Planica

After visiting the Holmenkollen ski jump in Oslo I was determined to look at the Slovenian ski jump at Planica again to compare the two. I had been to Planica several times, the last time a few years ago in winter time to watch a competition (it was winter and cold and I only went because Marko was invited and we had tickets). Otherwise I used to go there in summer a few times as a child. I recall that there were wooden steps that lead all the way up and that it was very scary just to look down where the ski jumpers are supposed to jump.


I examined the ski jump just after my trip to Jalovec, after all the starting point for that hike is the parking lot across from the ski jumps. The steps that lead up are now made of steel and there is no sign of the wooden steps that I remember from my childhood years. There is also a ski lift that carries ski jumpers so they don’t have to walk up there but it seems it only operates in winter. I wonder why they don’t operate the ski lift year round and charge admission to tourists to make some extra income, just like they do at the Holmenkollen where they charge admission for riding the elevator. For now, walking up there is free with a warning that people do so at their own risk.


The steps lead only up to the table where the ski jumpers take off into the air. The rest of the way to the top where they start accelerating for takeoff is closed for visitors. But even looking down from the table is totally scary, the landing area is so far away and behind the slope that it isn’t even completely visible and I can only imagine that from the top where the ski jumpers take off it is so much scarier. I have new respect for the ski jumpers who dare to take off from there.


The one thing that really surprised me is that the table is so low, it seems almost like just a large step. I guess in winter when it is all covered in snow it gives a different impression because I always thought that the jumpers fly so very high up in the sky. I realize now that comparison of Holmenkollen and Planica is not relevant since Planica is a much larger ski jump, to be precise it is not really a ski jump but a ski fly. Vikersund in Norway would be a comparable construction but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to see it.

Jalovec

It was another of my home alone weekends and obviously I went hiking. Fortunately for me, Marko’s flight for a business trip was so early on Saturday morning that I was able to drop him off at the airport and park my car at my starting point and be ready to start hiking at 6:10 in the morning when it was just barely starting to dawn. So I had the whole day ahead of me and that is why I picked Jalovec, the 4th highest mountain in Slovenia at 2645m. Getting to the summit and back is just feasible in one day.

It was such a beautiful day and as I climbed higher up the rock wall I realized that it has been a long, long time since I last went somewhere that high. I also realized that I have to upgrade my equipment as nowadays it is almost mandatory to wear a helmet to protect the head from possible falling rocks. Years ago we never bothered with such stuff but this time I was almost the only person without a helmet. I saw only two other people without helmets and another two people with bicycle helmets which I am not sure is the best protection against falling rocks.

Some people also wore alpine harnesses which could be used to attach themselves to the fixed steel cables that run up the mountain. But they were not very useful on Jalovec because most of the route has only steel stakes but no cables so there is nothing to which one could attach the harness. There is only the steep cliff and those stakes to offer some safety. Climbing up there is definitely much scarier than a roller coaster ride. I don't have any photographs from those parts of the climb, I needed all my hands and feet on the wall.

It took me just over 10 hours to get back to my car, tired but exhilarated. This is the way to the summit:

Denmark

We had to spend one last night in our tent because it is such a long ride back home that we couldn't do it in one run. We decided to have a quick look around Denmark. We had both been to Copenhagen before but haven’t seen anything else in the country. After a quick stop in Jelling with Denmark's oldest church we decided to go to Silkeborg. There is an interesting museum that has a mummified body of a man from about 300 BC. A museum curator was there at the time and he told us the story of the Tollund Man as the body is called.

It was a well preserved body that was discovered around 1950 and it was first assumed that it was the body of a current murder victim since it still had a rope around its neck from which it was probably hanged. So the discoverers of the body called the police and fortunately the police officer was also an amateur archeologist who immediately realized that the body was ancient. So they packed the body and sent it off to the University research center. But the people at the University thought it was probably a prank and didn’t bother to open the case for at least two weeks during which time the body started decomposing. When they finally examined it they realized what a significant find it was. They were able to examine the contents of the stomach so it is known what the victim ate prior to his death: porridge from various grains and seeds. The people of Silkeborg celebrate the find each year with a festival where they serve this porridge. They feel very proud that such an important find came from their town. And no, I didn’t take any photos of the Tollund Man, it was too creepy.


