Who can pass up bacon oast for breakfast?! We tried to bring some home, but it has to be refrigerated. So, what exactly is bacon oast? It is basically cheese with bacon in a squeezy toothpaste looking tube. Does that sound delicious or what?
After a nice breakfast of toast, fried eggs, and bacon oast, it was time to leave the awesome Ringebu farmhouse.
First stop was the Ringebu Stave Church. It was sort of like a scavenger hunt; We searched for a man and two pig carvings, a dragon carving, and Norse god faces at the top of some pillars.
I think this was the dragon carving in the top left. Doesn’t really look like a dragon to me
And this was the man with 2 pigs carving; Again, questionable
Pretty sure we were all churched out. Next up was Maihaugen, an open air museum with replicas of Norwegian history (churches, houses, barns, fishing villages, post office). I found some great little homemade booties and a lamb stuffed animal for Kate and Egg’s baby (Nate was born August 19th). The funniest part about the museum was the ‘20th Century Houses’, basically 1950s style.
One of the oldest two-story houses in Gudbrandsdal. Oddly enough, it didn’t actually say when the house was built.
One of the most exciting pictures from Maihaugen.
Adam and Loan fishing at Maihaugen. Pictures courtesy of Loan’s camera.
The best part of the day came in Lillehammer. We visited the Olympic ski jump. There were a bunch of people practicing, even though there was no snow! The surface of the jump was like a turf, and they would just stop at the bottom in the grass. We were able to walk underneath the jump and up to the top where the skiers would take off. It was very cool to be able to get that close! Never would have happened in the U.S. The following are lots and lots of pictures of the ski jump. Some of them you’d swear were against green screens, but no, we were taking pictures next to and below the jump.
We took the long way up
The skiers take the short (smart) way up
View from the top
Olympic torch
Loan and I doing our best ski jump impression; Loan looks much more committed.
Outside the Olympic ice rink.
We made a quick stop in the town for lunch and headed on to Oslo. We took a round about way (ie, we had no idea where we were going) to fill the cars with gas and drop them off at the rental company. The rest of the evening was spent hanging out and relaxing in our Oslo lodging, another great AirBnB apartment.
Napping in Oslo before dinner.