Norway

We drove from Stockholm to Porsgrunn, it took an extra hour than planned as it took us about that long to get on the motorway heading in the right direction! We kept getting on, taking the wrong lane/entry and pointing in the wrong direction! Each time we got further away from where we needed to be! After 4 attempts we managed to get on the motorway heading in the right direction! We took a ferry across the river too which was a new experience. Arrived in Porsgrunn at Katt and Lasse’s at about 8pm and spent a few days hanging out with them and seeing the sights and marveling at the beauty of the countryside. We saw a church of an entirely different type, a stave church. This was built in the 1100’s and is the largest Stave church still in existence. Originally Catholic it changed to being Protestant in the reformation and as a result many of the more ornate aspects of the church were removed or destroyed. It is a large church with very little light coming in from small windows near the roof, these were added a few hundred years after it was built, probably when it became Protestant. Before that the church would have been in total darkness but as the parishioners couldn’t read and were being preached at in Latin which they couldn’t understand, having light wasn’t a huge issue. The also didn’t have pews for a few hundred years, everyone just stood. There is an external shell of a church which provides a passage all the way around as well as protecting the main church from the elements. This is where the undeserving could stand to hear the sermon, lepers, criminals, pregnant women….

We then continued on our way to the hydroelectric museum and went to the town of Rjukan a town that has no sunlight from mid September to late March! This is due to the huge mountains either side. Since the end of 2013 they have installed large mirrors (something very Mr Burns about that) to reflect sunlight down on the town, not sure how that’s working out… After the invasion of Norway by the Nazi’s there was concern from the Allies that the production of heavy water at the hydro station would provide a boost to their weapons programme. A series of sabotage efforts by the Norweigan Resistance and the subsequent bombing by the Allies stopped this.