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Bærums Verk is a small village that is located at Northwest of Oslo. On the Norway Oslo tourist page, it talked about Bærums Verk and indicated that it has an unique charm to it and there are many local stores selling unique handcrafted items. Thus we decided to go visit this place to see what it is like.
Getting to Bærums Verk was not as straight forward. First, we had to take the underground train, or subway to Sandvika, and then take local bus to Bærums Verk. The total commute time was about an hour.
When we got to Bærums Verk, it was around 10AM and it was very quiet. The view of the village was quite gorgeous and we saw few people enjoying their breakfast outside. However, we did not see anyone on the street visiting the stores. Many of the local stores did not seem to be open either. We were quite confused.
We even walked into a building like mall and the stores in the mall were definitely open, but we did not see any shoppers in the mall. We were essentially the only one walking around here. Another thing we noticed was that there weren't any other tourists around. We felt like we got scammed by the Norwegian travel guide and were quite disappointed.
Since it took us an hour to get here, we did explore almost every single corner of this place. There was a glass blowing shop that was quite interesting. There were also many sculptures around the town. Some sculptures have colors on the hair and eyes to make it look more alive.
After about 30 minutes, we really did not know what else to do here. It seemed that not even local people come to this place. Thus we headed back to the bus station to go back to Oslo.
To be honest, we were disappointed by Bærums Verk. We originally had high expectation here and were looking forward to see some of the locally made products.
Vigeland Park is the largest park in Oslo and there are over 200 sculptures in the park alone! These sculptures mostly consist of naked men and women with unique poses. This park is a must visit place in Oslo. The park is located on the West side of Oslo and is accessible by street cars or bus. The sightseeing bus also make stop here as well.
We got to Vigeland Park in the afternoon and there were so many people in the park, mostly tourists. As we walked through the entrance gate, we could already see sculptures everywhere on the side. Some sculptures are made out of bronze and some are carved out of stones.
As we walked toward the center of the park, we crossed a bridge with many sculptures on the side. One of the sculptures was a kid with its fist being a metallic color. We were not sure why it was different, but we saw many tourist doing a handshake with the sculpture's hand. We were thinking that maybe it was for good fortune.
Inside the park, we also saw several Norwegian people taking the top off and enjoying the picnic on the grass field. We were told that Norwegian people try to enjoy the sun as much as possible during the summer because winter is dark and cold.
So we finally reached the center of the park and there was a large column of sculpture standing in the center. It was huge. Around the center column, there were several other sculptures with different poses by men and women. We had already seen many sculptures within the city and figured that making sculptures is one of the Norwegian culture.
Other than just sculptures, the park also had a large obstacle play area for kids. The walk path in the park was also covered by large trees with flowers planted along the side of the walkway. It was really nice to have a stroll within the park in the afternoon.
Overall, we enjoyed visiting Vigeland Park. Although we did not spend much time here, seeing this many sculptures in different ways was definitely interesting. It also helped to understand the Norwegian culture more.
Bygdøy is located at the West side of Oslo, which is the capital city of Norway. There are several Norwegian museums here and it is a must go tourist attraction when visiting Oslo to understand the Norwegian culture. Bygdøy can be reached via bus or ferry from Oslo, or people can hop on sight seeing tour bus to get here.
We took the bus from central Oslo to Bygdøy in the morning. The bus took about 30 minutes to get here. The first museum we arrived at is the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. We actually got here 10 minutes early before it opened to general public. We actually waited a bit until the gate opens up.
This museum was quite unique. It was more like a live demo of what Norway was like at different time such as hundreds of years ago, 1900s, and World War 2 time. There were houses built with wood with sod roof. The sod roof helps to drain water and prevent water leak.
There were also live performance of Norwegian music and folk dance, which was quite interesting. We also visited the traditional Norwegian bakery where they were making the traditional bread by the fireplace. The folks there were wearing traditional Norwegian clothing as well.
At the other part of the museum, it was built with 1900 buildings. It was showing what a normal household look like. There were people demonstrating the traditional Norwegian weaving techniques.
After visiting the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, we went to visit Viking Ship Museum. Although the museum is just down the street, we still took the bus to there since the we were able to catch the bus as it was arriving. When we got there, there were so man people coming from the tour bus. It was crazy. At Viking Ship Museum, it did not allow large backpack to be carried into the museum and had to be stored at the locker that was free of charge.
The Viking Ship Museum had a full scale real Viking ships. One of the ships was perfectly maintained and it was larger than what I expected. However, the side of the ship was quite low, we were kind of wondering how this kind of ship can sail across the ocean.
