September 30, 2026: Welcome to our September cocktail hour. Let’s have an aquavit, a distilled spirit that has been produced since the 15th century in Scandinavia. Aquavit is distilled from grain or potatoes and is flavored with a variety of spices and herbs. The dominant flavor must come from a distillate of caraway and/or dill seed. Skål!
I have a variety of soda or seltzer water for those of you who don’t drink.
September marked the second of our three month stint of slow travel around the Nordic countries. We started off the month in Vaasa, Finland and ended the month in Geiranger, Norway.
Three of five nights in Vaasa (& the Kvarken Archipelago) in Finland
September 1-4: We continued our stay in |*Vaasa*| by renting a Volkswagen Golf from Sixt and driving north to the mostly Swedish-speaking |*Jakobstad*|, stopping on the way to check out the array of old rust-colored farmhouses with gold doors at the closed-for-the-season Klemetsgårdarna in Maxmo. We checked out the old wooden house district called Skata in Jakobstad and strolled around the grounds of the pretty yellow cruciform church, Jakobstad Church. The pointy spire of Pedersöre kyrka called out for our attention. We then drove south, crossed the Replot Bridge and visited the cute harbor lined with boathouses at Svedjehamn and then walked a short bit of the Bodvattnet Nature Trail at the |*Kvarken Archipelago*|, climbing the Saltkaret Observation Tower to see the De Geer moraines, ridges left behind by glaciers moving northwest during the Ice Age, as well as the slow-motion land uplift evident in the area. Back in Vaasa, we visited the Ostrobothnian Museum, where we learned some history about Ostrobothnia, the province in which Vaasa is located. We went inside one of the rarely open churches, Holy Trinity Church, in Vaasa. We enjoyed a wonderful dining experience at FYR, attached to the Faros Restaurant Ship & Terrace, which was closed for a special event. We enjoyed watching the new university students with their bright patch-covered overalls playing competition games for freshman bonding. Finally, we rode Ryde scooters around Hietasaari island and past the public sauna, and continued zipping around on them to the old barracks area as well as by the Orthodox Church.
Six nights in Turku, Finland
September 4-10: In |*Turku*|, we took the Föli water bus to Ruissalo Island, where we enjoyed Finnish photos strapped to trees in a natural kind of photo exhibition. We walked along the Aura River and visited Turku Market Hall for take-away food and lunches. We meandered through the endless labyrinthine corridors and halls of Turku Castle and then visited the impressive Forum Marinum (Maritime Center) where we learned about Turku’s shipbuilding industry and toured the 1960s-era Passengership Bore. We enjoyed drinks at rento and Hemingway’s Bar. We took a bus to the small town of Naantali which seemed to be shutting down for the season; still, we managed to enjoy a lovely lunch on an outdoor patio at Ravintola Trappi. We saw the thought-provoking exhibit traveling around Europe, The Mystery of Banksy “A Genius Mind.” We perused the Aboa Vetus Ars Nova, a museum with both underground medieval ruins and contemporary art exhibits. We ate pizza for lunch at Ristorante Pizzeria Dennis and visited Market Square and the Turku Art Museum with its fabulous exhibit “Millefleurs” by Icelandic painter Eggert Pétursson. Finally, we enjoyed a wonderful tapas dinner at Di Trevi on our final night in Turku.
A week in Bergen, Norway
September 10-17: We took a train from Turku to Helsinki, then flew from Helsinki to Oslo to Bergen. It rained quite a bit during our week in |*Bergen*| but we traipsed around outdoors to explore the city anyway. We explored the Bergen City Center, the World Heritage Bryggen and the harbor of Vågen in steady rain. We wandered through the Torget Fish Market and shared a shrimp sandwich and French fries. We did some shopping at Donna and Dressman. When a rare bit of sunshine came out, we strolled around one evening. We admired Edvard Munch paintings and old Norwegian artworks at the Rasmus Meyer, KODE museum, and were not all that interested in the contemporary art at Stenersen, KODE. We ate an expensive pizza and burrata salad at Villani-Trattoria | Osteria in our soaking wet jeans. We walked 2 miles up Mt. Fløyen to see views of Bergen, the harbor and the surrounding mountains, as well as the Fløyen cashmere goats. Then we took the Fløribanen funicular down to the town. We visited the Gamle Bergen Museum, a grouping of old houses that capture the history of the city, on the last day of their summer season. We explored the unusual Galleri Nygaten Museum of Figurative Art, which combines art and festivities. We took the Rodne half-day Fjordcruise from Bergen to Mostraumen up the Osterfjorden. We visited the Fantoft Stave Church in the middle of a magical forest, walked through the Bergen train station and ate tacos with mezcal at Oki Doki. We stayed in most of one rainy day except for attempts to visit the Bergen Cathedral (closed though it was supposed to be open) and the Hansiatic Museum (closed). Finally, we learned all about the fjords and the fishing industry at Norges Fiskerimuseum (Norway Fisheries Museum) and about Norse folklore and trolls at the Troll Museum Bergen. I left my umbrella there and had to traipse back through town to fetch it (I had already lost one umbrella on this trip and had to buy another).