And that more or less completes the story of this year's vacation. We drove a total of just over 7.000 kilometers in just over two weeks. If I were to do this trip over again, I would definitely go with a campervan. Which I might rent in Scandinavia and fly there to avoid having to drive across the hundreds of kilometers of never ending Germany and some Austria and Denmark in between. I wouldn’t take sunscreen and a swimsuit with me because I wouldn’t need it. Or I might have gone in July which is supposed to be the summer month in Scandinavia. I did enjoy the beautiful countryside, the people were extremely friendly and we didn't go bankrupt despite the fact that Oslo is supposed to be the world’s second most expensive city (second only to Tokyo) and Stavanger the world’s fourth most expensive (with Nagoya in between). A good thing we only went for coffee in Stavanger. And we absolutely splurged in Oslo where we had a hamburger and bad Norwegian beer.

Next year, we go somewhere warm!

Stockholm

We arrived at the Stockholm campground in early afternoon, just after it stopped raining and just before it started raining again. During the dry spell we managed to set up our tent and have something to eat. We went into the city in the evening, taking the Metro and heading straight to Gamla stan, the old town. After strolling around for a while we settled in a pub that displayed hundreds of different kinds of beer, many of them on tap. We asked the bartender for some Swedish beer but he just frowned and told us that all he had was a lager and an ale from a microbrewery. That’s it? In a pub with hundreds of beers they don’t have any good local beers to offer tourists? But we already knew that, Scandinavia is not known for beers or wines.


We spent the next two days sightseeing, mostly museums. The first on the list was the Vasa museum with the Swedish version of the Titanic. The Vasa ship sank when it first sailed out to sea and remained at the bottom of the sea until 1961 when it was raised, restored and moved to a museum. I was quite impressed with the museum as it displayed so much more than just the ship. A section of the museum is a reconstruction of one of the ship’s decks since the ship itself is off limits to tourists. Another section presents the results of a research project to determine what colors were painted on the decorations on the ship. And my favorite part is a section with bones of the ship’s crew and passengers, complete with facial reconstructions and whatever facts the researchers were able to gather from examining the bones. Obviously watching the TV series Bones had a huge impact on me; previously I would definitely have run away from human remains, but now I was curious to see what Bones would see.


Another interesting sight in Stockholm is the Ericsson Globe. It is just a sports arena, but with a circular dome and a funicular that runs up to the top on the outside of the globe. While nothing special really, they make a big show of how it was manufactured and it looks quite cool and futuristic so I had to go on a ride up there. It made me wonder why other sports stadiums don’t come up with the idea to generate additional income by making tourists pay so they can go up to the roof?


There was also a cute music museum with lots of musical instruments and instructional videos on how to use them so visitors could play them. I was thrilled that among the various styles of music that were on display, ABBA had its own category, with a display of the drums and keyboard that was allegedly used by the band.

After two days of wandering around the city we were tired and it was time to turn back for the long drive back home. On our way back we stopped at a roadside stop for lunch where I picked up a flyer advertising a moose safari. That was something that I would have liked to see but unfortunately it was too far away from where we were and we probably wouldn’t make it there before closing. I was sorry to have missed an opportunity to see a live moose, but who knows, perhaps next time?

Lysefjorden

This was the day we were supposed to go hiking. By now I probably don’t have to mention specifically that it was raining again. Packing up our tent in the rain became routine. We were hoping that – like the day before – the rain would stop and we would at least have a nice afternoon for activities. So we headed towards Lysefjorden, a popular tourist destination where we wanted to hike high above the fjord to the Pulpit rock, a scenic point with a view across the fjord. We took a ferry this time since there is no way to travel among the fjords except to either take a ferry across or a very long detour by road.


