I wanted to sum up our trip to Norway in one post, for easy sharing and referencing for people interested in going. I’ve had a few questions from friends, so this will make it easier!
We were there about 2 1/2 weeks. In a nutshell, here’s what we did. We loved everywhere we stayed, but I’m only going to list the restaurants we really enjoyed and recommend, and the same for the activities. Everybody loves different things, so do your own research, but this is what we loved.
“Sognefjord in a Nutshell”: Express boat from Bergen to Balestrand and then to Flam. The folks at Trip Advisor don’t like this tour, but we absolutely loved it. 4 hours on a boat, sign me up! It was terrific. I’m sure “Norway in a Nutshell” is great as well.
Oslo: We stayed at a fantastic AirBNB, great location, cute place. My only caveat would be that it is a loft bed, which we enjoyed but is not for everyone. Coffee/pastries: Apent Bakeri Frogner. Restaurants we loved: Lorry, Engebret Cafe (I loved it, Louie couldn’t go with me to this one.) Restaurants we liked a lot: Roti Shop Oslo, Mucho Mas, Jewel of India.
To do in Oslo, in a quasi favorite order: Vigeland Park, Norwegian Folk Museum, National Gallery, see a show at the Opera House, Fram Museum, Kon Tiki Museum, Holmenkollen Ski Jump and Museum, day trip to Drobak and Oscarsburg Fortress via ferry, Akershus Festning, Norwegian Resistance Museum, the Royal Palace.
It’s easy to get around: you can walk everywhere, or buy tickets on the public transportation system. In Oslo, download the Ruter app to your phone and you can buy tickets for the trip, the day, or the week (or longer!). I also always recommend downloading Google Maps for offline use as you never know when that will help.
Bring an umbrella, you’ll need it. For getting to and from the airport quickly, flytoget is super easy to use, though more expensive and not much faster than the regular train, apparently.
Fjaerland is a magical little place.
Oh, and we NEVER used any cash during our entire visit. We didn’t take any out, figuring we would if we needed, and we never did. Everybody uses credit cards. You don’t have to tip at restaurants either, even though the machine will suggest that you do. (We are suckers so we usually did a little, but really, they are already being paid well.)
The only cash we saw was in the museum! I do wish I had some coins as a souvenir, but oh well.
Trip planning resources: I used Rick Steves’ Norway Guidebook, Fodor’s Norway Guidebook, Trip Advisor (forums) and lots of internet searches. We also watched Occupied and I read the Harry Hole mysteries by Jo Nesbo (both entirely optional, just for fun). If we went back, there are more places to go (further north especially) but we loved all the places we visited and we felt like our research had paid off.
I am still thinking fondly of our trip over a month later. If you have an opportunity to go to Norway, GO!! I reserve the right to update this post along the way if I want to add anything.
As promised, I’m back with another post about Oslo. This is the last one, and it’s long, but mostly pictures.
Remember, this is the Opera House. You can walk to the roof, and we did on our first day.
As I was researching Oslo, I found the Opera House (you can see it in Occupied as well), and thought, well, it would be fun to watch an opera or something there. Looking at the dates, it made more sense for us to see a ballet, so I bought tickets for Swan Lake and then didn’t think about it again until it was time for us to go to see it.
At our seats in the Opera House. We were in the very back row but it was pretty central and we could see just fine.
The curtain went up, there was a live orchestra, and a screen over the stage, and suddenly I realized the music wasn’t Swan Lake. Oddly, it wasn’t NOT Swan Lake, but it wasn’t Swan Lake. The screen showed the opening credits about “A Swan Lake” and I looked at Louie and whispered, “I may not have read the website correctly.” And then the screen came up and there were dozens of people onstage shouting all together, “ONCE….UPON…A TIME….!!!”.
Instead of the ballet Swan Lake, we watched something so much better. It was called A Swan Lake, and it was an absurdist take on how Tchaikovsky wrote Swan Lake. It was absolutely hilarious and really well done. The first act was dedicated to how Tchaikovsky came up with the idea, and took place in the 1800’s. At one point before the premiere, the dancer/actor playing Tchaikovsky said, what if we had them dancing onstage in water, and the other character said, we don’t have the technology for that…yet. And then when Act 2 started, the stage was covered in a few inches of water and the entire act took place on the water, and it was amazing! In any case, if you ever have an opportunity to see A Swan Lake, do!