Three nights on the Hurtigruten Cruise ship MS Vesterålen from Bergen to Svolvær
September 17-19: On Thursday the 17th, we checked out of our Airbnb in Bergen and boarded the |*MS Vesterålen*|, a Hurtigruten cruise ship. We checked into our tiny berth, went to safety briefings, and ate a buffet dinner where we met the orange-loving and lively Susan from Melbourne. Our first full day, Friday, we went down Hjørundfjord and walked around the idyllic town of Urke, attended informational meetings on board, enjoyed a quick buffet dinner, and got off at a port stop in Ålesund to stroll among its classy Art Nouveau buildings in a steady rain for two hours. On Saturday, we learned about Munkholmen and did a lively “meet and greet” where we waved Norwegian flags at our Hurtigruten sister ship, Nordkapp, which was leaving Trondheim as we approached. At the port stop of Trondheim, we walked around the town for three hours and enjoyed the sunshine and pretty city, saw Nidaros Cathedral but didn’t go inside, and posed by the Ravnkloa canal. Later, we saw the octagonal red lighthouse called Kjeungskjær Lighthouse, had drinks with Susan in the Panorama Bar, attended another informational meeting and enjoyed dinner from a menu (not a buffet) with Paul and Julia from Dorset. On Sunday, we crossed the Arctic Circle at 7:56 a.m. and had an Arctic crossing celebation with the captain and crew where the man who guessed the closest time to the exact crossing won a Hurtigruten flag signed by the crew and endured ice poured over his head and down his back. For a free aquavit, other passengers could get the same treatment and I opted in for that. We stopped for a 2-hour walkabout in Bodø where we looked for famous street art with Susan. Later we had drinks with Susan, as well as George and Sandy from California, at the Panorama bar and then enjoyed another dinner with Paul and Julia. We disembarked in Svolvær at 9:20 p.m. and checked into Thon Hotel Svolvær, a one-minute walk from the port.
Three nights in Svolvær, Norway
September 20-22: We only had two days in |*Svolvær*| and we spent the first one on foot, the second in a car. On Monday the 21st, we took a long walk to Svinøya, an island known for its red rorbuer (fishermen’s huts) and a plethora of Arctic cod-drying racks. It was a picturesque walk with the sea and the Lofoten Wall surrounding us. Mike picked up a rental car from Sixt: a blue Toyota Corolla Cross that we would use on Tuesday. The first night, we ate an excellent and atmospheric dinner at Bacalao, a waterfront restaurant, where I had Moules Frites, the most delicious pot of mussels in cream sauce imaginable. Mike enjoyed a Game Burger made of moose and reindeer, topped with salad, bacon, mushroom, pepper jack cheese, lingonberry sour cream and fries. We also shared a chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. On Tuesday, we drove in the rental car to the Vågan Church, then to Henningsvær, a small fishing village in the Lofoten Islands, where we ran into Paul and Julia. We made a brief stop at Rorvika beach. Since we were stopped by road construction from going further west, we instead drove north from Svolvær into the sparsely populated wilds of Lofoten. After I took a tumble on a metal grate and luckily came away uninjured, we ate a Quattro pizza at Fellini Restaurant Pizza og Grill.
