Scandinavia - Tracing Roots (July 31-August 11, 2025)

July 30, 2025
We arrived in Copenhagen this morning, locked our bags in the Hotel Astoria "keep" and launched ourselves into the heart of the city. The first stop was at the Espresso House to get my usual triple latte; we used our time there to study the map of the city and make a rough plan on where we would walk. Even though we were exhausted from the trans-Atlantic flight, there was enough to keep us interested until dinner time.
 
Copenhagen is one of the greenest cities on the planet; I read that they want to be the first carbon-neutral city on the planet. There were several clues that they're well on their way. Wind turbines have been placed in the bay and were one of the first things that struck me when we landed. Bikes are respected on the road and have a prominent place in the everyday comings and goings of the Danish people. When we stopped to get something to drink this afternoon, I asked the vendor if they recycled. His answer, "In Copenhagen we recycle everything." When we grabbed something to eat at the Tivoli Food Hall this evening, we were given real plates and silverware that we returned to a well-tended-to station for recycling/rewashing. I'm so tired of Donald Trump and his gas guzzling kronies; the contrast between the Danes and Americans regarding climate change is stark.
 
One of my favorite stops was a walk up the Round Tower, which was built in the 17th century. It was designed by King Christian IV with an observatory, library, and close proximity to Trinitas Church. The present-day Round Tower has galleries (and even a small concert hall), research facilities, bell tower viewing, and access to the top of the tower which affords a 360-degree view of this fascinating city of spires. As we walked up the unique spiral brick walkway, we enjoyed poems placed on the windows written by Hans Christian Andersen (who arrived in Copenhagen at age 14 in 1819). Elle and I will revisit the sweet animal poems that dotted the path to the top.
 
I really want to come back to this city because we only brushed the surface of what there is to offer. After the Round Tower, we walked the mile-long "fussganger" pedestrian mall and made it a point to visit the statue of the little mermaid. I'm sure that we walked more than 10 miles today.
 
Tomorrow, we'll take the train to Lund Sweden. Mike will spend the afternoon at the conference, which will give me time to explore on my own! Yeah!
 
July 31, 2025
Today was a relatively boring day compared to yesterday. Apart from wandering through one of the local cemeteries and its adjacent botanical garden, the only other excitement was buying baby clothes and underwear at swanky Swedish shops.
 
I could also toss in the dinner that we had with Mike and his colleagues from Springer Publishing - Calude Diebolt (who has co-authored several articles with Mike over the years) and handful of others whose names escape me (Nikos...Leonardo...etc.). We met at an Austrian restaurant that served schnitzel, potato salad, and apfel strudel. After three hours of pleasant-and-sometimes-interesting conversation I told Mike that I was going back to the hotel. That was almost an hour ago!
 
August 1, 2025
Today was the day that I got to reconnect with the land of my father’s mother’s ancestors. Before flying over, I spent some time researching descendants using the Church of the Latter-Day Saints genealogy site – FamilySearch.com. I was also interested in learning about both Albert Paul Eide (who emigrated from Norway) and Helena Johansdotter Bergstrom (who emigrated from Sweden). Trying to keep the search manageable, I decided to focus on Helena’s family, mainly because the Värmlands region is located driving distance from Oslo.
 
After arriving in Oslo last evening, we drove east to our Airbnb in Koppom. The sun hadn’t yet set at 9:00 PM, so I ventured out to get a sense of what the village had to offer. I was able to connect briefly with our hosts (Lars-Eric and Louise), who suggested the Gravar.se website for locating gravesites. It sounded like a terrific tool, but (and most unfortunately), if a name spelling or date differed even slightly (both of which are common), the search failed. I decided, instead, to conduct my research the old-fashioned way and copied names of Helena’s parents and siblings (and their children) who were recorded to have lived and died in Koppom.
 
