The Story of the Marauders
In our Irish primary school history book , Norwegians were pictured as fearsome: huge belligerent whiskers, horned helmets, swords frozen mid‑swing above helpless Irishmen and women. Our teacher called them “barbarians”. His indignation was still hot more than a thousand years later as he described longboats pillaging our coasts and carrying off gold and virgin maidens.
Charting a New Norway
Decades later I found myself tracing a very different Norway on a map. I had won a prize for a travel article: a trip to Geiranger village. A UNESCO heritage site – tucked behind protective islands at the end of a ten‑mile fjord on the west coast of Norway, a little south of the Arctic Circle. We would fly to Ålesund and, for the first time in my life, stay in a five‑star hotel. Suspicious of luxury, I brought along my two sisters who embrace luxury as if it were a long-lost friend. On the map the coastline looked like a broken comb.
Charting a New Norway
The flight set the tone. Eric, a Norwegian Air steward, chatted easily and casually amid a full cabin of trekkers and skiers. Everyone seemed geared for lots of physical exercise—boots slung from rucksacks, poles at the ready. We planned more restful traditions.
Where the Ice Age Whispers
From Ålesund we skirted the water by bus, the mountains close. You can read the Ice Age here. An ice sheet once upon a time, three miles thick carved the land to tatters, leaving fjords like deep blue seams. I tried not to slide into brochure language—towering peaks, tumbling waterfalls—but Geiranger resists restraint. We rounded a hairpin bend and the fjord opened: stillness, height, a held breath. I felt the same “tingle” I’d felt at the Taj Mahal , the Himalayan peaks turning pink with a rising sun, the profound blue of the Aegean – something special.
A cruise ship was moving like a toy boat on the water far below. For a moment the faint tremor in its wake suggested – in my imagination – a German submarine, its captain, not knowing the war was over, about to surface.
The Union Hotel, founded in the 19th century, looks down the fjord and across to waterfalls plunging down cliffs. Three restaurants, steam rising from indoor and outdoor pools, a spa with views, fruit bowls and perfumed teas—all welcoming without fuss. I have long been suspicious of luxury; it can feel like deference rehearsed. Not here. The multinational staff were quick without hovering, witty without presumption, and disarmingly discreet. I felt that any of them could trade places with us for a day and be completely at ease. Tour boats have come here since 1869; the guest book lists a King of Siam, Kaiser Wilhelm, Queen Alexandra among others.
We took the fjord boat the next day, a cool sunny one. Meltwater fell down cliffs in long white threads. High on improbable ledges, old farmhouses still clung to the slopes, kept now for their beauty. The commentary told a story I remember. With parents working, children were tied to trees so they would not tumble to their death.
Traditional houses are rooted in timber. Norway’s wooden houses—slatted walls, small panes, bright paint—lift the mood of a grey day. Some roofs in Geiranger keep their tree‑bark and turf against curling and in spring they sprout grass and flowers. people mow their roofs as you might do your lawn.
We met another kind of modest beauty in Ålesund on our misty departure day. The town burned in 1904 and was rebuilt in the Art Nouveau fashion of the time; gables and turrets, curves and colour, shared among three islands laced with water. Geir from the tourist office drove me to a hill for the view. The city hid in cloud—then, like a curtain raised, light and streets and water answered for a minute and were gone again. You could imagine longboats filled with Vikings, leaving into the unknown.
Ours was a gentler departure. Norwegian Air lifted us away, Ålesund shrank to an image of colour and water, and I thought of my teacher. I would like to tell him how kind and unhurried the modern Vikings are. But he, too, has sailed on, and in any case, I’m not sure he would have believed me.