London / Norway / Sweden - Sept 2005

Trondheim, Norway

This trip worked out perfectly!  Rachel & Oliver getting married in London on Sept 3rd and Mia & Bryon getting married in Sweden on Sept 10th - one week apart.  So, we headed off to Europe for a week of fun.

Accommodations:

Chateau Melissa/Charlie (London) - We stayed at a friend's flat in London - you just can't beat the price!

The Petersham Hotel (Richmond) - We stayed here for Oliver and Rachel's wedding.  Beautiful hotel!

Best Western (Trondheim) - Functional hotel in the heart of the city.

Hotel Geiranger (Geiranger) - Nothing special but convenient.

Best Western (Oestersund) - A good, central hotel where we stayed for Mia and Byron's wedding.

Hilton (Heathrow) - What you would expect from an airport hotel.

Activities:

London

Rachel & Oliver's
Wedding

We flew to London overnight, leaving on the Thursday night so we could have a day to recover from jet lag before Rachel's wedding.  We hung around London on the Friday, had a bit of a nap, and then went out for dinner with Charlie/Melissa on the Friday night to a fancy dinner. Of course we ended up having way too many drinks which made us a little (lot) the worse for wear when we got up Saturday morning.  It was a bit of a rush to get a taxi out to pick up Keith's morning suit for the wedding, check in to the hotel, then speed off to the Rachel and Oliver's wedding ceremony.  The wedding at Holy Trinity Church in Twickenham and reception at the Ham Polo Club were beautiful (actually hot and sunny - very impressive for England!) - it was wonderful that we were invited.

Our flight to Trondheim left the day after Rachel's wedding.  We were able to sleep in a bit, then dropped by the wedding brunch before heading to Gatwick to get our flight, arriving in Trondheim at 11:15pm that night to check in to our hotel.

Norway
Since we were be back in Trondheim at the end of the trip, we immediately headed 6 hours southwest to Geiranger to see the fjords.  Unfortunately our entire time in Scandinavia saw rain and clouds which was a bit of a disappointment (but not suprising).  In addition to Geiranger, we also stayed in Stryn and Dombas, taking in more of the gorgeous scenery.  We spent three full days in this area before we needed to take the six hour drive to Oestersund via Trondheim.  During our time there, we did a few hikes, took a boat ride and saw a few glaciers.

Geiranger

Sweden

Mia and Byron

We arrived in Oestersund in mid-afternoon and checked in to the hotel.  Oestersund is in central Sweden and is a town of 50K people.  Mia and Byron live in Frosen, which is small island on lake Storsjon.  We went for a walk to see the area and actually saw Mia and Byron driving around town - it helps that it is such a small place!  The Friday night we attended a pre-wedding party where Keith was really pleased to meet a few old Kandersteg friends, including Kerstin Bergsten who was on staff in '90.  After a lot of drinks and catching up, we headed to bed.

On Saturday, we did some more walking before meeting at the Froson church for the wedding.  It was really cool to see Mia's mother dressed in traditional Swedish wear!  The wedding was perfect and the reception was a lot of fun. 

The next day we had to get up and drive back to Trondheim for the flight back to London where we spent a quick night at the Heathrow Hilton before jumping on the flight home the following day.

Glacier in Norway