Photo by Ryan Tipps

During our two-week vacation, my wife and I took a ferry ride through the popular and scenic Geirangerfjord.

Photo by Ryan Tipps

The secluded cottage in the Kvitneset region of western Norway.

Photo by Gretchen Tipps

The cool summer temperatures made for crisp blue skies across much of western Norway. Nearly every turn brought beautiful landscapes.

I had never seen a scythe in use before 2007.

That’s when, driving along a rural road in western Norway, I saw a middle-age man in humble, earth-tone apparel, slicing through tall grass. He looked up at my wife and me as we passed, but he clearly was intent on the task at hand.

Outside of Norway’s capital, the pace of life is slow — and change is even slower. Surrounded by the beauty of rocky mountains and winding fjords, I have no doubt that Norwegians have little reason to rush through it all.

It’s been three years since that honeymoon trip near the Arctic Circle. It was  the middle of June, around the Summer Solstice, and the days hardly seemed to change. Not once did the sun completely set — 4 a.m. was one of the darkest times, and it was still easy to navigate outside.

Norway’s highways also tell a story about life there. The major roadways often were  squeezed to barely a lane and a half around some mountain  bends, and frequently, no lines marked the middle of the road. It forces drivers to slow down, to savor this land.

When our arrival flight landed in the capital of Oslo, the city was merely a means to an end. Our rented hybrid car (a wise decision considering the price of a liter of gas) took us beyond the city limits to the beautiful west coast.

Hareid

We knew the first car ride would be at least eight hours — and maybe more depending on the timing of the ferries we had to take to cross some of the fjords.
But it was worth it to get  out of the city and  see  a countryside that grew more awe-inspiring with each turn.

Our destination was a region just north of the island-town of Hareid. We booked a cottage online and were not sure what to expect.

The cottage, at Kvitneset , stood alone at the end of a gravel road. Not only was the next home at least a mile away , but the cottage  was eerily surrounded by the concrete foundations of numerous other buildings.

This, at one point long ago, had been a village. All that remained was one home.

We learned later that Kvitneset was occupied by the Nazis during World War II. As the German forces departed at the end of the war, they destroyed many buildings. What they didn’t destroy, the locals themselves razed. Those locals considered this area tainted from the Nazis.

Our cottage was the only building not torn down, and a wooden sign next to the house mapped out what buildings — including a school and a hospital — once stood on this outcropping far from the tourist sites of Norway.

We loved it.

We loved it even more as we explored the area and re-created the buildings in our minds. We also loved it when we were gently woken in the early hours of the morning by a farmer herding sheep along the road and through the yard.

Nearby Hareid offered similar — and equally simple — charms.

The language barrier was severe at the local pizza place, and we guessed and pointed to the ingredients for a tasty medium pie. At the town’s only coffee shop, where I penned many thoughts on the trip in a journal, the server also didn’t speak English. However, she was born in South America, and I found myself channeling several years of Spanish classes in high school and college. I was able to order, pay and say thank you because of this surprising linguistic connection.

Runde

One indicator of Norway’s remoteness is the abundance of one-lane bridges and roads. And crossing many of those bridges was just part of getting to the bird-watching island of Runde.

Though the island boasts razorbills, black-legged kittiwake and common murre, we were most excited to see puffins.

We asked one of the shopkeepers along the road where was the best place to see the puffin.

It’s not where, he told us, it’s when.

That “when” meant our midday arrival was much too early.

So we came back later, about 9 p.m. From the parking lot, we hiked upward until the cliffs we once looked up at were now looking up at us.

And there it felt like the edge of the world. Far in the distance, across miles of open sea, the sun began to slide behind the horizon. It was
11:38 p.m.

But the darkness never fully came. Though we passed a couple of birders on our way up, we were now alone on this flat mountaintop.

Well-traveled trails guided us in a loop to the best birding sites, and opposite the path we walked up, we came to the puffin nesting ground.

Thousands upon thousands of the birds lined the cliffs. We looked down, balancing our curiosity with the safety hazards of peering down at the masses. No ropes or railings secured us. We had the full freedom to enjoy this world below — no humanity to interfere, no time to hurry us.

We laid there for at least an hour, watching the flutter of black and white below. Not much else seemed to matter.

The hike back to the car was slow and deliberate. It was sad to say goodbye to the island for the night.

Up and down the fjords

The Norwegian experience, of course, didn’t end there. The following day, we took a boat ride around Runde to get a different perspective on the bird colonies.

And during the rest of the two weeks, my wife and I visited the intriguing cities of Alesund and Bergen, traveled on one of Europe’s largest plateaus, took a ferry ride through the popular Geirangerfjord and got up close with the stable residents at the Norwegian Fjord Horse Center.

I’ve already said how simple life felt in Norway. I still think back to that trip, cherishing the memories that haven’t yet left me.

And a physical connection survives, too. A few months after returning to the United States, my wife got me my first scythe.