Voss Church

Also a small town on the "Norway in a Nutshell" tour (see following post). This is where we usually stayed since by Norwegian standards was a 'largish' town and had a few hotels. We were there on one of their National Holidays where everyone wears the traditional clothing called a 'Bundad'. They are very intricately made, very expensive and the embroidery and the way the dress, the belt, the purse are made can tell a person what fylke (county) you are from, whether you are married or single, and many other things - so everyone you see - you know a bit about them. I liked the bunad design from Voss - Oslo's was ugly so I got my mother-in-law a doll with the traditional bunad from Voss as a birthday gift one year. She called me and I was surprised that the first thing out of her mouth was not 'thank you' - it was that her hair was brown! I had not given it a second thought since there are very many brown haired Norwegians. When she passed away - I brought her home with me and she is sitting on my shelves that I affectionately call my "Norway shrine" being full of treasures I found while in Norway and all very traditional Norwegian items.

One thing about Scandinavia - they are not all that religious, in Norway Sunday was a day to get out in nature - take a walk, go cross country skiing, etc, not necessarily go to church. But every town we drove through there was always a pretty little church. On road trips, Gary and I caught ourselves saying over and over again, like a mantra: "Pretty little town, pretty little church" at every town we drove through.