Norway - Part 7: Mørkved, Saltdal, Bodø, Quartz Mine, Tverlandsmarka, Sheep, and Garden

In the days preceding and after our Lofoten trip, we were busy doing stuff near my parents' house.  One day we went for a hike/walk along the shoreline in Mørkved, a short drive away.  The path was very scenic, and as usual, the girls loved climbing on rocks.  

Another day, we decided to drive to the Blood Road Museum in Saltdal, about an hour away.  During World War II, while Norway was occupied by the Nazis, Eastern European prisoners of war were forced by the Germans to build railways.  They were treated horribly and we thought the museum sounded interesting/educational.  When we traveled by train from Oslo to Bodø, the northern part of the tracks were built by those prisoners of war, mostly Yugoslavian.  Unfortunately, when we got to the museum, it was unexpectedly closed.   Fortunately, it was right next to the Saltdal Folk Museum, which turned out to be amazing.  There were buildings that were several centuries old to about a hundred years old that had been moved and preserved as a museum.  The idea is that people could see how people lived at different times.  The best thing about this museum was that we could walk freely in all the buildings and touch everything.  In Oslo, later on, we went to a similar, but much larger museum that I didn't like after being in Saltdal, because in Saltdal we could touch and explore everything in the buildings. 

In the school house, we could play 'school' with the kids and really imagine being in those times.  The readers and math books were cool to browse.  We each took turns pretending to be the teacher.

I liked the organ in the classroom with its hymnal, that the teacher would have played for the kids.

In Oslo, at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, they also had a preserved antique school house.  The kids were excited to go there, after remembering how awesome the old Saltdal school house was and then were disappointed when we got to the building and you could only look inside through a glass door.  Hands on things are more fun, even when there are fewer buildings to explore.

Here are Derek and Lydia inside a sled that would have been used for hauling supplies.

Lydia found a spinning wheel.

Although the Blood Road Museum was closed, we did go to two cemeteries from that period.  One was a Yugoslavian cemetery for the prisoners of war who had died, and another for the 2700+ Nazis/Germans that had been killed in the area during the war.   Both were very interesting.  It was sad to see the dates on the stones and think about how young many of the men who died were.

Yugoslavian cemetery for prisoners of war (and our irreverent kids running around playing, instead of being respectful):

One night, after the kids had gone to bed, we heard bells, and knew the sheep had come down the mountain.  They probably saw the red barn and were hoping to go inside.  We brought down Karina and Lydia, and they were ecstatic.  This next picture of Lydia is out of focus, but it shows how thrilled she was. 

Mormor called the sheep over and they actually came, probably thinking she had food.  Karina and Lydia hid behind her, as they were both excited and scared of the sheep. 

The sheep came back a few days later, but didn't come all the way down to the barn.  

We went back to the woods in Tverlandet one morning, as the kids really loved it there.  They liked the ski shelter, the river, the bridges to get there, and the rocks to throw in the water.  

We went on another little hike in nearby Vatnet, and also played along the beach, throwing in rocks.  After playing along the beach, we hiked up and along a little hill.

I'm not sure why the kids like laying on the rocky hills so much, but apparently it is comfortable and fun.  

Our good hikers ran off ahead:

We couldn't end our visit without a trip into town, to downtown Bodø, a city of about 50,000 people:

Nate and I hiked to an old Quartz mine one afternoon.  For being an old mine, it still was very pretty.   It was also amazing how fast we could walk without the kids!  If we had taken them, this would have been a day trip instead of a 2.5 hr hike there and back.

Lydia found a vintage hat to play with:

The kids liked the antique organ.  

Here is Karina playing her favorite song on the organ:

 

We also played lots of card and board games while in Norway, as well as did plenty of perler beads.

Mimi and Derek being silly.  I should have gotten a video of it, as it was hilarious. 

We baked a lot while in Hopen, especially apple cake and carrot cake.  The kids liked to 'help' putting in the apples and making the batter.  Lydia could easily devour half an apple cake per day.  It is her favorite.

This is the large field just up the hill behind my parents' house.  They own about 125 acres, and some of it is fields that a local farmer still cuts every year.  

We loved to pick flowers from the garden.  You can see Derek is holding a pair of scissors and thought cutting flower stems was the best thing ever.  Derek and Lydia got to cut some flowers from the garden with help from me.  They also got to cut as many wild flowers as they wanted in the field on the other side of the driveway.  

Nate took this picture our last night in Hopen and it was taken around 12:30am.  It was the first sunset we had experienced in Northern Norway.  Of our near 3 weeks north of the Arctic Circle, we had 23 minutes of the sun being 'set', and Nate was determined to capture a sunset.