Norway
South Africa to Norway or Norway to South Africa?
Low-cost air-line fares from Southern Africa to Norway or affordable airline fares from Norway to Southern Africa. Find the awesome prices on airfares, in addition to awesome Norway destination savings. The Latest on the current ticket offers for Norway on the website.
About Norway
Kingdom of Norway there is an ice-free route along the coast of Norway) is a Nordic country west of Sweden on the Scandinavian peninsula and north of Denmark in the Skagerrak between. West of Norway, Iceland, Faroe Islands and Greenland. The country has an elongated shape and a long coastline along the North Atlantic Ocean, where Norway’s famous fjords are found. Norway has a long border with Sweden, while Russia and Finland meet in the Arctic north. Islands Svalbard and Jan Mayen is under Norwegian sovereignty. Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic is Norwegian biland. In addition, Norway has a territorial claim on Queen Maud Land in Antarctica and Peter I’s island off the coast of Antarctica. Due to disagreement on the demarcation in the Barents Sea is an area between Norway and Russia, which is administered by both countries, the so-called gray zone. On 27 April 2010 was signed an agreement between the two countries aimed at resolving the dispute. The disputed area is 176 000 square kilometers and are after the contract is divided into two roughly equal parts. Before the agreement enters into force, must be ratified by both countries.
An inhabitant of Norway called (regardless of gender) a Norwegian, majority Norwegians.
The earliest archaeological traces of settlement in Norway date back to 8000 years before our era where petroglyphs tell that they already were good at building boats.
In the Viking Age from 800-century, Norway was divided into many small areas where Viking chiefs fought for the right to land and leadership, and it got many Norwegian Vikings to sail out to sea to find new land, called “settle in”. Several settled in Island with their families, slaves and livestock, while others sought against the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney Islands and Greenland. America was discovered by the Viking Leif Eriksson – the son of Erik the Red – which called the country Vinland. The Vikings were both adventurous explorers and peaceful merchants / farmers, but also barbaric pirates who got rich on raids. In Norway continued hostilities, and in 872 won the Viking Harald a slap in Hafrsfjord of the current Stavanger. The event drew Harald to the first of the Norwegian royal line, and he introduced laws that the Crown had to go in succession within his family.
In practice, Harald reigned only over the western part of Norway, and after his death were again disputes between Viking chiefs, and also Danish kings sought to conquer Norway. The Vikings believed in the Nordic gods. Odin was the chief and elders, and certain of all the other gods. Both Odin and his son Thor were war gods, and the many Vikings who died in battle went according to tradition up to the gods in Valhalla. It was the first Viking Olav Tryggvason, who introduced Christianity to Norway to collect a single kingdom, and when he became king 995 years, he tried to eradicate it harsh pagan faith. Eg. inform that the first Olav Tryggvason, when the powerful Viking chieftain Raud the Rame of the present Bodo refused to be converted, and tied him to a bar with a red-hot iron bar forced a live viper down his throat. Raud the Rame suffered a painful death, then no one dared refuse to be Christians.
It was St. Olav (Olav Haraldsson second), which continued to Christians the Norwegian people, but on 29 July 1030 he fell at the Battle of Stiklestad, and his body was brought to Nidaros, Trondheim as previously stated. Here he was buried in a sandbar, but soon there came reports of miracles at his tomb, then the coffin was dug up. Since we opened the coffin, which smelled of roses, and Olav the Holy’s corpse was in good condition. Hair and nails had grown and cheeks still red, as if he were sleeping. St. Olav was named a saint and people had volunteered Christian and repent from the pagan belief. As Christianity spread was in medieval times was built about a thousand stave churches, and today there are 28 left. They are called stave churches because of the supporting wooden posts – poles. Like the old Viking castles stave churches are built around large carrying posts without using nails. The walls are made of wooden sticks and handles decorated with fearsome dragon heads. In general, witnesses churches that it was difficult to completely rid Viking belief in the Norse gods and leave Christianity penetrate. Stave churches scattered throughout the southern half of Norway. Most are open to tourists, and many of them still used by the local congregation. For example. stave church in Lom at Jotunheimen National Park. The oldest wooden church dating from 1150 located in Urnes, the best preserved in Borgund and the largest in Heddal.
There have been Vikings in Norway as in Denmark, but the very name comes from the Viking Oslofjord who then called Viken (the bay). Viking raids gave wealth to Norway. It becomes evident at the well preserved Viking ships from Oseberg and Gokstad who was found early this century. They are exhibited at Bygdø near Oslo. The first king over Norway was Harald, who reigned around the year 900 In the following centuries, Norway has however a relatively shaky monarchy. Only then Olav the Holy comes to around the year 1015 to stabilize the situation. Norway has its greatest penetration in 1200, called “norgesvældet” which included, besides the mother country, Iceland, Greenland, Faeroe Islands and the British Orkneys. But when the Black Death (plague) swept Europe in the year 1350 it got an abrupt end. For unknown reasons, Norway will be hit particularly hard. It is said that between half and two thirds of Norway’s population succumbed to the dreadful disease.
The Norwegian royal line died out in 1387, and the country entered a period of union with Denmark. After 1450 it was enshrined in a treaty. This marked a period in which Norway is known as “400-year night”, where Norway was the weaker party in a union with Denmark. After Denmark-Norway lost its fleet during the Napoleonic wars and joined the unsuccessful party and another had gone bankrupt, the king was at the Peace of Kiel forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden. Norway attempted to establish itself as an independent state with Eidsvoll-Constitution, 17 May 1814 and the election of the governor, Prince Christian Frederik (later King Christian VIII of Denmark), King of Norway, but immediately forced Sweden by military force Norway into a new union. The Swedish heir Carl Johan (Bernadotte), accepted however Eidsvoll Constitution, and the Norwegian Storting accepted the fourth November a personal union with Sweden under a common king.
Rising Norwegian irritation through the 19th Century of Swedish efforts to consolidate sovereignty in the union laid the groundwork for the disintegration of the Norwegian-Swedish union in 1905, when the Norwegian government offered the throne of Norway to Danish Prince Carl. After a referendum, the parliament elected him king. He took the name Haakon VII.
Norway was attacked by Germany 9th April 1940. Resistance in Norway was abandoned 7th June, but the king and the government continued the struggle from Britain. The Germans established a puppet government of Vidkun Quisling, leader of the Nazi party “National Assembly. The Norwegian Resistance Movement (Home Front, Mil.org.) Acting against the Quisling regime and the German okkupanter. Finnmark county was liberated by the Red Army in 1944-45. The German power contrary capitulated 8th May 1945. As a result of the German invasion and occupation during the second World War Norwegians more skeptical of neutrality. The country took a turn toward a more collective security agreement for the country. Norway was one of the signatory partners of NATO’s formation in 1949 and was a founding member of the UN. In 1952 the country was co-founder of the Nordic Council. Norway has twice voted against joining the EU. (In 1972 and 1994). The country is a member of the EEA.
Oman & Northern Mariana Islands