28 August

Before I start today, a most sincere apology. In both this blog for yesterday and in the photos posted on Flickr, I misspelt Røros as Røson. I will fix that up as soon as possible.
I woke at the normal (for me) time of about 0530 having been woken up by rain during the night. However, as we weren’t leaving until 9 and breakfast didn’t start until 0700, I cribbed a bit of time until 0630 and then rose, performed my normal (for being on tour) ablutions and was in for breakfast promptly at 0700. The normal crew were there on time and again we had a wonderful choice for breakfast, EXCEPT no TOAST!
After traversing the temptations of too much food, I returned, finished packing my suitcase and put that out. I tried for more Internet, but for some reason the cards were all timed out, so I couldn’t check email. I went to the entertainment area and looked around and chatted, then went outside for some fresh air before getting into the bus and off at exactly 0900. Jerome, our Director, must love us because we are always on time and no-one has managed to get lost, even for a short time.
We headed off into Sweden, and immediately after we entered we had a brief stop at 1030 for toilets (not many) and some shopping (we are all becoming supermarket junkies, and can even spot the specials within a few seconds of entering). Here I managed to score a baguette which was as close to French as I have had outside France!
We then kept on going until nearly 1400 when we stopped for a very late lunch in Mora. During a good look around I saw a pedestrian mall, a great little lake, some wonderful buildings, nice trains (electric and diesel) and many wonderful flowers and statues. We had been dropped beside a wonderful church which, upon further investigation, was OPEN! While looking around inside, the organist arrived – she was practising for a funeral tomorrow and had to play “Imagine”, “Tears from Heaven” and “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. Fortunately we were able to hear some music before we left.
After leaving, we headed out into what would be the suburbs to visit a horse factory (wooden horses). We saw the whole process, from cutting the blanks from Swedish pine (NOT Norwegian), shaping them by hand (normally done as piece work in homes) and then finishing and painting them. After, we found another maker, same surname, had a factory opposite. After this we travelled on until we reached our hotel in Falun about 1720. Here our luggage was at the rooms with us, even with us all arriving at the same time. After a quick walk around the town I went back to the hotel and was told that the Internet in the room wasn’t working so I did some email checking from the lobby.
At 1900 we all headed in for what proved to be a most hilarious meal and by 2100 I was back in my room processing photos and writing. I can’t tell you all of what happened in the conversations and actions, but I can tell you that it is not necessarily the young ones who play up.

Some observations about Norway: beautiful scenery, uncrowded areas and roads, wonderful and friendly people and a different view around each corner. If we had taken twenty days, we still would have been pleased at the amount to see.
Fjords were scenic and economically important. Cost of living is really high, but houses can be reasonably priced (but not in large cities). Forests have very shallow-rooted trees and contain a moss which looks like miniature flowers, and the reindeer love finding and eating it during winter, taking it as a real treat. They paw the snow out of the way, and warmer days during winter means the snow melts and refreezes, so the reindeer can’t smash the ice to get to it. Forests are well maintained, there are many weekend and summer cabins, a lot (like ordinary houses) with soil and grass on the roof for great insulation and there are many streams and rivers which provide great salmon fishing.