When we arrived at the foot of the hike it was still raining and there were no signs that the rain might stop soon. We realized that there were many people around us hiking and they didn’t seem bothered by the rain. So we figured we might as well do the same, put on our rain jackets and just go. It did actually stop raining soon after we set off and stayed that way for most of our hike. The view from the Pulpit rock was magnificent and the trip was well worth it. There is a mountain hut at the foot of the hike where we warmed up afterwards.

Our camp that night was the best ever (minus the cold and the wind and the rain, of course). It had free internet and a large cafeteria where we spent the evening drinking beers and checking our emails, nicely warm and dry. The next day we packed up our tent again in the rain and headed back towards Sweden. Our original plan was to stay another day to climb the Kjerag boulder, but that would have been a day trip and we didn’t want to hang around and wait for the weather to clear.


It was a good choice to drive on that day as it wouldn’t stop raining so riding in the car all day was efficient use of our time. We drove east on a road across the Hardangervidda mountain plateau which was a very scenic route.

Another interesting aspect of Scandinavia that we discovered during our trip was that their most common food is – believe it or not – hamburgers! In addition to McDonalds and Burger Kings everywhere they have no-name fast food places that serve hot dogs and hamburgers. These fast food places, located at gas stations, were more or less our only choice of food while driving across Norway and Sweden so I believe I have never eaten so many hamburgers per week in my life.

The fjords

After Oslo, we headed west, towards the fjords. With all the cold and the rain we tried to make reservations for some accommodation that would offer more shelter than a tent but after a few telephone calls I gave up realizing that everything seemed to be sold out and we should have made reservations a long time ago. Or gone with a campervan.


So we drove westward along the coast, again it took us most of the day to cover a distance of about 500 kilometers as there are no highways, there are speed limits, speed cameras, road works and all sorts of obstacles on the way so there is no way to get quickly from one place to another in Scandinavia. It seems they either don’t travel much by car or the population density is so low that building decent roads is not cost effective or they probably take a ferry or fly when they need to cover larger distances.


We arrived in Sandnes, a small town near the seacoast in the evening and checked into a campground. By now I was almost oblivious to the cold, damp, windy, rainy weather and just faced my destiny and hoped to survive. We were fortunate that this particular campground had a communal kitchen/dining room where we could cook our dinner and eat it in a sheltered place. The next morning it rained again, so what else is new? The forecast was that the weather would be clear in the afternoon so we spent the morning sitting around the dining room, making tea, spiking it up with authentic Norwegian vodka and waiting for the rain to stop so we could go bicycle riding to the city of Stavanger, about 17 kilometers away.


When the rain stopped the day turned almost sunny, although there was still a cold, cold, cold wind blowing. In addition to that, I managed to fall off my bicycle, skinning my left elbow and bruising all over, but I was relieved that nothing was broken and I was able to continue riding.


We had coffee in one of the restaurants near the harbor in Stavanger and I felt much better when I noticed that they had outdoor electric heating units that were switched on so we could sit outside and take in the sights while keeping warm at the same time. (Note: in case someone doesn’t believe me how cold it was, why would they use electric heating in August?)

Oslo

We arrived at the Oslo campground in late afternoon. It had just stopped raining so we could put up our tent. The one good thing about the windy weather in Scandinavia is that the ground dries soon after the rain because the wind acts just like a blow-drier. Marko and I went for a run and we planned to cook something for dinner in the evening and buy beer at the camp shop. But we discovered that they don’t sell alcohol after 8:00 PM in Norway so we were out of luck as far as beer was concerned. They sell beer and cider in supermarkets while wine and hard liquor can only be purchased from specialized shops. This reminded me of South Africa, except there only wine is sold in supermarkets.


