Llywindatravels 2025

Good to know about Northern Norway

Shopping

Living in northern Norway is an exercise in planning, because it takes over 30 minutes to get to the nearest store of any kind, and an hour to get to a place with even a very modest shopping area. There are two principal grocery chains, REMA 1000, and Co-op. Their offerings are similar. Most stores take credit cards with a chip, though at some gas stations you need to pay inside unless you have both a chip AND a pin (we have chip/signature cards).

Surprises:

Typically people purchase frozen meat. Don’t count on fresh meat being available.
In our area, most fish in the store was dried or frozen. If you want fresh fish, you need to go fishing. That’s a great idea, but then you have to fish until you get what you want.
Ocean fishing is permitted anywhere in Norway if you plan to eat your catch. A fishing permit is required for lake and river fishing.
The coast is open to all. You can walk along the shore anywhere except posted military installations.
Speed traps on the highway. Just as mean-spirited as any you’ve been caught in at home. They are aimed at those unfamiliar with the area and tourists.
The self-serve economy. There are many things that you have to do for yourself even it you’d rather not, because there just isn’t anyone to do them or to hire to do them. At the airport, for example, there is no staff at check in. You check yourself in, weigh your own bag, put on your own tags, and heave it onto the conveyor belt. (There was also no security check.) Our host said there was not anyone available to do weekly cleaning at our rental, or to mow the lawn. If you think about it in the context of paying everyone a living wage for their work, perhaps that’s the explanation. After Jonathan sprained his ankle, however, we really wished there were alternatives.

No surprise, but true:

Everything is expensive. If you look at the prices, you won’t eat. We had delicious blueberries, some memorable strawberries, and a pineapple. I noticed that our excellent red Thompson Seedless grapes came from Egypt.
Gyetost (whey cheese) is strange (brown, a bit sweet) but delicious, especially on hot toast. If you don’t think you’ll like it, try White Gyetost, which has a milder flavor.
Alcoholic beverages are startlingly, shockingly, expensive. Inexpensive beer is $25 per six pack. Approximately three quarters of the price is the tax.

Driving

Distances are great, everything is far from where you are in northern Norway. If you make plans to visit a lot of well-known places, you will be on the road for many hours.

There is no tolerance for drinking and driving. Everyone pulled over gets brethalyzed, no matter what hour of the day or night. The legal limit is .02, so designated drivers are a must. This has been true since my first trip to Scandinavia in the 1970s.

I got caught in a speed trap, going 80 kmph (50 mph) in a 60 kmph (37 mph) zone. The fact that the radar was set up in a short zone of 60 at the end of a long downhill posted 80…. Well, never mind. The bad news is that tickets are costly, and the only good news the policeman had for me was how lucky I was not to be going 1 kmph faster because THEN my fine would have been 50% higher. Lucky me.
Roads can be narrow, some stretches are 1 ½ lanes shared by two way traffic, with pullouts for one vehicle to pull aside for the other. No one drives very fast (see above). Plus there are speed cameras, though those are posted in advance.

Weather

July and August may the best months to visit. There is more sun. We heard that this June was unusually rainy, but I’m not sure I believe it. A typical week included 2 sunny days, 3 cloudy days possibly with damp mist, and 2 rainy days. On the other hand, we only used bug spray twice, and I suspect it is a daily necessity in July and August.
The weather can change rapidly, for better and worse. One day the sun came out and the temperature rose more than 5º C in 12 hours. We were delighted because it had been cold. Conversely, our first two days were sunny and warm, followed by 3 weeks of cool, often windy weather with temperatures as low as 9º C. I gratefully wore my new fur hat from the resale store, and all my layers of clothing.

Cell phone service

You may be happiest if you can use your US cell phone as you travel. It is expensive but usually works. We change SIM cards in each country, with fair results. Norway was the exception. Jonathan’s phone didn’t always work (though the coverage was fine, he got an error message when he dialed), and mine never worked. The lesson is a basic one that all websites tell you. 1) Don’t be in a hurry when you purchase phone service. 2) DO NOT leave the place where you purchase your SIM card until you have made a call on it, and tested that the data portion works. 3) If you don’t, remember that I told you so.

We made an impulse buy of phone service in the Evenes airport from a young man who didn’t mention that he was going to leave us in order not to miss his train home. So he left, encouraging us to call the help number. I suppose I could have tried that, but when I stopped in a phone store I got no help, and I was told that my phone wasn’t fully unlocked (not true).

