I wonder why Svartnes is named after the colour black.  There is not much black here to be seen in this little farming village in Troms.  In the 1800s this place used to be one big farm housing a few families.  Today it is off the beaten track and can be fenced off from civilization [...]

Some things don’t sound good enough to eat.  I never thought ‘blings’ could be eaten.  I guess with enough mayo anything is possible – even cheap jewelry.  I’m not too sure about the ’smudis’ either.  And I’m a little confused about the ‘wraps’.  I’ve walked past Smud a thousand times and have never thought to [...]

Sometimes we prefer to take the bus back home to Tromsø rather than fly.  The bus ride is about six hours but it means we get to look at the scenery, have a snooze, eat, ride on the ferries and spend some time playing with the kids.
The seasons are very dramatic in Norway and different [...]

Every town and city in Norway has a gågate (walking street).  And every gågate has its regulars.
In Oslo there are two types of regulars – the regular-regulars, who are on the street every week, and the seasonal-regulars who return year after year.

The tribal American Indians are an odd regularity in Norway.  I see them every [...]

It doesn’t really snow in Oslo for Christmas and the city is too far down the northern hemisphere to get the Northern Lights.  So to give some Christmas cheer to the Osloenser in the dark season the city burns enough juice to make sure the astronauts can find Norway.
Karl Johans Gate is one of the [...]

Alta is a country town of farmers and fishermen.  Up until recently Alta has had three small town centres to service the small communities of each side of Komsa mountain.  Now a new shopping mall with 80 stores has arrived (in a town of only 17,000) and some wonder if it will survive in Alta’s [...]

Tromvik is a cute fishing village on Kvaløya Island just off Tromsø.  There is not much there, just a few fisherman huts, reindeer and hjeller (fish racks built as high as a house for air drying cod).  It’s a nice Sunday drive to have a peek at how Norwegian fishermen live.

Towards the water in a beautiful pocket of leafy oak trees is the Byneset Church.

The Bull Horns, or Okshornan in Norwegian, is a mountain formation jutting out from the Senja Island coastline.  It is obvious that the mountains get their name from their shape as they are very sharp.  It looks like they are just one row but they are actually made up of layers and layers of rock. [...]

The Nid river flows through the heart of Trondheim.  It bends round the famous Nidaros Cathedral and forms a natural moat around the city.  The river has kept its name since the Viking Age and is mentioned in prominant sagas such as Snorre Sturlason’s Heimskringla or The Lives of the Norse Kings where St Olav built [...]