Oslo is a fairly small city, just twice the size of Ljubljana. We could take in most of it by walking. A few sights were farther out so we did ride on a boat to see some restored Viking ships (yes, more Viking ships!). They also have a Metro train which we rode to the Holmenkollen ski jump. It is situated on a hill high above the Oslo fjord, visible from everywhere, and interestingly they built the Metro to reach all the way up there.


Having only seen the Slovenian ski jump at Planica in my life, I assumed that all ski jumps were built into natural mountains. So when I saw the Holmenkollen, which is a steel construction sticking high up into the sky, I was amazed. We went up to the top where the ski jumpers take off so I was able to see the same view that they see just before they jump: the entire city with the fjord below. Looking across at other hills in the vicinity, what do they have there? More ski jumps! It is as if every hill has a ski jump and no wonder the Norwegians are among the top ski jumpers in the world.


Interestingly enough, I believe that soccer is their second strongest sport, at least it seemed that way because we saw soccer fields and soccer matches almost everywhere we went. The kindergartens have miniature soccer fields and school age children who were on their summer vacations seemed to be in soccer camps. While the current Norwegian soccer team isn’t highly successful (they didn’t qualify for the last 3 world soccer championships) I am waiting to see what will happen in a few years when the younger generation grows up.


Another sight a tourist couldn’t possibly miss in Oslo is everything related to the Nobel prize, so we visited the town hall where the peace prize is presented each year and there is also a related museum. The museum mostly focuses on Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian who received the Nobel peace prize for his work with refugees.

Skåne

Our first full day in Sweden was spent discovering Skåne, the southernmost region. We took in some sights such as the city of Lund with an open air museum representing various houses from Swedish history. One of the houses was a reconstruction of the living quarters of a professor and one of the rooms inside was furnished as a library. I couldn’t help noticing that the bookcases looked familiar and sure enough, I soon figured out that they looked like the IKEA Leksvik bookcase. It only remains to figure out what came first, the IKEA Leksvik bookcase that they made to look old and used in a museum? Or, more likely, the museum piece served as the inspiration behind the design of the bookcase.


We also visited a reconstructed Viking fortress in the city of Trelleborg, quickly picking up that in Scandinavia everything revolves around Vikings. We made a short hike up to Ales Stenar, the Swedish Stonehenge. It is a grouping of rocks that is supposed to be aligned with the sunrise and sunset on different seasons of the year. It is not quite as impressive as the real Stonehenge, in my opinion.

Returning to camp, it was our intention to pack up the next morning and move on. I also wanted to run in the morning because I usually wake up early. But the next morning upon waking up I heard the unmistakable sound of rain on our tent. Great! Just what I needed on top of the cold! There was no running that morning (being a relatively new runner I still haven’t grasped the concept of running in any weather, so I wouldn’t set my feet out in the rain). Our stuff got wet, that is what was damp before was now definitely soaking wet. Sure enough, my camping equipment (which was previously mostly used for camping on the Croatian seacoast) includes a clothesline and pegs that I put up outside on a tree and left there during the night, to allow our towels to dry and to hang our bag with dirty laundry. It was all dripping wet now. Actually, looking around the camp, I realized that we were the only weirdos who left their laundry out, no one else used a clothesline. And thinking back, when we checked in the camp two days ago, the girl behind the reception desk suggested that we put up our tent in an area of camp that was higher up because it gets less muddy if it rains. Now I understand why she looked at us with such pity in her eyes, there actually weren’t that many people coming to camp in Sweden in August with a tent. In addition to the cold and the wind, it also rains a lot. A lot, we were to learn in subsequent days.

We managed to stuff everything that was wet into the trunk of our car and fold up the wet tent and moved on for several hours of driving towards Norway. It rained on and off all day long and I was sure glad to be in the warm, dry car. Yes, warm, we used heating in the car. In August.