The Viking Ship Museum was much smaller and we finished quite fast. We then headed further South to Norwegian Maritime Museum and Fram Museum. In these museums, it illustrated how Norwegian explorers ventured into Arctic and Antarctica. At Fram Museum, there was a large ship in there to allow people to explore the interior of the ship. The only problem was it was quite hot in there.
Afterwards, we then visited Kon-Tiki Museum across from Fram Museum. It was a small museum and we were not quite sure what this was about. There was a ship in there used by a Norwegian explorer and also talked about the adventure on Easter Island. This museum was not as interesting as the other ones.
After visiting all the museums, we initially wanted to take the ferry back to Oslo, but the wait time was too long and the bus was arriving. Thus we took the bus back to Oslo instead. Overall, Bygdøy was quite an interesting experience. We were glad that we did this as the first thing when we got to Norway as it helped us to understand Norwegian culture more.
Olympic National Park is one of the most popular national parks in the Northwest part of United States due to how close it is to large metropolitan areas such as Vancouver and Seattle. Olympic National Park offers variety of scenarios such as high mountain view, waterfalls, lakes and rain forest. During this Independence Day long weekend, we decided to visit this popular place.
We left Portland around 6AM in the morning and it would take us around 5.5 hours to get to Hurricane Ridge. The weather was a bit gloomy, but it did not rain luckily. As we get to the ranger station to drive up to Hurricane Ridge, we were stuck in the traffic paying for the entrance fee. The fee is $30 per vehicle and discount is offered to seniors and military personals. Along the way, we also saw few bikers and we were amazed on how fit they are.
After 17 miles of drive in the mountain, we finally got up to Hurricane Ridge. The view on the Olympic Mountain on the far side was quite stunning. We could see the glacier and the cloud surround the peaks.
We then decided to do the easy hike on Sunrise Point Trail. It was a very easy trail with almost no elevation gain. Along the way, we also saw few deers wondering around enjoying the grass.
After the hike, we then headed back to Port Angeles and checked in to Days Inn. We had some rest before heading to the harbor to watch the firework show.
On the second day, we left early to do the Sol Duc Falls Trail. We passed by Lake Crescent along the way but it did not look spectacular at all, so we did not stop by. Afterwards, we drove to Hoh Rain Forest to check out the hairy trees. On the way back to Port Angeles, we also went to La Push Beach to check out one of the main settings in Twilight Saga. Thankfully did not encounter any vampire.
In general, we were not really impressed with what Olympic National Park offered compared to the scenery in Oregon. The mountain and the lake were not very impressive. In addition, one very annoying thing is that every time we want to visit a place at Olympic National Park, we had to drive so far from ranger station to the actual tourist attraction. We were so tired of driving by the time we get there.
La Push is a reservation area for Native American tribe Quileute. The place is known for surfing. It is located very close to Forks and it is also one of the main setting for Twilight Saga, where Jacob lives. It is also one of the beach where vampire avoid due to the
Quileute tribe and the sunnier weather at the beach. Since we are visiting Olympic this long weekend, we decided to visit this place to see what it is like.
La Push beach is about 15 miles off Highway 101. By driving on La Push Road all the way to the end, we arrived at La Push beach. There was not many people here and the gravel parking lot was only half full. We also saw many hand crafted shop along the road and a mariner just beside the beach.
Unlike instead the Olympic National Park, the weather at La Push Beach was much sunnier and warmer. We could see many people enjoying the sun on the beach and enjoying the breeze of the wind. There were also few people dressed with wet suit for surfing. On the far side of the beach, there was a vertical rock and we recognized it as the rocks where Jacob jumped off from.
As we drove back to Highway 101, we saw few ambulance came by and parked at Olympic National Park parking lot. Not exactly sure what happened and we were guessing that someone got injured on the beach. Both the ambulance and the police car were labelled with Forks.
Overall, we just wanted to see what La Push was like since it was one of the main setting in Twilight Saga. It kind of matched what we expect. The small village along side of a small Forks town. We were wondering how far they would have to drive just to watch a movie.
Hoh Rain Forest is a popular tourist attraction at Olympic National Park in Washington. The forest receives 3 times as much precipitation annually compared to Seattle and thus grew a lot of moss on the trees. Despite the amount of moss at this location, it has attracted lot of visitors every year due to its unique forest scape.
We got to Hoh Rain Forest visitor center around 10:30 in the morning and we were so lucky to find a parking spot. As we drove to the parking lot, a car was just leaving at the same time. Then when we got out of the car, we could smell the strong odor of insect repellent that people were using.
