Brittany Kelly Photography: June 2009

Steve and I were in Norway last week and it was absolutely beautiful. We came up with the slogan of "It's ridiculously Beautiful". Every direction we looked we were in awe and at first wanted to spew obscenities, which was a strange reaction yet that subsided after a couple of days when we got used to seeing utterly ridiculous natural beauty. We hiked everyday often for at least 6 hours and many many miles which was so relaxing for us. Often the only thing we could hear was the water falling in the mountain streams, rivers and waterfalls. I counted 14 waterfalls in one valley I was standing in in Flamsdalen. Balestrand was a magical little town with a history of Artists living there, British tourists and even Hitler was there in 1938 before he began to take over other countries. The other towns we were in were Aurland, which is also gorgeous, Geilo, Laerdal, Flam, Myrdal (all really small towns no larger than 1600 people). We did stop in Oslo for a couple of hours before we caught the plane back to Brussels but I think that the countryside in Norway is to be seen. The Fjords are amazing and people are really friendly. We met a very nice artist in Balestrand named Bjorg who we spent hours talking with. She paints beautiful watercolors and everywhere we went in the region we saw her paintings and met people that had some connection to her. I never thought I would be interested in Norway or Scandinavian culture but it was really charming and familiar feeling. However, whenever I travel I find something wonderful about a place because truly everywhere has something to be talked about and appreciated.