Time Marches On!

Summer Time begins in Europe March 29th.

Summer Time  begins in Europe? We, here in the USA are looking forward to spring! How can this be?!

Looking a bit deeper, there’s more to the story. Summertime DOES begin in Europe March 29th, but this “Summertime” doesn’t have anything to do with the weather. It simply is the arrangement by which clocks are advanced by one hour in spring and move back in autumn to make the most of seasonal daylight.

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Sound familiar? Many of us spent an exhaustive evening Saturday, March 7th searching for, and adjusting every battery operated, electric and digital clock  in our houses, cars, and smart wristwatches. All had to be adjusted in  the annual ritual to stay on time, while losing an hour of rest! We call it  “Daylight Savings Time” .   Personally, I like “Summer Time” better!

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Why do we do this?

Benjamin Franklin proposed the idea of 'DST' in 1784. He discussed the cost of oil for lamps as well as working while it was dark ,and sleeping while it was day.

Today, Daylight Saving Time (DST) is used to save energy and make better use of daylight. The idea had been suggested in ancient times and later by famous scientists. Ancient civilizations are known to have engaged in a practice similar to modern DST where they would adjust their daily schedules to the sun's schedule.

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 A major contributor to the invention of DST was New Zealand’s entomologist George Vernon Hudson. In 1895, Hudson presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society, proposing a two-hour shift forward in October and a two-hour shift back in March. Although there was interest in the 'two-hour' idea, it was never followed through.The rationale was to minimize the use of artificial lighting in order to save fuel for the war effort during World War I.

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In the U.S., Daylight Saving Time – or “fast time” as it was called then – was first introduced in 1918 when President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law to support the war effort during World War I. Year-round DST, then called “War Time” was in force during World War II, from February 9, 1942 to September , 1945. The change was implemented after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and during this time, the U.S. time zones were called “Eastern War Time”, “Central War Time”, and “Pacific War Time”.
After the surrender of Japan in mid-August 1945, the time zones were relabeled “Peace Time”.

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                                         Arizona doesn’t take part in this ritual.
Many people in Arizona including many businesses, farming communities and people with children, prefer to remain on “Mountain Standard” or MST throughout the year because daylight saving produced no personal benefits for them. They had tried it for one year in the 1960s, but there was so much negative reaction that they never tried it again. Most people believed that a daylight saving schedule was not necessary for Arizona's hot climate.

The rest of us learned to adjust!

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At any rate, it’s a sign of warmer days ahead with opportunities to visit the many places highlighted in catalogs and pamphlets arriving in our daily mail. Maybe we do need more time  for The Annual Vacation! Many vacationers visit European centers, returning with photographs of the usual tourist attractions. This year, there are some unusual European locations that have earned national recognition that are attracting attention.

If you are planning on visiting Norway, all tours will include the most famous attractions and shouldn't be missed.. IF.. you have the time. However, consider something different!  Of course, one should not miss Bergen, always a fine introduction to 'ole-time Norway'.

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Bryggen, the old wharf of Bergen, is a reminder of the town’s importance as a place of trading  from the 14th to the mid-16th century.

Many fires have ravaged the characteristic wooden houses of Bryggen, however, rebuilding has traditionally followed old patterns and methods, thus leaving its main structure preserved, which is an ancient wooden urban structure once common in Northern Europe. Today, some 62 buildings remain of this former townscape.

Then, catch a ride on the hurtigruten north to a  village known for a church.

Gammelstad, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, is the best-preserved example of a 'church village', a unique kind of village formerly found throughout northern Scandinavia. The  wooden houses, huddled round the early 15th-century stone church, were used only on Sundays and at religious festivals to house worshippers from the surrounding countryside who could not return home the same day because of the distance and difficult traveling conditions. Luleå Gammelstad is a excellent example of the traditional church town of northern Scandinavia. The river and its valley have provided a route between the Gulf of Bothnia , the mountains of Lapland, and the coast of northern Norway from earliest times.The settlement became the meeting place for three groups - merchants, local farmers, and the Saamis of the hinterland The church town consists of 424 buildings, divided into 555 separate rooms. All are built from wood, painted red and with doors and window frames highlighted in white. The church is the largest of its type in northern Scandinavia and recognized as an UNESCO World Heritage Site. A UNESCO site is a place (such as a forest, mountain, lake, island, building, complex, or city) that is listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as of special cultural or physical significance.

