Day 6-Vik and the Hopperstad Stave Church

We woke up early to be on the 7:50 Express boat, today we wouldn't be going all the way back to Bergen but instead getting off at the first stop in Vik. You can get to Vik from Balestrand by taking the 7:50 express boat and returning on the 11:30 express boat. That gives you enough time to see the church and to still have some time to explore the small town. My kids were kind of grumpy about waking up early today, Connor tried to convince me that seeing a replica stave church at EPCOT was just as good as seeing the real thing. I explained that we would be seeing the real thing like it or not and that he needed to get out of bed!

We ate breakfast quickly and headed to the boat dock, luckily it is only a 4 minute walk from the hostel to the dock. The ride to Vik was a quick 15 minutes. We bought our tickets the day before at the Tourist Information office but you can also buy your tickets on the boat.

Waiting for the boat

The church is a 15 or 20 minute walk out of town, you walk through town and then past some farms. It was a lovely walk and a few of the houses in town had plaques on them telling about their historical significance. We arrived at the church at about 8:30 and it didn't open until 9:00. We spent some time taking pictures out side and just sitting and relaxing. There was a cat that followed us up from a farm and the the kids were happy to play with him. The church was beautiful on the outside, and it was in a lovely setting near farms on a hillside.

Sign for the church

Such a lovely setting

The kitty that joined us from the farm

Promptly at 9:00 am two attendants arrived to open the church. We paid a small fee at the ticket booth. One of the attendants took the key out to open the door to the church. The key was huge! Dan asked about it and she told him it was the original key. We went inside the church and spent some time looking around. There were only two other couples there so it wasn't crowded and it was quiet. The Hopperstad Stave Church was built around 1140 making it one of the oldest stave churches in Norway. The stave churches were built between 1130 and 1350, it is estimated that there were around 1000 of them and now 28 original stave churches remain. It was very cool being in a building that was nearly 900 years old! One of the attendants at the church gave a short but very informative tour, he pointed out and explained a lot of things that we would have missed otherwise. Everyone (kids included) throughly enjoyed the visit to the church and ranked it as one of the highlights of our trip!

The huge key!

Canopy covering side altar from the 1300s

Isn't the ceiling cool

Kind of a funny story from our church visit...Ali spotted some drawings on the wall (we learned that these were medieval graffiti) and she asked me to use the flashlight on my phone so she could see them better. I turned on the flashlight and we looked at the drawings. Then when I tried to turn the flashlight back off, my phone starting playing music!! The music was definitely not appropriate church music. I quickly tried to shut it off but failed, I then hurried outside and figured it out! Oh my was it embarrassing!!

Medieval graffiti

Happy family.

After leaving the church we headed back into town. Vik had two grocery stores and they were bigger than the stores in Balestrand, we stopped in both stores and picked up a few things. We also stopped in a few shops. Finally, we stopped and got ice cream for the kids and then sat at the harbor waiting for our 11:30 boat.

Upon returning to Balestrand we stopped at the store to pick up a few more things for lunch. The store was packed and lots of things seemed to be selling out, the loaves of bread were almost gone! We knew we'd be packing a lunch the next day and we needed some food for dinner. We later learned that the grocery stores in Norway are closed on Sunday, I think this is why there seemed to be a mad rush at the store on Saturday. Outside the grocery stores we met a young American woman who was traveling alone, she had just got off the boat from Bergen and asked if we knew where the hostel was. We told her she could walk with us because we were heading that way.

We made lunch back at the hostel and then the kids spent some time playing down in the game room. By this point I was so happy to be staying at the hostel, it was so nice to be able to use the kitchens and the kids loved having the freedom to roam around and spend time down in the game room.

After we rested for a bit we decided to go the small aquarium in Balestrand. It is very small but it was interesting, it had tanks with different types of fish that are in the water in the fjords. I wouldn't say the aquarium is a "must do" but if you are in Balestrand and have time then it is a nice way to spend some time. There is a small bakery attached to the aquarium and we got donuts for the kids, they were happy with their snack! We saw that there was a small cruise ship anchored in the harbor, they were ferrying their passengers to shore. The town was pretty full with the extra people from the ship. We walked up to the local church and found it full with people off the cruise ship. We decided to head back to the hostel as we didn't want to join the crowd.

We were renting cars to go to the glacier the next day and the cars were delivered to the hostel around 4:00. We just filled out the paperwork with the car rental guy in the lobby, I'm pretty sure it was the simplest rental agreement that we've ever done! When I asked him where we should return the car the next day he said to just leave the keys at the front desk of the hostel.

We had dinner at the hostel. The American woman we'd met earlier in the day joined us at our table for dinner, we also met some guys from DC in the kitchen. After dinner, Dan and the kids spent some time downstairs in the game room playing chinese checkers while I figured out what we needed to take to the glacier the next day. We tried to get to bed early because we knew tomorrow would be a long day!

 

Posted with Blogsy