Bergen, Lygra & Coming Home: The Final Chapter of Our Viking Journey
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Time to read 7 min
Bergen, Gulatinget, and New Family
We spent the night in Eivindvik and had the chance to visit Gulatinget. Walking the grounds with Stephanie, I could feel why the Norsemen chose this place—quiet, secluded, almost sacred in its stillness. This was Gulatinget, one of Norway's oldest law assemblies, part of the much older Norse tradition of the ting: gatherings where free people came together to make law, settle disputes, and negotiate with authority rather than through conquest. The institution itself predates any single king; if anything, kings later folded themselves into a system the people had already built.
What stayed with me afterward was thinking about how the Norsemen relied on oral law and oral history — nothing written down, everything carried and taught through storytelling, passed person to person across generations. That idea followed us right into the next day, because Johan came back to guide us again — the same Johan who first walked us through our ancestry in Norheimssund, now here in Bergen to tell us the stories of our family in this city. It felt fitting: the stories themselves traveling with the storyteller, the way they always would have.
Before we began exploring Bergen, though, came one of the most emotional moments of the trip. That first evening, we met my dad's half-brother for the very first time. My father never had the opportunity to know that side of his family, so meeting him felt like opening a door that had been closed for generations. He welcomed us immediately, and before long he joined us out on Lygra for the day as well. It was an unexpected gift and one I'll always treasure.
Bergen came alive on an ancestral level in a way it never had before, even after all my visits. This was the city where my father had lived and where so many of our ancestors had made their lives. We visited one of the buildings where the Strømme family had lived for generations and met relatives we'd never known—people still living under the same roof that had sheltered generations before them. Their warmth and hospitality made us feel like family from the moment we arrived.
After a full and beautiful day with Johan, we moved on to the next leg of the trip: Lygra, the island where my father grew up and where we’ve been many times. Three quiet days lay ahead with relatives we've known for years from the Norheim side — I was looking forward to it.
Arriving at Lygra
Arriving at Lygra was its own kind of homecoming — the island, the drive in, all of it felt achingly familiar and beautiful at once. We settled into a rental home on Lygra, and once we'd unpacked, we headed out for an evening of snacks and conversation with our cousins. Hugs, catching up, the easy warmth of people who feel like home. The last time we'd seen them was a couple of years ago, after my dad had passed away, so being back on Lygra with them again was emotional in the best way. It felt wonderfully full circle.
Lygra: Church, Family, and Deep Time
The next morning Johan joined us once more, this time to explore the island itself. Having him with us here was remarkable because he carried the stories of both sides of my father's family: the Strømme line and the Norheim line. We already knew much about the Norheim family, but Johan helped us trace those roots even further back. On the Strømme side we discovered there were actually three ancestral farms connected to that branch of the family. Time and again, the two sides of my father's story seemed to weave back together across generations, as though they had always been finding their way toward one another.
Later that day, we visited the church on Lygra. Outside, we spent time at my grandmother's grave alongside those of her parents. Resting atop a hill overlooking the fjord, it is a beautiful place to be laid to rest.
There's a harder thread running beneath all of this. My father never knew his own father and wasn't acknowledged by him while growing up. Bring together members of both the Strømme and Norheim families together; it felt as though something old had finally softened. Whatever divided those branches a generation ago no longer defined us. It wasn't my father's healing to experience—but somehow it became part of ours.
Lygra's importance stretches far beyond my own family. Sitting directly along the coastal waterway, it occupied a strategic position during the Viking Age. Most travelers moving along Norway's coast would have passed by these shores. The island was important enough that a king kept it among his royal farms, likely maintaining lookouts on its high ground to watch the sea for approaching ships. There has been a church here for centuries, and people have lived and farmed this island for thousands of years—long before the Viking Age ever began.
Being there with Stephanie felt healing for both of us. We were able to walk that ground, sitting with family history that stretches back so far, and being surrounded by family who are still there today. It was really special.
That evening brought more company — dinner with our Norheim and Strømme cousins, and the joy of spending these wonderful and easy hours together.
The following morning, we walked the island with a guide who spoke of over five thousand years of continuous agriculture on the island. Vikings lived here. Their ancestors lived here. Generation after generation tended this same landscape in an unbroken thread stretching back into deep time.
Somewhere along this journey my perspective shifted. In Stavanger I had been thinking mostly about Vikings. Gradually that widened into thinking about the Norse people more broadly. By the time we left Lygra, I found myself wondering about the Nordic peoples who came before the Viking Age entirely—how life evolved here over thousands of years. I have more questions than answers at this point, and I think that's exactly right. This is the kind of history that just keeps unfurling the longer you look.
Coming Home
The next morning we left Lygra for the airport and flew home.
Coming home always brings a wonderful contradiction. It feels good to return to my own home and see my husband again, to realize my cup has been filled rather than emptied. I caught myself looking for Artie, my dog, around every corner. He had passed away just before I left for Norway, and coming home without him waiting there was its own quiet grief.
Those final days on Lygra had already started to slow me down, and coming home finished the job. Traveling is wonderful, but home is always better. Now I get to do the quieter work of digesting everything, and I suspect I'll be digesting this trip for a long while yet.
One small souvenir keeps drawing my attention: a potholder I bought on Lygra embroidered with the saying,
“Life isn't about surviving the storm but learning to dance in the rain.”
The longer I sit with those words, the more I think the real trap is spending our lives merely surviving storms without ever learning to dance inside them. If that's all we're doing, we miss life unfolding while the rain is falling. Sunny days and stormy ones aren't opposite to endure and enjoy separately; they're simply different threads in the same tapestry, each carrying their own kind of beauty if we're willing to look for it.
It reminds me of another version of the same truth: you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
I had received a reminder of that right at home, actually. A beautiful thunderstorm rolled through on the Fourth of July with wind, thunder, the whole sky lit up and moving. It was magnificent. I could have just weathered it. Instead, I stood there and let myself enjoy it for exactly what it was, which felt like its own small practice of the thing I'd just spent weeks learning to believe in Norway.
Journey before destination.
Life is something to move through, to participate in, to experience fully. Every season—the storms and the sunshine alike—has something worth offering.
I came home from Norway feeling more whole. My roots feel deeper and wider than when I left. I'm full in the very best sense of the word.
I felt closer to my sister than ever, after weeks of walking on the same ground and tracing the same roots together. There's a Norwegian saying, familien er et av naturens mesterverk — the family is one of nature's masterpieces — and Stephanie has been proof of that on this whole trip, every step of the way beside me. This trip was everything I hoped it would be, and so much more.
I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention Frank, Chris and Diana. Thank you! Frank for his help and Viking curiosity that parallels mine. Chris and Diana for their amazing work filming and who became dear friends over the course of this journey. Their generosity, kindness, and the incredible work they did helping make this experience possible added another unexpected gift to an already extraordinary trip.
And finally, thank you to all the family we found along this voyage. Both new and old. As the Vikings understood, the greatest treasures gathered on any journey were the people who shared with one the high seas, each weaving their rich stories with the next. Whether our paths crossed for the first time or were reunited after many years, each of you made this adventure richer in ways that will endure long after the voyage has ended. Skál, and thank you for being part of this saga.
