Two towns - two friends

One of Lyle's best friends is Eric. They grew up together on farms across the road from each other, went to school together, even to college. They have remained friends to this day and we have enjoyed getting together still. Friends.....still to this day.

I bring this up because both of their families came from Norway, their farms about 70 kilometers from each other. In fact, the towns still have their last names! Our goal on Sunday was to visit both.

We headed east from Gjovik and into the mountains to look for Tollefsrud. This town is so small, it wasn't on any maps, but we had the general direction, thanks to Google maps. The landscape turned into hills and valleys and we wondered why would anyone leave this beautiful area?




But, we saw the sign....


....and went to the church and cemetery, just as the morning bells were ringing. It was a somewhat magical moment. This is where many Tollefsruds lived before their emigration. We walked around the cemetery and found a few gravestones with not only the Tollefsrud name, but many other names we recognized as common in Minnesota.





The town didn't have much more than the church, a school, and a few homes. It was a very quiet Sunday morning and we didn't see anybody to talk to, so we headed north looking for Eric's home town, Lomen.We drove along Slidre Lake in a beautiful valley that reminded me a little of California...and found the town.






We had arranged to meet Eric's relatives who would show us Lomen and the well-known stave church there. These small wooden churches used to be all over Norway from before the Middle Ages, so different from the massive stone churches all over France. But fires and time have taken their toll. Only 28 remain and we were blessed to be able to have a private tour of the one in Lomen, built over 800 years ago. It was a Catholic church then, before the Reformation brought the Lutheran denomination to Norway. One of the few remnants of that era is the carved wooden head of the Madonna, Mary, sitting on the altar, dated to the 1200s. We were fascinated at the carvings in the wood, the old Viking chest, and the architecture. The church was expanded in 1749, but much of the center is all original.









We were not only treated to a tour of the church, but also to a wonderful Norwegian brunch at Eric's cousins' home....scrambled eggs, breads, sausage, cheese, fruit, and good coffee and tea. The setting along the lake reminded us a little like being in a cabin in Northern Minnesota, but the sod roof of one of the buildings brought me back to reality that I was in Norway. I loved being able to meet and talk with people and forget that we were tourists for awhile.....and instead, just Sunday visitors coming for brunch. It felt cozy.




But we had to get on with our journey through some more mountains to the little town of Laerdal, on the edge of a fjord, where we would take our anticipated fjord cruise the next day.