The next morning, I set out on route through the village recommended by Lars-Eric and Louise. I couldn’t help but notice that every lawn was perfectly manicured and discovered the secret to be a robot lawn mower. (It occasionally missed a few spots but there were no yards were left to seed. I might have to replace Mike with one of these.) I passed a friendly Swede walking his dachshund who smiled and greeted me. When he realized I was American, he promptly switched to English and seemed very interested to learn that I was searching for clues to my Swedish roots. Before long, Thomas Peterson had retrieved his car and was driving me to relevant sights in the Koppom area.
 
I shared with him that most of my relatives lived and died in Eda-Koppom, there were also others in Naved and Skillingsfors, both of which are part of the Järnskog “parish” community. Thomas showed me the Järnskog church/cemetery, the Hembygdsgard museum and café, the former home of a possible relative (Rikard Bergstrom), and an old cemetery containing pre-1699 graves. We exchanged phone numbers, and he dropped me at the Järnskog Kyrka where I poked around before walking back to the Airbnb.
 
It was all good prep for the afternoon. Mike took photos of the names and dates that I had scribbled on paper, and we started our pursuit. We were looking for the names of Bergstrom, Johansdotter, Gutke, Nilsson, Nilsdotter, Olofsson, Olofssdotter, Olsson, Torreson, Andersson, Borjesson, Gummundson, Gunnarson, and Gunnarsdotter. I have a legitimate photo of gravesites of a Bergstrom relative and a nephew of Helena – Olaf Andersson, who was born in 1854. In all honesty, it didn’t matter that we couldn’t find more graves; we enjoyed being in the general area and the church where they worshipped, were baptized, married, and buried. We also could see why the Swedes and Norwegians were attracted to Northern Minnesota! There are so many lakes, rivers, and towering red pines in Värmlands, Sweden!
 
August 2, 2025
Louise arrived unscathed but Carolyn and Brandon’s flight was cancelled. They are stranded in the MSP airport but managed to rebook a flight to Bergen that will arrive tomorrow. Meanwhile, we are safely satisfied in our Airbnb outside of Oslo. I missed a bit about paying extra for linens at this place so none of the beds were made. Mike told me to write a terrible review, but I simply wrote to the host for clarification. I paid an extra $15.00 and made up the beds. No big deal.
 
Tomorrow we'll drive to Bergen where we'll be for two nights. I told Louise and Mike that I was going to ditch them so that I could soak up as much Grieg as possible. In addition to the house/museum, the venue hosts daily concerts at Troldhaugen. I hope that we get there on time!
 
August 3, 2025
I attended two concerts at Troldhaugen today. I also walked through the museum, bought some music, and had a sandwich at the café before attending the second concert. The second concert was well-played but extremely boring repertoire - selections from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite. The setting and hall were gorgeous, however. 
 
The entire experience was quite fine, even though the physical museum consisted of a few items of interest and lots of text and photographs, all woven together in a smallish area. The concert hall, concert, house-museum, and grounds were fantastic. I'm still thinking about how brilliant is "is" to have exemplary students from the Grieg Academy/Department of Music perform regularly in their exceptionally beautiful and acoustically perfect concert hall.
 
August 4-5, 2025
Today's visit to the stave churches was so interesting! You would have enjoyed the history, settings, and beauty of these places of worship. These exquisite places of worship were built to last! We will have a conversation about them when I get back!
 
The weather has turned from bad to worse and temps are dropping. There is no way that I'm going to swim in 40+ degree temps with rain and high winds. I'm hoping that the weather breaks tomorrow when we drive up to Alesund.
 
Our travel day started with two hours of shopping at Lagunen Center, which was a massive mangle of shops. Carolyn and Brandon needed to buy some clothing, but both are very picky. It would have taken me 10 minutes to achieve what they did in 2 hours. The drive was really beautiful but slow. I re-routed us from a faster route through miles of tunnels and was happy that I did. We stopped to see waterfalls, rivers, sod-roofed buildings, and sheep along the roads. Towards the end of the trip, we took a short ferry across one of the fjords. We had no idea it was going to be almost luxurious. (The Norwegians really do this quite exquisitely.) 
 
