Today, May 17th, is Norway’s Constitution Day: “Syttende Mai”. While we don’t have a lot of Norwegian in each of our family’s histories’, we do happen to love the country and it’s culture, and we also happened to name our son after one of the country’s lovely cities: Bergen.
Incidentally, we visited the town of Poulsbo, Washington on the Kitsap Peninsula in celebration of Mother’s Day last weekend. Poulsbo is nicknamed, “Little Norway”, and is an adorable small town filled with inviting shops, restaurants, and a bakery that has me wanting to hop aboard a ferry right now just for one bite of their cream-cheese filled Viking cinnamon cups.
Even closer to home is Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, another Scandinavian hub, where a huge celebration is taking place today. We’ll be joining the festivities, and are looking forward to shouting a little, “Hipp, Hipp, Hurra!” as we watch along the parade route.
Have you traveled to Norway or even a “Little Norway” closer to home? What cities and towns have you explored?
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Balestrand, Norway
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Slaed’s Gramma Mary Lou was 1/2 Norwegian!! Judy
Yes! We ending up getting Unk’s book out this morning to find out exactly, and learned this tidbit. He knew he had some, but wasn’t sure the details.
What a lovely way to spend Mother’s Day! Since part of my husband’s family is from Norway, we used to go to Poulsbo a lot just to have coffee – it was a beautiful ride over on our motorcycle!
In my former job, I had to travel to Norway quite frequently, mostly to Oslo but I also got to visit Stavanger, Bergen and Trondheim. It sure is a beautiful country!
We really had such a great time in Poulsbo–can’t wait to get back there, and now we know it would be a great place to take visitors…easy little day trip from Seattle. On a motorcycle…now that would be an amazing experience!!!
I would love to explore Norway more…we were in Bergen for a few days, then took a boat to Balestrand through the fjords…and did the railway tour as well.
Thanks for stopping by the blog today!
HI there, Just wondering if you could note May 17 is Norwegian Constitution Day (1814). June 7 is Norwegian Independence Day. Norway finally received independence from Sweden in 1905! Hope you will be able to complete your mission of visiting all the sister cities of Seattle-a worthy goal.
Thank you SO MUCH for that important correction! I’ve edited the post & again really appreciate you reaching out. All the best, Kate