SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF NORWAY IN THE SUMMER OF 2011

Barry and Margaret Williamson
September 2012

This video attempts to capture in images and music something of the Norwegian journey we made in the summer of 2011.

Click: Summer on the Coast of Norway 2011.

The video, which assumes that you have a Flash Player installed, works like a download from Utube, with a Play and Pause button and a Volume control. Right click on the video screen to select Go Full Screen; press Escape to Exit Full Screen.

Images: There are 100 images, each shown for 7 seconds, a total play time of 11 minutes 40 seconds. If your internet connection isn't fast enough for the video, pause the show until it catches up.

Nineteen ferries and countless tunnels and bridges helped us make our way north along the Norwegian coast, from its southernmost point at Lindenes Lighthouse to the Lofoten Islands, high above the Arctic Circle.

The first two images show the bicycles, Sprinter van and caravan in which we travelled north along coastal Norway for 3 months and 4,600 miles in the summer of 2011.

The next four images are of Edvard Grieg and the cabin, desk and house near Bergen where he lived and composed.

In case you wondered, the little furry critter lying dead in the road is an Arctic Lemming.

The final three images were taken in the small Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Narvik. Buried there are soldiers, sailors and airmen who attempted to resist the German invasion of 1940. The final inscription reads, appropriately enough for cyclists:

LET MY SPIRIT GO OUT IN A WINDSTORM
CLEAN, PURE, ON MY LAST RIDE OF ALL

Narvik was our furthest north in mainland Norway before turning east into Swedish Lapland.

Music: There are four pieces of music:

The first two are 'Morning Mood' and 'Solveig's Song' from Grieg's incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's play 'Peer Gynt'. Ibsen and Grieg are Norway's lasting contribution to the worlds of literature and music.

The next piece of music is Edward Elgar's 'Salut d'Amour', which seemed appropriate to the overall mood of the project.

The video ends with a snatch of Willie Nelson's 'On the Road Again', heralding our next journey, which was back to a winter in Greece (the opposite end of some kind of European spectrum).