Tuesday 10 July 2012

Tuesday 1.


Still on our Norse Saga, although I think  I shall be able to finish it this evening. The creatures in the photo above are not sheep but a small herd of reindeer we drove past and through. Freja was quicker than I and got a lovely shot of a fine white reindeer stag.
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Took the above shot too, through the nearside car window. It shows typical scenery that we drove through on our way back from Borgund to Fagernes, where we'd left Lasse, and stayed the night.



View of the sunset from the balcony of our 'apartment'  beside the river at fagernes.



In the morning we drove to Reinli, which we found (again  following Ruth and Lasse's car) by eventually turning off a mountainous road, and following a small, mainly single track, almost vertical,  road which zig-sagged uphill until we came to the very small village of Reinli, which is dominated by the church in the picture below.  

It is a lovely apsoidal church, which has a fascinating history. This time the curator/guide was a young woman who told us that this was the second Christian church on this site, having been built in the 1200s on the site of an earlier church from the 1000s, which was in turn, thought to have been built on the site of an even earlier pagan temple. I took the picture above the one of the church through one of the 'arrow slit' vertical apertures which can be seen in the church photo.


The curator pointed out the carving above and asked if we knew what it was? I thought it was a dragon, but one of the girls said "It's either Huginn or Munnin."   which didn't help me at all. The  curator though was pleased, and explained to me that these were the names of Odin's ravens. The curator's English was excellent; we discussed the virtues and longevity of timber buildings and when I told her there was one 'Stave Church' and many medieval timber framed buildings in East Anglia (in one of which we live) she said to us "You mind the shop for me. I'm going to England".  We eventually drove on to Gjovic (which is pronounced Yorvic - the old name for our York), had a belated, but good lunch there, then we split up, Ruth et allia driving North towards their home, which they reached the following day, and we drove South and East towards Arvica, where we passed the night. Want to show one or two more photos. Back in a minute.

4 comments:

Rog said...

Gorgeous sunset!

Liz said...

That sunset shot is particularly splendid. I like the composition of the one below it too.

The church seems to be all roof.

Unknown said...

Thank you Rog, it really was a georgeous sunset. It seemed to get better and better as we watched.

Unknown said...

Thank you Liz. All of the stave churches we saw seemed to be mainly roof; especially from the inside. They appear to soar upward to the rafters.