The old country visits the new

Thirty-two ladies from Vanse, Norway savored the connections between their homeland and Bay Ridge on a tour of Brooklyn on Saturday, November 17.

Starting at Nordic Delicacies, 6909 Third Avenue, the women—guided by Scandinavian East Coast Museum President Victoria Hofmo—embarked on a tour replete with shopping, tasting and sampling the history of the Bay Ridge community.

“There are a lot of connections for Scandinavians on Shore Road. It’s a really good taste for them,” said Hofmo.

A two-year-old sister community agreement between Bay Ridge and Norway’s Farsund Municipality, which includes Vanse, is “a combination of a friendship, history and all things America,” according to Hofmo.

The Vanse ladies enjoyed a small journey around Bay Ridge, going to the 69th Street Pier, the 79th Street overlook, the “Gingerbread House” and Fort Hamilton High School, as well as under the Verrazano Bridge, and through Cannonball Park.

Before shopping along Third and Fourth Avenues, the ladies stopped at Our Savior’s Evangelical Lutheran Church at 80th Street and Fourth Avenue to see “the first Norwegian Church that really took off,” according to Hofmo. The 150-year-old church bears a great deal of historical significance for the Norwegian community in Bay Ridge, and Hofmo made it a priority for the ladies of Vanse to be able to view this historical structure during their one-week stay in New York.

After shopping along Third Avenue, the ladies enjoyed a hardy lunch at the Danish Athletic Club on 65th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Hofmo and the Vanse ladies subsequently shopped along 86th Street, their day culminating in a Thanksgiving dinner at Christ Church, on Ridge Boulevard at 73rd Street.

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