The visitor center at Hoh Rain Forest had a lot of details on how the forest is formed. It even had a precipitation meter to keep track of the amount of precipitation that it has been receiving. Unfortunately, the forest has not even received half of its usual precipitation this year.
The hiking trail here was quite easy. Hall of Mosses and Spruce of Nature trails were only about 1 mile long with almost no elevation gain. As we hiked into the forest, we start to see very very hairy trees with moss all over it. We imagined that the tree is probably dead with the amount of moss that it has.
Some trees are covered by the moss entirely and it simply looked like a giant with legs and arms. It was quite interesting to see different figures of trees. The stream along the trail also had extremely clear water and we could see the green algae under the clear water.
As we walked back to the visitor center, we saw several people holding the junior ranger booklet to complete different tasks. Once tasks are completed and the pledge is spoken, you can get a junior range badge. This is a very interesting activity for kids to enjoy and understand the circle of life in the forest. The visitor center also offered a different set of tasks for ocean related environment and the reward is a different patch. Although the reward is for junior ranger, it is open to all ages to participate.
Overall, Hoh Rain Forest is very suitable for senior and young kids with easy trails. The kids will also enjoy the tasks to acquire junior range badge.
Sol Duc Falls is one of the most popular water falls within Olympic National Park. It is located at the North side of Olympic National Park, along Sol Duc River. The trail to Sol Duc Falls is a rather short trail from the parking lot. The trail is about 2 miles round trip. Although the trail goes further in into the Olympic National Park forest, most people turn back after getting the Sol Duc Falls.
We got to the Sol Duc Falls trail head very early in the morning at around 8AM and the ranger station was even opened to collect park entrance fee. We had paid for the park entrance fee the day before so we left the receipt on the dash in case the rangers want to check.
As we got to the trail head, there was a warning sign stating that people should carry bear spray in case of bear attack, we figured that we were just going to do a short hike to Sol Duc Falls, so we did not bother. We thought that this warning sign was for people we intend to do over night hike.
As we ventured further in into the forest, we got to a place with a lot of rocks and moss on the rock. There was a woman sitting on the rock playing music with Hanghang. The soft sound coming from Hanghang and the scenery with rocks and moss really gave this feeling of tranquility.
As we approach the waterfall, we came across this hut on the side of the trail. We weren't sure what the hut was for but it had a lot of moss on it. There was no one in the hut. Since it was early morning, everything just seem so peaceful.
Once we got to the waterfall, we took some photos since no one was here. There were trails that allow people to get to the side of the waterfall to get a close look. After a while, we also saw few people attempting to climb down to the river to take better photo of the waterfall.
Overall, we like this trail. It was very quite in the morning and easy to hike on. The only thing we did not like is that we had to drive like 12 miles from ranger station to get here. It was quite a long drive just to get here. Some people do camp here or stay at the Sol Duc Hot Spring Resort so that they could hike whenever they want.
Sunrise Point Trail is located within Olympic National Park in Washington State. It is quite a short trail even starting from the parking lot. The total round trip distance is less than 2 miles. However, since it is an easy trail and it is located at Hurricane Ridge, which is the must visit place at Olympic National Park, the trail is extremely crowded.
We got to Hurricane Ridge around 11AM in the morning and we were very lucky to get a parking space right away. As we hiked up the trail, 2 deers came out of the trees to greet us. The deers were enjoying the grass very much. We could tell that one was female and the other was male because it had antlers. The male deer crossed the trail to get to the other side, but the female deer was a bit scared to cross due to the crowd of people watching here. She eventually went around people and hopped over to join with the male.
There was not much elevation gain on Sunrise Point Trail. The initial part of the trail from parking lot was well paved and very easy to walk on. Then the dirt trail was very well maintained to help people to climb along with the elevation gain. On the last part of the trail, it was on the ridge along the road where we drove from.
The view at the top had panoramic view around Olympic National Park. We could see Mount Olympic on the South side. On the North side, we could not see much due to the clouds, but on the clear days we would be able to see as far as Vancouver Island across the sea.
Along the hiking trail, one thing to keep in mind was to keep yourself on the trail and not to step into the meadow. There were signs every where to tell people to stay on the trail, but we still saw several people wondering off the trail just to take a photo.
Overall, the trail itself was good, but quite short. We were expecting to experience a better trail with better view. Given that it took a long drive of 17 miles from park entrance just to get here, we were a bit disappointed with what the trial offered at the top. However this easy trail is very suitable for young kids and senior people since it did not have much elevation gain and the trail was well maintained.
