Norway bound

I took the long way, through Copenhagen and Stavanger in order to get into Bergen. It was some effort waking up at 4 in the morning to catch the flight, but the long way was also the cheap(er) way, and I was rewarded with flying on three different types of planes, and rare breathtaking scenery.

My first glimpse of Norway was from the air. We approached from the South, crossed countless expanses of waters before finally encountering land. Beautiful land, bits of which lush green and some were yellow with blossoming flowers. Little lambs ran freely around, as brown cows grazed in an almost surreally idyllic setting. Little islets, solitary crops of land and patches of grass rose from the vast open sea, while boats skimmed through the surface of the water like darting white arrows. There was even a drilling platform, a massive metallic eyesore in the middle of nowhere, but also the source of natural wealth beneath waters around Norway and the reason why sparse 4.5 million Norwegians are among the most affluent in the world.

As plane flew closer inland, I could see snow capped peaks in the distance. Beneath us, the shadow of the plane skirted over rough, sparsely populated land of jagged rocks, hills and mountain ranges that arched over into the horizon. Then suddenly, cut into the mountains were stretches of deep, blue water, flowing like veins arteries into the land. This was the world-renowned fjord formation, a remnant of the last Ice Age, when retreating and melting ice shields carved deep ravines, impressive towering cliffs and inlets of deep estuaries that meander from the mountains into the North Sea almost along the entire length of Western Norway. Fjord country is a unique landscape, some of which have been drafted onto the UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites.

The plane descended slowly, and closer and closer I was to this miraculous land.