Spending the weekend in a ‘hytte’ (cabin) is as common for Norwegians as Sunday shopping is for Irish people. So far though, we’ve only managed one weekend away from Oslo in four and a half hours. Until the weekend just gone by.
Now, my version of a cabin is a brand-new or recently-renovated house complete with dishwasher and flatscreen TV but I do know people with cabins that don’t have running water or toilets. Yes, people actually drive for hours every weekend to get away from the trappings of modern life such as flushing toilets and showers. Well, not me. Ever.
We went to a tiny settlement of only a few houses - where people live all-year-round, miles and miles from civilization and shopping - at the innermost point of Mauranger fjord. It was so stunningly beautiful that I didn’t mind that it rained all day Saturday, even though only a few miles away we could see the sun shining. It seemed we had hit upon a micro-climate.
Luckily the satellite dish meant that the kids had many more television channels to watch than they have at home. It was a bit strange, driving for almost six hours each way, over snowy mountains, within spitting distance of glaciers, to the edge of civilisation in fact, to watch Sky News.
We were the first ever family to stay in the hytte we rented since the previous occupants died in the 1950s. They were a pair of blind sisters. Can you imagine, living right on the edge of a fjord and not being able to see it?