Scandinavia

For this year's vacation Marko wanted us to go up north, where it is cooler than back home and much cooler than it was on our last year’s vacation. So we went to Sweden and Norway by car. I knew it was going to be cold so I took warm clothes with me but if I had known in advance how really cold, windy and rainy it would be, I might have reconsidered the whole trip. But after driving about 1.400 kilometers to reach the south of Sweden to find out how cold it really was there I didn’t see it worthwhile to turn back and go home.

Although it was my first trip to Scandinavia, I have to say that traveling in Europe is much less exciting compared to traveling in Asia or Africa. Everything seems the same as back home. But there were still a few first impressions so I will take them one by one.

Cold. I know I said it already and I am sure I will repeat it many more times. I was seriously surprised at how cold it really was even though it was August and the average daily temperatures were supposed to be around 20 degrees Celsius. When we arrived, it was cloudy, windy, damp with no sign of the sun and the temperature was definitely below 20 degrees. Sure enough, some of us tourists were dressed in all the jackets and sweaters we brought along whereas the locals were frolicking around in sundresses, shorts and tank tops. I’ve heard before that the Scandinavians have a much higher tolerance for cold and now I saw that it is all true. Thankfully they at least didn’t swim in the lake which would have made me shiver for sure.

We stayed in a campground on a lake near Höör, a small town. There is a beach on the lake and it looked like they were charging admission to the beach on the lake. But the entrance booths were ominously deserted and the gate to the lake was wide open so it seemed that no one bothered to collect admission. It was the last weekend of the high season after all and the beach with small rental boats seemed packed up and ready for the winter. No one was swimming because it was already too late in the season and too cold for beach activities. So much for our summer vacation. I went running to warm up a little and I noticed that even the horses that were grazing around the lake were covered in blankets. I knew I was in a lot of trouble as far as cold was concerned when even the horses needed protection.

Prices. We had been warned about high prices in Scandinavia. That is why we decided to camp with a tent and try to cook our own meals as much as possible. While it turned out true that eating out is outrageously expensive in Scandinavia and a cup of coffee in a restaurant in the city might cost as much as 4 EUR or more, I was surprised to find out that food in supermarkets was comparably priced to what we are used to in Slovenia. I bought fresh fruit and vegetables on the first day and saved the receipt so that I could compare prices when I returned home. It turned out that the 4,11 EUR that I paid at a supermarket in Sweden would have cost me 4,03 EUR in my local store back home for exactly the same items. The next morning we discovered an all you can eat breakfast buffet in a bakery in town for 5,45 EUR per person including coffee and juice which seemed more than reasonable to us. So at least we weren’t going to go bankrupt on food after all.

IKEA. No surprise, a visitor couldn’t possibly miss IKEA in Sweden. The first thing one sees immediately after crossing the Øresund Bridge from Denmark into Sweden is an IKEA store. Each city in Sweden and Norway has at least three IKEA stores. Although I had no intention of buying furniture while I was on vacation I still wanted to visit a store just to see if it was the same as the Austrian one I am used to. The store was much larger but still had exactly the same items on display, only more of them, for example, each piece of furniture was on display in all the various available colors and finishes.

Slovakia

Slovakian countryside

After Hungary, Marko and I continued our holiday weekend across the Danube River into Slovakia, the country that is most often confused with Slovenia. We drove along the beautiful countryside which was bright yellow due to flowering what I believe to be rapeseed, a plant that is widely cultivated in the region and from which they make biodiesel fuel.

Rainy day in Terchova

We planned to visit the mountainous region of the Low Tatras National Park in the north of the country so we settled in the town of Žilina. We spent the night in one of those huge hotels that were built during the Soviet era and are now deteriorating, similar to what we had seen on our trip to Azerbaijan and Georgia last year. We didn’t even bother to ask if they have internet access but were quite surprised when we later discovered that there actually was a WiFi connection. The next morning we were going to do some hiking around the town of Terchova which is the starting point for hikes in the summer and for skiing in the winter. Unfortunately it was raining and there was nothing much to do than to drive around a little and move on.

