Hunting the Nordic golden beauty of Fall

September 30, 2008
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Oppppsss, its fall already and hosting a blog about the significant four seasons in Norway and the Nordic countries it’s about time to mark the change in the weather and nature. We’re passed equinox already: this year it was the 22 of September where the Sun passing over the Earth’s equator, in its annual cycle with the day and the night equally long. That is one of the significant changes in seasons in Norway. At summer solstice the sun rise in Oslo at 3:53AM and set at 22:44PM and at winter solstice the similar time is 9:30AM and 15:30PM. So we are soon going into hibernation or at least its dark when you go back and forth to work.

I like this change: you learn to appreciate the lovely light summer nights even more after going through fall and winter. However, it’s hard to tell which season is the best as all four have their charm. Of course you learn to appreciate the warm summer in Oslo when we last July had a whole week with temperature around 30C (86F). At fall we are more likely to be around 5 to 15C (41 to 59F), not to mention winter from 0 to -20C (32 to -4F).

But now it’s the end of September, the first month of fall and what is great then: Well, my wife and I were at our vacation home in Mariestad this weekend – in mid/south Sweden – approximately at the same latitude as Oslo and with mostly the same climate, fauna and flora. There I went photo hunting to show you and try to describe:

Fall2008-01
The clear, blue sky – the crisp fresh wind, and of course the golden beauty in the leaves of the trees. It was 15C and at this same beach we were swimming and tanning in 30C less than 3 month ago.


On Sunday we had a nice walk around in the city. There you find the same atmosphere and spirit:
Fall2008-09 Fall2008-04
Left: At the Tidan river. Right: At the old town square (if you click to enlarge you also see an old traditional Swedish phone booth on the right side).


This weekend there was their yearly Harvest Festival (click to read all about it from my post last year!) and in the beautiful tree lined alley in the middle of the city, they had an art exhibition:
Fall2008-07

Let me show you some more to exemplify what I mean:
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Fresh crisp air and the artistic beauty of fall.
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On our way back to Norway, we passed this farm which also reminded me of fall as the time of harvest:
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(taken with my Nokia mobile phone – the others with Nikon CoolPix) In the middle you see the white marshmellows on the field and then you know its fall.


Soon we’ll have frost (well there has been a couple of a frost nights already) and snow and I’m looking forward to that too. But first we’ll enjoy the fall season – in all its freshness and beauty.
So there you have Norway in a nutshell, from the land of the midnight sun to the winter wonderland….and all the beauty in between!

Fall, Nature