Community

People are as varied here as anywhere else. We had delightful conversations with people we met at the Sunday café (noon-3 pm one day per week in the summer), where we ate waffles, drank coffee and enjoyed the fact that all Norwegians under the age of 70 speak excellent English, even when they say their English is not so good.
Many people will smile and nod without engaging in conversation. Norway is very much a mind-your-own-business society, and many people will answer questions if asked, but may not be chatty. We waved at passing drivers and they waved back.

Something got confused in Den/burgh or Edin/mark

More on having a sprained ankle….. There was a long walk between flights. Our first leg, Oslo to Copenhagen, landed at the end of one terminal. Our next leg left from the end of another terminal that also required passport check. I went ahead (a bad idea as it turned out) and then tried to get an electric cart for Jonathan. By the time I got it, he was at passport control. When we went through, we turned out to be at the start of a very long walk to the gate. Fortunately, Paula had contacted the gate staff and the plane waited for us. We weren’t late for the flight, but we arrived at the gate with only a few minutes until flight time, and the doors are often closed 10-20 minutes before the scheduled departure. We had already found out that our seats were SASGo, the cheap seats, and not SASPlus as they had been on our arrival in Norway. That meant less room and no food. Not a problem, fortunately, as Jonathan was on the aisle and we weren’t starving.

SAS–THE uH-oH FLIGHT!!!

Our welcome to Edinburgh was marred by the arrival of our luggage. That is, all of our luggage EXCEPT Jonathan’s suitcase. I went to the desk to submit a report and found two staffers, only one of whom could handle SAS issues. He was on the phone for a long time, 10-15 minutes, with the group before me. He then said he couldn’t be in two places at one time. “If you have lost luggage to report, follow me.” So I did. He then walked me and another passenger out of security without telling us that was happening. We got near the exit and I said, “What about the others in my party?” His answer, “You didn’t say you were with a group.” He said it was already too late to go back, at which I pointed out that I didn’t even have my passport. In the end, I got him to call Paula’s cell phone to tell her and Jonathan to come out of baggage claim and meet me. At the end of a half hour after the last bag came off the carousel, all I had was a strip of paper with a phone number. He said to call and collect our reference number for the lost bag, he couldn’t give it to me because it involves typing in all the information on the form I’d filled out and he was too busy. “Be sure to leave a message, because I can’t always answer,” was his last comment.

That was Saturday afternoon at about 4 pm. It is now Monday at 1:30 pm, Jonathan made about a dozen phone calls, mostly with no answer despite the website saying that baggage handling works seven days a week. To get the reference number for his bag he had to call SAS in Stockholm (possibly outsourced to New Delhi) where you are charged 18 cents per minute to speak to an agent. The young man in Edinburgh was just not going to answer the phone, I guess. We now have our reference number but no further information on where his suitcase might be. More updates as they happen. I am doing the laundry in our new flat so that he has more clothing. Fortunately, I had some of his dirty clothes in my suitcase, so he is not utterly without clothing. We may have to do some shopping.

What happens when you twist your ankle?

Occasionally, people ask how we will deal with illness or injury as we travel, particularly since US insurance rarely applies outside the US. Travel insurance only covers injury during travel. My macular degeneration is considered a chronic condition and therefore not covered (see amdontheroad.wordpress.com).

Jonathan sprained his ankle on one of our last days in Kjerstad (June 28). We’d already reserved 2 nights hotel in Oslo to have a day in the city. The Oslo airport is a 40 minute train ride from the city, and there is a lot of walking in a one-day visit, so we had to rethink.

We rented a car and each chose a place we wanted to see, settling on the Viking Ship museum, the stave church at the Norwegian folk museum and the Vigeland sculpture garden in Frogner Park. The Viking ships are impressive, even though the gold and other loot was long gone by the time they were excavated.

Jonathan is sad, just like the sad-eared animal.

I’ve wanted to see a stave church since I wrote a paper about them for an anthropology class in college. The oldest portion of this one dates to about 1200. It was originally built in Gol, Norway and when the city was going to tear it down in 1880, the king, Oscar II, had it saved and restored in its current location among many other structures from around Norway in the Norsk Folkemuseum.