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Everyone is aware of runes, but rock art in Norway?

Scandinavian rock art comprise two categories. The first type dates to the Stone Age (in Norway from between 8000-1800 BC), and usually depicts mammals, as well as examples of boats, humans and various geometrical figures. These rock carvings were probably made by people who used gathering, fishing and hunting as their subsistence. This type of rock art is commonly known as

veideristninger (hunter's rock carvings). Due to the wear of weather exposure and  human destruction, most of the rock-art sites in Central Norway, and  Scandinavia as a whole are not meant to be visited by the public. There are no signsand no maintenance is done on the sites to keep vegetation from covering the carvings, etc. There are, however, a small number of sites open to the public. These have signs with information, the carvings are usually painted to make them more visible, and there are parking spaces. (Painting the carvings red has caused some concern!).

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 If you REALLY want to visit something unusual, check THIS one out.
As long as you're up north,  take in a village in Nord-Trøndelag, located next to Trondheim airport in the Stjørdal municipality. While there's very little to see there, except for an annual blues festival in September, it's always fun to get a picture of yourself outside "Gods Expedition " (a freight forwarding office).
The story goes that a tourist asked a Norse man where to go. With a smile, the man told them to go to ....
Hellir.

This village has become a minor tourist attraction because of its name, as visitors often have their photograph taken in front of the station sign. A smaller building on the railway station has been given the sign Gods expedition, which is the archaic spelling of the word for "cargo handling". (Godsekspedisjon would be the spelling in contemporary. It has a more used homonym in modern Norwegian that means "luck". The Old Norse word Hel is the same as today's English Hell, and as a proper noun, Hel was the ruler of Hel. In modern Norwegian the word for hell is helvete.The name Hell stems from the Old Norse word hellir, which means "overhang" or "cliff cave".

Hell is a village of about 1,400 inhabitants  located next to  the Trondheim  airport. Hell has a train station where local trains from Trondheim, the airport, and Steinkjer stop. There are one or two departures per hour and trains from Sweden (twice per day) that stop in Hell. If you want to take the train, be aware that the train will only stop if they see someone standing at the platform, otherwise it will pass.

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Boarding the hurtigruten for the journey south, you might pass a very famous church located on the southwestern Norwegian coast. 

Urnes stavkirke

The wooden church of Urnes ,(the stavkirke), stands in the natural setting of Sogn og Fjordane. It was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and is an outstanding example of traditional Scandinavian wooden architecture. It brings together traces of Celtic art, Viking traditions

The church was built around 1130 or shortly thereafter, and still stands in its original location; believed to be the oldest of its kind, it

provides a link between Christian architecture and  artforms of the Viking Age with typical animal-ornamentation, the so-called "Urnes style" of animal-art.

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Archaeological investigations have discovered the remains of three churches on the site prior to the current building. The excavations uncovered holes in the ground from earth-bound posts which had belonged to an early post church, with walls supported by short sills inserted between free-standing posts.It is now owned by Fortidsminneforeningen (Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments) . In 1979, the Urnes Stave Church was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The village is located on a small peninsula that juts out into the Lustrafjorden, the innermost part of the Sognefjorden and sits on the east side of the fjord, directly across from the village of  Solvorn. You may enjoy the ferryride, a regular ferry route from Ornes to Solvorn, across the fjord.

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Back in Bergen and preparing for a return journey to  America, take a quick side-trip back to Bergen's free fish market  and  see local sights and sounds at no cost. Enjoy a stroll around the market while looking at crafts and flowers, fresh farm goods and seafood. The free Fisketorget  fish market in Bergen is open in June, July and August daily from 7 am - 7 pm, with limited  open times from September to May .

You will be able to tell everyone that you took the "UNESCO" tour!

So much to see,  so little time!

Maybe we need another hour, after all..