Two nights in Bodø, Norway
September 23-24: On Wednesday morning the 23rd at 6 a.m., we took the 3 1/2-hour Express Ferry to |*Bodø*|. We arrived in town at around 9:30 a.m. and stored our luggage at the Thon Hotel Nordlys until check-in time. Luckily they let us check in at 11:30. We took a walk around the pretty Bodø Harbor on the sunny and warm day. Later in the afternoon, we went on the Rampen Sea Eagle Safari by RIB boat to Saltstraumen after putting on dry suits, goggles and hats. The ride through the fjord to the whirlpools known as Saltstraumen was bumpy and cold; when we got there we saw the whirlpools caused by the tide going out; Saltstraumen has one of the strongest tidal currents in the world as up to 400 million cubic meters of seawater force their way through a 3km-long and 150m-wide strait every six hours. Whirlpools are formed when the current is at its strongest. We saw glimpses of sea eagles, salmon farms, mountains and dramatic islets, as well as rocks engraved with curvaceous striations caused by ancient lava flows that have been pushed up by the North American and European tectonic plates bumping into each other. We ate dinner at Tiger Ramen one night and Tiger Street Food the second night. We visited the Stormen bibliotek, or the Bodø public library, built in 2014 to highlight the city’s role as a growing cultural hub. Mike had hurt his knee and wasn’t feeling good so he returned to the room to rest while I did a little shopping for some new pajamas and two sweaters.
a 10(+)-hour train ride & three nights in Trondheim, Norway
September 25-27: On Friday the 25th, we took what was meant to be a 9-hour and 46-minute train ride on the SJ Nord on the Nordlandsbanen railway line – a 729km (453 mi) railway line between Bodø and Trondheim. Bodø has Norway’s northernmost train station. We boarded at 12:27 p.m. Paul and Julia from our cruise were also on the train. At about 2:30 p.m., we passed by the Arctic Circle Center at Saltfjellet, which the friendly woman running the café pointed out, along with a couple of white reindeer bounding across the landscape. She told us that the Arctic Circle is actually moving about 14 meters a year. The Arctic Circle as a line of latitude remains the same on maps for the sake of convenience, but it actually shifts in position over time; over the next 40,000 years, it will move all the way to Lofoten and back to its original position. Also on the train were twelve young women on their way to Croatia; they were loud and their decibel level grew when we had a 2-hour delay due to a young man throwing himself in front of the train ahead of us. We traipsed into the Clarion Hotel Trondheim at 12:30 a.m., exhausted from the trip and the delay. On Saturday morning, in |*Trondheim*|, we visited Nidaros Cathedral, built over the burial site of King Olav II (c. 995-1030) who reigned from 1015-1028. He brought Christianity to Norway and became the patron saint of the new nation. New Norwegian monarchs are today consecrated at the Cathedral. In addition, the Cathedral is a popular place of Evangelical-Lutheran Christian pilgrimage, with several thousand pilgrims visiting each year. We also took a stroll along the Nidelva, saw what we mistakenly thought was a Banksy (“Boy fishing”), crossed over the iconic bridge Gamle bybro and wandered down the charming cobbled neighborhood of Nedre Bakklandet. We ate lunch on a bench beside a friendly Norwegian dentist, Bjornor, who recommended we take a drive to see Sweden’s Largest Waterfall, Tännforsen. We enjoyed a delicious dinner at Frida Cocina Mexicana that night. On Sunday morning, we picked up a Volvo XC60 from Sixt and drove to Sweden, as recommended by our dentist friend, and wandered around the magical lichen-and-fern-filled forest to see Tännforsen, which does in fact brag of being “Sweden’s Largest Waterfall.” The drive to and from this waterfall was stunning. We got dinner from a 7-11: take out pizza for Mike and a Caesar salad for me.
a 6-hour drive from Trondheim & three nights in Geiranger, Norway
September 28-September 30: On Monday, September 28, we drove 321km from Trondheim to Geiranger, which was estimated to take 6 hours and 10 minutes. It took us longer because the landscape was so magnificent that we kept stopping to take pictures. We stopped in the beautiful town of Lom to admire the Lom Stave Church, built in the mid-12th century and used by the town since that time. We crossed over cold and desolate mountain passes and green farm pastures sloping from the mountains into the lakes. We checked into the Grande Fjord Hotel by 5:30 and ate dinner in Restaurant Hyskje at 6:30. On Tuesday the 29th, we took the MF Skånevik ferry from Geiranger to the town of Hellesylt, so we could explore the UNESCO-listed Geirangerfjord, one of Norway’s most popular. We saw the Seven Sisters waterfalls as well as the MSC Euribia, a Maraviglia-Plus-class cruise ship owned and operated by the Geneva-based Italian shipping company MSC Cruises; its capacity is 6,327 passengers and 1,711 crew. We stopped briefly in the town of Hallesylt to see the town’s waterfall and then hopped back on the ferry to return to Geiranger, where we found hordes of cruise ship passengers swarming all over the town. We spent the afternoon in the hotel’s deck hot tub, and then got take-out fish cakes on foccacina from Fiskekaka in town. On Wednesday the 30th, we drove north of our hotel to Eidsdal where we saw Geirangerfjord from the Ørnesvingen overlook and admired the farms around Eidsvatnet Lake. We were stopped in our tracks from proceeding because we needed a ferry and didn’t feel like waiting for one (or paying for it). We backtracked to Geiranger and then drove east (on the same road we came in on), and took photos of the magnificent landscapes and red lichens on the way to Lake Djupvatnet in the Breiddlalen Valley. After resting in our hotel in Geiranger, we went out to dinner at Brasserie Posten, where we shared a Ringdal pizza: Tomato sauce, cured ham from Ole Ringdal, burrata, mozzarella & balsamic glaze.