Jonathan rested his foot in the cafe while Paula and I did a bit more walking around the Folkemuseum. The costumed people manning the stops were well informed and we chatted with the man in the stave church for a while, the the silversmith and the pottery studio. It was raining in earnest by this time, so we headed to the cafe for a few minutes before leaving.

Our final tour stop was Frogner Park to see the Vigeland sculptures. Jonathan was only able to manage a short walk, though we pulled out our binoculars to look at birds splashing about in the rain.

From there we went to an early dinner at Markveien. It was delicious (see Jonathan’s review on TripAdvisor). We headed back to the hotel, having made the best of a day that could have been much more difficult. We were happy to have the car in the morning to get us back to the airport. Our flight was not until 11:40 am, so we had plenty of time to get there and give Jonathan time to walk slowly to the gate. We successfully spent the rest of our Norwegian kronor, to the last one.

Community in Kjerstad

Tjeldoya Island looks deceptively empty. On the day we drove to Lodingen we were on the opposite side of the fjord and Amanda pointed out that there are many houses on the shore of Tjeldoya that you don’t see from the narrow road where one driver often has to pull over when two vehicles meet.

Despite this rural setting, there are quite a lot of people on the island, especially in the summer, and many communities hold events. Kjerstad is active, holding a Sunday cafe in the small building that works as a community center.

On Sundays from noon-3 pm you can stop in for waffles or pancakes with jam and sour cream to top them and a beverage (soda, coffee) or an ice cream. The few indoor tables have been full and the heaters running when it was cold out this week, but lately people sit in the sun on outdoor benches and picnic tables. I took advantage of the women who run the event to find out the answers to my recycling questions (!) and we chatted about the weather. Even the woman who said her English wasn’t very good spoke excellent English.

During the week we saw a new poster on the building. After some searching and translating, we found that it is by a theater group that tours northern Norway in the summer, performing plays that incorporate elements of Norwegian history. At the following Sunday cafe, when we went with Amanda and Jimmy, we found out more.

Slideshow — 1880 — Amerika: A tilbud you can’t refuse. [That is the actual title of the play.]

One of the actors in the theater group is from Kjerstad, part of the reason it is a stop on each summer’s tour. (He’s the one holding the fish.) I am so sorry we will miss this. The third week, we returned to the cafe with Paula, and met the actor’s brother, who lives in Kjerstad. Each week we learned something new. We also went fishing off the pier after finishing our waffles.

Last Saturday night was a pub night at the same place in Kjerstad, the community center. We were told it began at 9 pm, so we arrived at 9:30 pm. We were almost the first people there, but we got drinks and sat down and chatted with two men who turned out to be the musicians. Both are teachers in Harstad, one focusing on English though teaching other subjects, most recently to 6th graders. The other teaches a range of subjects to middle and high school students. They play for fun and pocket money. This was a last minute event for one or both of them. Someone cancelled somewhere along the way and one or both of them were a last minute addition. It didn’t matter to us because they were very good, playing bass and guitar and singing, mostly in English! The songs were familiar rock tunes. I’m sorry there was only one of these events during our stay.

We left them to tune up and took seats for the music. There was some wrangling about the space heater. (How many men over 65 does it take to start a space heater?) I’m not sure. They were not crazy about the foreigner figuring it out, but later we all toasted one another.

6.25.16 pub night Kjerstad-002 — We’d be dancing with them if Jonathan hadn’t sprained his ankle.

Jonathan recognized a woman at the next table from when we turned around in her driveway (How did he do that?) and we had one of those funny conversations, “Oh, YOU were the ones in the dark car!” “Yes, that was us.” “I was mowing the lawn.” “Yes, on that riding mower.” “Hello.” (We shake hands and smile). Then we discussed how we happened to be in their neighborhood–Dragland–yet not related to anyone there. It seems that most people visit because they have a relative there, so our new friends assumed we must be some newly arrived relation of a Draglander. Since we had this conversation, I found that there is an Association of people named Dragland who are actually from Dragland. They all have a common ancestor.

The next day was our last Sunday cafe before leaving, and I asked if I could have a photo with the ladies who run it. They were all delightful. The woman on the left is from southeast Norway and said that though it appears isolated, people of the north have always been able to fish, and never starved like her ancestors who were farmers. She shook her head as she described her grandmother, poorly nourished, with ten children, not all of whom survived. I mentioned the bread made with crushed tree bark to extend the flour that was made in Sweden during famines. “Oh, yes, bark bread. They made that in Norway, too.” Fortunately, times have changed. How much we appreciate their community events!