Castle of Trenčin

We continued our journey to Trenčin, another picturesque town with a castle on top of a hill. We found out that our visit to Slovakia coincided with the world ice hockey championship. In a country that seems obsessed with ice hockey they had large screens put up in every main square in every town where the people gathered in the evenings to drink beer and watch the games. We caught a game where Slovenia was playing (and lost) against Russia.

Watching ice hockey

We tasted probably the worst beer in the world. It seems funny how Slovakia, neighbor to the Czech Republic – which is famous for its beers – manages to make such bad tasting beers. We spent the night in Trenčin, expecting that due to the sports activities in the capital city of Bratislava we might not be able to find a decent place to sleep.

Ice hockey stuff in Bratislava

On the last day of our trip we drove into Bratislava where there was no way we couldn’t notice the ice hockey stuff everywhere. Fans of Finland and Latvia were seen on the streets and in the pubs (the match between Finland and Latvia was that night), there were statues of hockey players with game schedules placed in various places around the city, they sold hockey souvenirs on the streets and the supermarket was stocked especially with fans in mind with towers of beer and vodka catering to their tastes. Among all that chaos we also managed to go up to the city castle and see a few sights as well.

Bratislava castle

Budapest & around

View of Budapest

I spent the May Day holiday week in Budapest, Hungary – partly for business to attend a conference and partly for leisure. I was able to explore Budapest during conference breaks. Everything is within easy walking distance and the weather was sunny and warm so I really enjoyed myself.

Wine tasting

On Friday afternoon Marko joined me in Budapest.While strolling through the old part of the city and looking for a place to eat we discovered a Balaton wine festival. We tasted various wines from the Balaton lake region and ended up staying there for the rest of the evening.

Višegrad

On Saturday we drove northwest along the Danube river. Our first stop was the town of Višegrad where we visited the ruins of a fortress. We noticed signs that there are many bicycle trails around Hungary and we thought it might be nice to visit the country with a bicycle someday.

Basilica in Esztergom

Our next stop was Esztergom, another picturesque town with a huge basilica where we strolled around and had nice views of the Danube and of Slovakia just across the river.

Rome

The Colosseum

Rome, Italy is one of those places that topped my list of places I wanted to visit. But as the capital city of my neighboring country it never seemed exotic enough to make it a vacation destination. On the other hand it is too far away to make it a day trip. My mind was finally made up when I recently came across the information that Italy has high speed trains (how come I didn’t know that before?). There are daily direct trains from Venice to Rome almost every hour with a travel time of under 4 hours. Adding to that 2 hours that it takes to drive from my home to Venice it means the entire trip is 6 hours in one direction. Thus Marko and I decided to finally go on an extended weekend trip.

Frecciargento, the high speed train

I expected that Rome is warmer than Slovenia even during the winter month of January. True, they have tropical plants growing outside which indicates that temperatures hardly ever drop below freezing. But choosing January as the time to go was probably a little too extreme as temperatures were just barely above freezing. It was also raining some of the time but we managed to escape into museums and catacombs during the worst downpour. On the bright side it was low tourist season so that we managed to avoid the worst crowds. Even so the Sistine chapel and the Fontana di Trevi were surrounded by tourists so I really wonder how busy it must be during the high tourist season.

View from St. Peter's basilica

We had no real plan what we wanted to do or see in Rome, so we just made rounds of the major sights: the Vatican with St. Peter’s basilica, the Vatican museums with the Sistine Chapel, we had a stroll along Piazza Navona, we crossed Piazza del Popolo, and saw some important churches, palaces and buildings along the way. Obviously we couldn’t miss the Colosseum and the adjoining Roman Forum. One day trip was to take a bus to the old Appian Way and visit the catacombs. When in Rome it was also impossible to miss trying all the great Italian food: pizza, pasta, Chianti, grappa, limoncello.

Piazza del Popolo

My strongest impression of Rome: they have Egyptian obelisks on every square. It seems as if every Italian seaman who ever went to Egypt returned home with an obelisk.