[1999] Glaciers, Tunnels, Waterfalls and Fjords --  In summer, the sun does not set over the Nordic realm. It just hangs over the horizon for four hours, two before and after midnight, blinding anyone who dares looking westward. At other times, it casts a soft glow over the verdant landscape, ideal for the camera.  

Subsisting on the generous Scandinavian breakfast (lots of pickled herring and salmon!),  the ubiquitous sausage stands, and the excellent Norwegian dairy products (particularly the ice cream), I covered over 2,000 miles of land and sea, crossing more fjords than I can ever remember.

My orientation to Norway did not advance further north than Trondheim, the ancient capital of the canonized King Olav. Starting and ending in Oslo, I drove a spry VW Polo along the Rømsdal river, then south past the Nordfjord, the Jostedal glacier and Sognefjord towards Bergen, before heading back north and boarding the venerable coastal steamer Lofoten at Molde. As in north Britain last year, good fortune meant rain-free days along the tempestuous west Atlantic coast. The breathtaking drive up and down the hairpins of the Trollstigen (Troll's Steps) was well worth the entire trip.

[2001] Atop the Western World -- My initial plan of an epic road trip across the Arctic Circle was aborted when no rental car company in Trondheim could offer a vehicle with automatic transmission; I couldn't get the Rover given to me out of the parking structure. A helpful cabbie gave me a scenic drive to the train station (well, how can any drive in the Norwegian countryside not be scenic?), where he booked me a cozy cabin on the night train to Fauske. Along with the relaxing buses, it was decidedly the easy way to meet the southbound coastal steamer at Hammerfest, Europe's "northernmost" town.

Comfort had its drawbacks, though. The views from the window of my train, bus and the M/S Vesterålen were spectacular indeed, but they were also distant, fleeting and -- aside from the ambient weather -- intangible. Things became real again only when I got back to my two feet. My most vivid recollections were the climb to the hill overlooking Hammerfest in a cold, windy drizzle, and the Bach organ recital at the Nidaros Cathedral.

Back at Trondheim, with three days remaining, I flew to the Baltic for a quick survey of Swedish history, visiting the Gamla Stan (old town) of Stockholm, Drottningholm Palace, Sigtuna, Gripsholm Castle at Mariefred, Tullgarn Palace, and Nyköping House. I was back in my own elements once more, behind the wheels of a luxurious Volvo S40 wagon (fully automatic, of course).

At Nyköping, I witnessed a four-hour pageant dramatizing events that led to the infamous Christmas banquet of 1317, when the mad King Birger condemned his usurping brothers, Dukes Erik of Finland and Valdemar of Södermann, to death by starvation. Every summer, the royal ghosts return to haunt the very locale of their tortuous demise -- the dungeons of Nyköping House, now the stage and set of the Nyköping Gästabudsspelet, a play worthy of ten Hamlets.