Prehistory on Tjeldøya

Walking along the furrows of a plowed field after a rain is the best way to find artifacts, and there have been archaeological finds from Neolithic (Stone Age) farmers along the north side of Tjeldoya. There are photos of stone axes and spear points in the “Tjeldsund” booklet I mentioned in the last post. A wistful voice describes these 5000 year old finds. “Most of these artifacts have been found by farmers during the clearing and plowing of fields. Systematic investigations would provide a much more complete picture….” There don’t seem to have been many professional excavations in this region. Archaeologists probably come by only when a big grave turns up.

Dramatic archaeological finds are reported from graves in Ripelen, Sand, and Steinsvik, hamlets on Tjeldoya where burials from as early as AD 400 were found, extending into the Viking period and up through the ages. Best known among these is the Steinsvik sword, from an Iron Age grave (early 800s) that was found in 1902. The sword is now in the archaeology museum in Oslo. The tomb also held this chieftain’s ax and spear, along with agricultural tools, knife and scissors, symbols of his leadership.

The sword is on the left side of the left hand photo, before restoration. The right hand image is after restoration. It was difficult to find a photo–the right hand photo is from a tourist brochure. Sword collectors have a strong interest in the Steinsvik sword, and there are a number of recreations of it, but all the photos are copy-protected. The gold detail is of stylized animals and is part of the original sword.

Another intriguing find is that of a woman buried with “knives, scissors, a key, a needle and a bone comb. To her dress was fastened a rare bronze figure of an animal, around her neck was a chain of 55 glass, amber and bronze pearls [beads], and 16 small shells.” The shells are the unusual part of the necklace because they are cowries.

The nearest source of cowrie shells would have been the Mediterranean, indicating the distant reach of trade even in the 8th century, when the woman was buried.

Of the archaeological sites mentioned, only one is clearly marked on the map and prepared for visitors, the Sand Viking Boathouse site. There is a small parking area and a marker, as well as a paved trail past the mounds that are the remains of a very large boathouse. This is considered significant, because a 40 m boathouse could house as large a Viking ship as has ever been found in Norway, suggesting an important person lived nearby. The large boathouse was later divided in two, for later, smaller boats.

Each mound is one side of the boathouse.

This is Lofotr, the 23.5 m replica Viking ship at the Viking Museum on Vestvågøy in the Lofoton chain. The boat housed in the Viking boathouse at Sand would have been almost twice as long as this one.

A second boathouse foundation is from later, medieval times. The boat kept here would be about the size of the Lofotr, shown above.

This is the reconstructed Viking boathouse in Avandsnes, Norway. The boathouse in Sand might not have been as elegant, but it would have been even larger than this one. These finds show you why Viking era archaeology can be so interesting, with large timber buildings. Even people who lived far from the main centers of trade obtained unusual objects. Though a village site might yield only remains of animals and a few tools, it also might have a few beads of Baltic amber or a shard of Roman glass.

Walking through History on Hovsveien

Using the magic of the internet I found, “Tjelsundet: A Channel Through the Ages,” a guide to Hovsveien, an ancient road along the north side of Tjeldoya Island. This 2 km section is open for walking, set up with trail markers and some informational signs.

You can see the roadbed pressed into the landscape.

Along the way are ruins related to ancient farmsteads that were connected by the road. Today’s hamlets of Hov and Hol are named after the early farms (The stone may be a marker.)

The road connects Hov and Hol. There is an extensive view over the Tjelsund fjord. “At Holshøgda (the heights of Hols) the prominent farmers are buried, with extensive views of their land and the channel.” This peaceful view would make a good memorial.

Every walk includes some wonders of nature.

A drop of water in a leaf is a diamond.

A huge anthill–there were several. Are we in Africa? The ants and their trails kept us stepping lively along the path.

Hovsveien ends at the Tjelsund church. We ate our picnic at one of the tables in the churchyard.

We made the return trip along the road, passing a few of the locals who were agog at our passing.

Though the Tjelsund Historical Association doesn’t appear to be as active today as it was when the booklet was published, the English translation is a gem and the trail still has some of its markers. Most sections are still mown and are easy to walk. Other trails branch off. We saw a walker in the distance who entered Hovsveien from another path.

