Norway is a land of water - fast flowing icey streams around every bend, fiords hundreds of miles long, waterfalls hundreds of metres high, lakes everywhere and the odd glacier or two feeding everything. Its easy to imagine the glaciers of the past here and the whole lot being under two kilometres of ice. Every valley has been gouged by the ice to the classic U shape. Spectacular is not a strong enough word for Norway.

Norway should be much colder than it is. Much of our travel was in central Norway which is north of the Shetland Islands, a little bit south of Iceland and about in line with Siberia. Lets hope the Gulf Stream doesn't ever switch off. I wouldn't want to be here in winter however because daylight is only from nine till three and there is two metres of snow over everything.

The jewel in the crown in Norway has to be Geiranger, a few hours north of Bergen on the west coast. Its just a small village at the head of a long fiord, but only a photo can show its beauty. A waterfall tumbles from the snow capped mountains, through the village into the fiord below.

To the north of Geiranger is the 'Trolls Road' - a very steep single lane road (but two way) which decends from the top of the mountains 800 metres into the valley below. The road comes complete with twelve hairpin bends and passing bays every few hundred metres. Great fun in a bus!

Many of the older houses here grow grass on the roof as insulation, mainly against the cold but it also works well against the heat in summer. This appears to be a Norwegian idea not taken up elsewhere in Scandanavia.

Bergen, the once capital of Norway because of its role as a trading port for Europe is centred around the waterfront again with many old timber buildings. Most of them however are not original as they have been rebuilt many times following fires which many times engulfed the whole town. In the 800 years there has been a settlement here there has been 50 major town fires the latest only fifty years ago. When you see how close together the timber buildings are you can easily believe it. Unusually, many of the buildings have three dates written on the fascias to show when they were built and rebuilt after fires.

In Oslo we visited Vigeland park, where many of the sculptures of Gustav Vigeland, a prolific Norwigan sculptor and observer of life are located. The sculptures are of people of all ages (and those not yet born) going about their daily life and are timeless because all of them are naked. The local populace was understanably scandalised in 1920 when the park opened. Without a shadow of a doubt the most thought provoking site in Oslo. The world needs to know more about Vigeland.

Oslo is an interesting city. It seems more cosmopolitan than Copenhagen or Stockholm, with people from every corner of the globe walking the streets. There seems to be a museum or art gallery on every corner. We visited the Viking musum - what an eye opener. Three viking ships have been rebuilt from burial ships that were laid down over 1000 years ago and were largely preserved by the blue clays in the Oslo area. Remarkable. 90% of the original timberwork is intact. These boats were open, carried 50 - 80 people and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Greenland and America. The Norweigans are very insistent that we all understand that it was the Norweigan Vikings who first made settlements in America, not Columbus - and beat him by 500 years.

This is also the home of the famous impressionist painter Edvard Munch. Just about everyone has seen a copy of his painting "The Scream". The original has even more impact.

All in all Norway is one of the more fascinating places we have ever visited.