Most of the museums
keep rather short hours this time of year, so we run through the history and
maritime museums. Fortunately they are small. The art museum complex is quite
large, however, and is also open later, so we spend some time there looking at
Norwegian landscapes, dreary Munchs, Russian icons, and a ten-foot-square canvas
painted solid banana yellow. Late in the afternoon, we pick up our rental car
and drive to the suburb of Fantoft. Here, one of Norway's fantastic medieval
stave churches has been reassembled, stick by stick, after having been moved
from another part of the country. Unfortunately, a deranged person burnt it to
the ground in 1994. Fortunately, they'd done architectural drawings of every
single stick, so they were able to reconstruct it. We are hoping to see one of
the remaining genuine stave churches at Borgund in a couple days. Next to the
church is a cross, nearly a thousand years old, that dates to the early days of
christianity in Norway.
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