Tjelsundet: A channel through the Ages (1994), by Hein Bjartmann Bjerck. Part of the Fotefar Mot Nord series.

http://www.arkivinordland.no/Handlers/fh.ashx?FilId=1529

The High-Noon Birding Society

Jonathan and I like to watch birds. We do not like to get up before dawn, as I believe diehard birders do. We therefore watch birds when we are out, often in the middle of the day. Our High-Noon Birding Society has had darn good luck, and I recommend others to start their own branch.

We’ve seen about 25 different birds in Norway. Some are species that we see elsewhere like ravens, magpies, jackdaws, mallards, and tits.

Others are new and different, like the white-tailed eagle that is rare anywhere but Norway.

Fieldfare are the birds that take the place of robins we see in the US, hopping along the edge of the road and yards. They are unmistakable when they take off. Their lower back is light gray, a real giveaway when they are flying away from you.

The white wagtail is another bird we see that is easy to identify.

Many birds seem to be color-coded: Redwing, Redpoll, Redshanks, and a pair of red-breasted mergansers (ducks), along. Then there’s the Greenfinch.

No Bluethroat yet, however.

We get a big kick out of seeing something new, trying to get a good enough look at it to go to our book, “Birds of Europe” (Princeon Field Guides) and identify it. Amanda gave us tiny post-its that look like owls that we use as bookmarks. We’ll never have a “Big Year” of birding (see the funny movie of the same name), but we have a good time.

[None of the bird photos on this page were taken by me–thank you to the people who post them on the internet.]

A Whirl Through Scandinavia: 3 countries in one day

Paula said, “Have you thought about going to Finland? It’s not that far.”

(Ha Ha Ha)

“Why not?” we replied. We decided to go to Finland on Tuesday as long as Jonathan didn’t stay up all night looking at the summer solstice on Monday. He did take photos at 2 am and 6 am, but the day started out sunny and we left for Finland at 8:30 am.

Our first pit stop had lots of local color.

These are nice-looking tents, but the contents are clearly tourist kitsch. I’m not sure there was much in here that is actually made in Norway other than the reindeer jerky.

It was a pretty long drive. We celebrated at the halfway point when our destination was finally on the map, Kilpisjärvi.

You drive across the top of Norway and then south to the border with Finland. The mountains along the route were spectacular.

Instead of the tree line at 12,000 ft. it was at about 1500 ft. just above us. The vegetation of fir trees, small birch, alder, aspen trees, and thick moss is considered taiga, one of those areas you learned about in geography and never expected to see.

Kilpisjärvi is the first town you come to on this route to Finland. There are rental cabins, fishing trips and lake tours. We ate lunch overlooking the large lake. After lunch we did a bit of birdwatching and saw a brambling, and others that didn’t stay long enough to identify.

Despite the fabulous scenery, one highlight of Kilpisjärvi is shopping, that is, beer is much less expensive than in Norway, about € 1 per can. It’s a bit like going into a store on the edge of the Navajo reservation.

We didn’t need to stock up but we found a source of postcards, stamps and even a mailbox that offers “a special postmark”. I can’t wait to see when they get to the US. I now have a pair of wool socks that say “Kilpisjärvi”. Jonathan has a tshirt with reindeer, and Paula has a small bag that says “Finland”. Woo hoo, we’re souvenir-ed up, complete with selfies at the Finnish border. There was no one to stamp our passport.

The map showed no roads into Sweden, so I checked on GoogleEarth and found a spot that looked like it went into Sweden, so we continued another 20 km down the road to see if we could hit a third country. The road was there, though a rather unprepossessing neighborhood–it was the recycling depot with about a half dozen wrecked cars, two recycling containers and a small parking lot. Bummer–no road to Sweden. However…..

There is a footbridge from one gravel parking lot to an equivalent spot on the other side. We crossed the river, checked our cell phone maps to make sure we were actually in Keinovuopio, Sweden, cheered, and went back to Finland.

The drive back got a bit long. We arrived back at our house in Kjerstad about 12.5 hours after we left, having traveled just over 700 km. Quite an adventure!

The North Norway Music Festival

June 18-25 is the annual music festival in Harstad, held during the week of Midsummer Eve (June 21). We went to Harstad for the opening ceremony, which made a rainy day a lot of fun. We heard from Norway’s Minister of Culture, Linda Cathrine Hofstad Helleland, then the crowd was conducted to a nearby plaza accompanied by a humming choir and musicians playing along the route.