August 6-7, 2025
After all that, it's good to be settled for the night in Solvorn, Norway, which is right in the heart of fjord country. The cottage we are renting is on the legendary Sognefjord, stretching miles inland from the west coast. The town is nothing more than several vacation cottages, a beach, cafe, and historic Urnes Ferry that transports only people to the Urnes Stave Church. Stave church construction is fascinating; they used charring (at the base) and pine tar to prevent them from rotting, not to mention the drastic swings in temperature.
 
The weather is awful with temps predicted to be in the 50s and 60s tomorrow. I don't mind the cold but don't like it mixed with rain. I was envisioning myself diving off the diving board into the fjord while I was here. It might still happen, if I'm brave.
 
August 8-9, 2025
We arrived in Alesund last night in pouring rain and cool temps. The Airbnb is a rooftop apartment that is walking distance from restaurants and the harbor, so nicely located. We had dinner at a pricey (everything is pricey in Norway) pizza place and walked around to get a sense of direction and opportunity. I had a panic when I received an email from the Runde Environmental Center saying that our puffin tour was canceled due to lack of interest. When I told "Johannes" that I would pay for all 4 spots, he relented. I could do this tour on my own but would rather spend a little more for safety's safe. (So, when have I been concerned about safety in the past?)
 
After coffee this morning, we walked around the city and couldn't help but be disgusted by two GIANT cruise ships in the harbor. They occlude all landscape views and dump thousands of people into the city...probably just to buy junk. Since they provide all housing, food, and other amenities, a cruise ship is the ultimate travel disaster for local tourism...forcing places to sell trinkets, junk. My brother and sister-in-law are on a much smaller cruise that offers more interaction with each site. 
 
I did find a sauna option that looks interesting. We might pay a little more for the private sauna because I really don't want to deal with the embarrassment of a clothing-optional situation. Most saunas in Scandinavia require a towel but there are no restrictions beyond that! Yikes. This old woman wants to stay covered!
 
Our trip to Runde was quite the adventure. We met our guide, Johannes, at the Runde Environmental Center, along with two other couples - one from Australia and the other from Denmark. The guy from Australia was a zoologist and the Dane had an extremely fancy camera. We started with a short lecture, film (which was excellent) and dinner (fish soup) before walking up to the bird cliffs. It was a steep climb up and once on the top the wind was blowing at a mean rate. Johannes pointed out gannets, puffins, and some shags - all from a distance but viewable through binoculars. There were several people on the cliff waiting for a close up, but rains started and visibility decreased to the point that only the crazies were left to sit for the promise of nothing. Jonathan told us that we probably weren’t going to see much more…and that it was probably going to get worse. Mike and I thanked him and started the long trek back.
 
Sad to say that the birds were very tiny from the top of the cliff and could only be seen (by us) through binoculars (x1000mm). My telephoto could only multiply by 400mm. Louise made the point that it’s bad for the birds to have regular contact with humans. That made me feel better, so don’t rub it in!
 
August 10, 2025
We spent the day trekking/driving through some amazing views near the infamous Geirangerfjord. Carolyn found a hike with some incredible views that broke up our day. About 1.5 miles into the hike, Mike decided to turn around. I hiked a bit longer with the kids and then felt torn when they decided to go to the top. They made it sound like it was going to be "a minute," but their excursion was more than an hour. Mike went back to the car, and I foraged for blueberries, which were plentiful in the area. After washing all the blueberry stains off my fingers, I walked a few more short and accessible trails, encountering several sheep along the way. It was really sort of hilarious how the sheep would follow me but run when I walked toward them. Goofy animals.
 
Back in the USA
It has been a month since “goofy animals” and we’re all back at our jobs in the United States. I’m still impressed with so many aspects of Scandinavia, from scenic beauty to their clean and sustainable culture. I hope to return before I’m too old to hike to the top of the mountain and behold another fjord!