Homebody Stuff
I finished 2 books in September bringing my total to 46/48. I especially enjoyed Don’t Look Back by Karin Fossum and The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. I know I’m being lackadaisical on my reading and I have no excuse except I’m too darn tired. We continued watching The Killing; Furious; Ride or Die; De Eetclub (The Perfect Lie); AnotherSelf (Zeytin Ağacı) (S3); The Bear; Sommerdahl (S1); Thank You Next (Kimler Geldi Kimler Geçti) (S3); Grantchester (S6); Old Money (Enfes Bir Aksam) (S1); and Leanne (S2). We finally finished watching The New Adventures of Old Christine (S5). We can’t always access some of the shows we were watching in the U.S. so we’ll have to watch those when we return home.
Family Happenings
The family has been busy at home in our absence. Allie started playing soccer, although I doubt she understands any of it. Adam had an offer from a friend to drive the whole family to a special beach in Nicaragua, and we helped them out since they have never taken a vacation together. They had a wonderful time and Adam reports he is healing nicely from his surgery in July. Allie made a new friend and is doing well in day care. Jandira is slowly adjusting to her new job and Alex is being mentored by a neighbor in networking, which is challenging him. Mikey has started attending a kind of preschool three mornings a week. Some neighbors babysat Allie so Alex and Jandira could go out to a dance recital, and one of the older girls in the family wrote Allie a note about how amazing she was. It seems everyone is doing well, and we’re looking forward to spending time with the family again in November and December.
Wrapping up my Summer BINGO card
This month, I wrapped up my Summer BINGO card by completing a few more things. I was disappointed not to have time to do many of the things I wanted.
- Finland: Vaasa ✓, Turku ✓
- Norway: Bergen ✓, Hurtigruten cruise, ✓ Solvær (Lofoten) ✓
- Day outings (too many to count) ✓
- Farmers markets ✓
- Enjoy weather at an outdoor restaurant (Ravintola Trappi in Naantali near Turku) ✓
- Read 1 book: Don’t Look Back by Karin Fossum. Read 16 books in total during the summer. ✓
Starting my Fall BINGO card
I started a Fall BINGO card and completed a few things on it.
- Norway: Solvær (Lofoten) ✓, Bodø ✓, Trondheim ✓, Geiranger ✓
- Go on a fall nature walk (Tännforsen, Sweden) ✓
- Take a scenic fall drive (Trondheim to Tännforsen, Sweden; Trondheim to Geiranger; around the mountains surrounding Geiranger) ✓
- Read 1 book: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. ✓
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I hope you’ll share how the year is panning out for you, and what plans you have for the fall.
How did your September go? Did you have any special family gatherings? Have you welcomed any new additions to your family? Did you celebrate any birthdays or anniversaries? Have you read any good books that can inform your worldview, seen any good movies, binge-watched any television series? Have you planned any adventures or had any winter or holiday getaways? Have you dreamed any dreams? Have you gone to any exotic restaurants, cooked any new dishes? Have you been surprised by anything in life? Have you created a Fall Bingo Card or dream list? Have you made any new friends? Have you learned anything new, taken any classes or just kept up with the news? Have you sung along with any new songs? Have you undertaken any new exercise routines? Have you marched or otherwise participated in political protests? Have you been battered, or alternately, uplifted by any news?
Please share your September with me by giving me the plot below, or a link to a post in your blog that tells about your month.
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