in sets. Most are two locks together, but there is also a set of three and a set of five (just like the Bingley Five we did in England on the Leeds to Liverpool Canal). Sometimes their locks are carved right out of the rocks.

Here in Norway our two lock keepers follow us from 8:30 to 2:00 pm, operating all of our manual locks (all but the first set). When we leave a lock they jump in a van and drive to the next lock. There they are patiently waiting our arrival again.

A grandmother and grandson only went as far as the second lock set at Ulefloss before departing. We took on a few more passengers to offset the loss.

We had the opportunity to get off and walk at Eidsfoss. We walked to the next set of locks at Vrangfoss about a mile away.

At Vrangfoss is where we had our five locks together, so we were able to film our boat, the Victoria, going through four of the five locks. We always like to see things from both sides.

Those of us that walked got back on board the boat and "we proceeded on..." After our exhausting 1 mile walk and wonderful picture taking opportunity, we decided to have some lunch downstairs in the salon. It was a hamburger on top of a piece of regular bread covered with some special Norwegian cheese, garnished with onions, tomatoes, and lingonberries.

At Lunde everybody got off. Everybody but US and the crew of 4. What? Pat and I are now the only guests on board and we have four more hours and two more sets of locks. Yes, it's the Pat and Karen Charter Canal and Lock Cruise. So peaceful.

Immediately after leaving this lock and all of our passengers behind, we passed the Henrik Ibsen boat coming from Dalen, going to Skien. This is a beautiful boat that Karen originally want to take, but fortunately the boat we were on had much more space up front for viewing.

During the next 3 hours the river way gets narrow and then opens up to a large lake. We pass under a father and son on a bridge who stopped their bike ride to watch us go by. There are just a few kayaks out on the lakes. The towns are sparse in this region and we only see a few people out of their houses who wave at us. There is no wind and the lake is like glass. Up on the hill is a classic, black Stave church.

We go down a short inlet through a swing bridge to the city of Kviteseid, where we picked up a new chef. She's been on the boat for one week now. In an hour or so she will cook us dinner.

We split a chicken focaccia and a hot dog. It's a very relaxing, totally beautiful boat ride.

The houses and hillsides, trees and rock cliffs reflected in the water are just beautiful. Norway, all parts of it, are amazingly beautiful.

We arrive at Dalen right on time and our bus, mini bus, is right there waiting for us and only us. The road out of Dalen is very windy, like the road we drove the Twizzy cars on. Lots of hairpin turns.  

06-21 Train Ride to Skien, Norway

Leave the Oslo apartment for the last time at 9:20 for a bus to the train station. We have our train tickets and we are going early to find some food here to take on board. They only have vending machines and no Coke on the train.

The luggage fits great in the locker with plenty of room left over. We could have gotten both the backpacks in also, with plenty of room to spare.

We scope out a place to get a sandwich and some Coke to take onboard with us, then sit down and wait.

Picking up our sandwiches and drinks, we head out to track #5. We have reserved seats 207 & 208 in car #5. We reserved seats and someone's in them. What's the point? We grab two other seats and the conductor doesn't seem to care. She checks our tickets then gives us one token each. For the bathroom, for drinks? We think bathroom. We are wrong; they are blanks for the coffee machine.

At the city of Drammen, the business men in our seats conducting a meeting finally get off and now the train is quiet. We don't move.

At 12:35 we arrive in Larvik and get off and get on the bus. It's across the track and around the building and waiting for us. Awesome.

Arriving in Skien, we grab our backpacks and walk over to the hotel (Clarion Collection Hotel Bryggeparken) and check in. Our room is ready. Great.

Check in done, bags dropped, we go for a walk around this new town of Skien.

Pedestrian only shopping area downtown.

Our hotel is on one bay and the bay next to it is where we will catch our boat tomorrow, the Victoria. But for now we walk through town and up the hill behind our hotel to the Brekke Park and through the Telemark Museum area. This area is like the open air museums we have been to with buildings from all over the Telemark area brought to this location. Most of these buildings were from the 1600's and 1700's. None of them were open, but we saw the others and there's a plaque describing the interior that we read in each house - in English.

We’re having an ice cream and some Lefsa. Karen remembers her Mom having Lefsa in the house. It’s kind of a flat bread with cinnamon, sugar and butter on it.

After this we walk down the stairs near the entrance and back through town, walking through their mall and out to the other bay.

We head down to the dock where our boat will arrive at 5:30pm tonight. We pick up a brochure in a rack outside (there's no gift shop, just kind of an office).

We keep walking around the bay by apartments and through a park, then back to the boat dock and back to the hotel.

After a break in the room, we went downstairs for dinner. Breakfast and dinner are included in our room rate and so is the water view looking out into the bay. Dinner was rosemary chicken (it was so so), sweet potato sticks (not bad), grapes, watermelon slices, strawberry chiffon, and some cold salads.

06-20 Day Off Oslo

Happy Birthday to our youngest son, Brian.

Today is our day off. We spend a relaxing day doing laundry. We started laundry last night doing the stuff that takes the longest to dry, like our wool socks and jeans. We finished the laundry this morning and then took a short walk to take our plastic bottles to the recycle machine at the grocery store for a credit.

We walked into downtown to have a burger for lunch at Max.

Next stop was to the Freia Chocolate shop for some snacks for our upcoming adventures. We got their M 'n' M peanut and almonds, several kinds of soft chewy chocolates with carmel, toffee, and nuts.

Then it was on to the grocery store for water, some just-in-case breakfast bars, For dinner we picked up a half of a chicken and some scalloped potatoes.

It's a beautiful, but very windy day, but we went up to the roof deck for a little sun anyway, then back down to our place to pack.

Tomorrow we leave for our Telemark Canal Cruise in Skien.