In the plaza, music played, people flipped colored cards, an overhead camera recorded the patterns and balloons sailed away while everyone danced.

The women’s drum line marched from the central square to the nearest wharf where they played before another group who spoke from a floating dock. It was fun to watch even if I couldn’t understand the remarks.

We did a bit of shopping, including postcards from the tourist office and mementos for our hats–possibly relevant for later in the summer. A group of women presented locally designed clothing, jewelry, art glass, painting and hand made crafts. These were all very creative and out of the ordinary. I wish I needed—anything! We had coffee and pastry at a pop-up bakery cafe. By then we’d seen the sights and the festival was underway. The many performances: theater, music, dance, discussions, workshops and a program for families are spread across the coming days from 10 am to midnight. It is a well-known event in the region, that is, a cruise ship stopped in Harstad today, we could recognize the passengers by their transparent raincoats. Paula and I can be recognized by our newly acquired mementos pinned to our hats:

Find out more about the North Norway Music Festival at: http://www.festspillnn.no

Iron and War

How much we learned in school! How little that was! Like most Americans, I know nothing of the history of Norway other than a general sense of it being politically neutral in general (probably confusing it with Sweden). We’ve discovered that our area was central to the German invasion and occupation of Norway, 1940-1944.

This is Ofotfjord:

The island we are on, Tjeldoya, or Oystercatcher Island, is at the mouth of Ofotfjord, the fjord that extends to the city of Narvik. Narvik’s port is ice free all year long and was built to facilitate the export of iron ore from Sweden to the rest of Europe. Norway is quite narrow and the distance from the iron-ore producing center of Kiruna, Sweden to Narvik, Norway is shorter than the distance to the nearest Swedish port, Luleå. Further, ports at the northern end of the Baltic like Luleå, are frozen much of the winter, making Narvik doubly attractive. During WWII, the invasion of Norway wasn’t confined to Narvik, but it was carried out to obtain its iron ore.

In the 1930s, both Germany and England had their eyes on Narvik, to secure the iron ore coming from Sweden, and to prevent ore from reaching the other country. In late 1939, a report passed in front of Hitler suggesting the importance of taking over Narvik and he ordered an invasion plan drawn up. This was carried out in April 1940 just before an invasion planned by the Allies, and in fact the German forces were defeated in battles on the water just off Tjeldoya (our island), and on land. However, Allied troops were evacuated from Narvik in early June when Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France. Norway was occupied for four years and it sounds like the Allies ceded Norway to Germany because other battles had begun (!). (For an interesting footnote on how the evacuation of Narvik could be related to Ian Fleming’s James Bond, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Alphabet ).

Frederik, our host here in Kjerstad, left us an excellent topographic map of the island and we set out to explore and fish. One of our first stops was the end of the road on this side of the island (the coast road doesn’t completely encircle the island). We saw a sign that we later translated as “Please do not drive vehicles on the fort.” There were some lumpy, rocky formations clustered around what I assumed was a miniature visitors center. I was wrong on both counts. Tjelddoden, Oystercatcher Point, refers to the entire south end of the island, completely covered by bunkers and other features built during the occupation of Norway. The area is about one square kilometer, very large when you are on foot, and includes the ruins of bunkers, gun emplacements, and lookout posts dug into the rock of the island. There are concrete-lined trenches dug into the rock and faced with rock, and facing away from Ofotfjord are olive green barracks buildings now falling to pieces. There is a series of rooms within a hill that appears to have been the mess hall. There were about 300 soldiers stationed here. (More information at Tjeldodden.com)

Trenches in the rock

Gun emplacement

on the shore

Jimmy is in the bunker

He emerges

More guns.

After WWII the fort was taken over by the Norwegian armed services. It was decommissioned in 1993 and given to the municipality in 2002. It looks like some structures were dismantled or demolished and windows and entrances to the underground structures were blocked with cement before the handover to the community. Today the fort is open to visitors but otherwise unchanged. We discovered that in addition to being repurposed for visitors (see “History, Arts, and Culture…” post), some of the structures have been reopened by curious visitors with sledgehammers. The area is beautiful, a strange park with remnants of violent history all around.

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SAS–THE uH-oH FLIGHT!!!

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