The Opera House is right on the water, and the views from inside are lovely. It got hot in the sun though!
Other things to know about seeing ballet in Oslo: the intermission was nearly 45 minutes long! I think this is relatively normal even though obviously during the intermission for this show they had to fill the stage with water.
Some pictures I took at intermission of the inside. I loved all the wood, which contrasted with all the glass outside.View of the bows from our seats. One man in front of me insisted on leaning forward throughout most of the show.
Before the show we ate at the restaurant at the Opera House, Sanguine Brasserie. We both ordered two courses, and the first course was great! The second course took nearly 45 minutes and tasted like it had just been sitting under a heat lamp for most of that time (it was confusing as most people near us got their entrees while we kept waiting, yet our food was not fresh.) So it was a mixed experience, and a little disappointing.
More fish soup though!Lovely seating area though, with a view of the Oslofjord.
The last night of Louie’s conference I went to Lillestrom to meet him for a banquet. I got to see the ending of the conference and see where he had been going all week, so that was nice. It was in a suburb, which was a quick 10 to 12 minute train ride away. I cannot speak more highly of the public transportation in Oslo. And walking was so easy as well, and if you needed to cross a road, the cars stopped for you, even before you knew you needed to cross. To me, that is freedom.
I followed the signs from the Lillestrom Train Station to his conference.
The banquet was nice, though the food was as you might expect for a large banquet. We sat with some people from Lyon, France, and had a variety of great conversations. We had spent so much time just the two of us so it was nice to talk with others. They were surprised that I played the violin rather than being an engineering researcher, and laughed when I said I was there for the food.
The banquet menu.
After the conference was over, it was simply sightseeing time.
Oslo was full of sculptures.Wasn’t sure what these were.Can you guess which house I went into for a selfie?We went to Bygdoy Peninsula to visit some museums. It was supposed to rain later, so we walked around outside first. Louie is posing with the arctic explorers here.
We started with the Fram Museum, which is really just a museum built around a ship. It was a little confusing at first, where to start, what it was about–neither of us knew much about arctic exploration though I did watch an excellent documentary about Shackleton once, Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure. But we got into it and appreciated the museum and seeing the ship, and being so glad we weren’t arctic explorers because it seemed so cold and miserable!
More outside pictures first. It was a gorgeous day! The Fram Museum is literally built around the ship, so it’s a tight fit.
After the Fram, we went to the Kon-Tiki Museum, also worth a visit. Together we always take longer at museums than the guidebook recommends, probably 2 to 2 1/2 at the Fram and 1 1/2 at the Kon Tiki? I think guidebooks suggest 1 hour for each…perhaps on my own I might have rushed through as Louie tends to be a slower reader than I am, but I also see people who look like they are skipping most stuff. If you are pressed for time, I can see trying to rush, but if you have the time, take it and really look at it all.
The Kon-Tiki Raft. Basically a Norwegian guy built a raft to show that people could have done so and traveled across the world on it. Oh look, another shrimp sandwich! From the museum cafe (at the Fjord Cafe.)Indian food at Jewel of India, near our Airbnb for dinner one night.
We did Rick Steves’ walking tour of the Grünerløkka neighborhood one evening, and ended up having dinner at Mathallen, which all the websites are excited about and is just a modern-day mall food court. We got some lovely Bao and paid dearly for it, but we saw some nice stuff and enjoyed the Akerselva River enough to walk it again later.
The Old Aker Church, the oldest church in Oslo. Or in Norwegian: Gamle Aker kirke.Lovely viewGrain towers turned into student housing!Walking along the Akerselva River.So much public art! Some of it good, some of it just silly.Nothing in particular, except that vines are taking over that building.Walking along the river. These women worked in the factories along the river, in what you may imagine were harsh conditions.The Ringnes brewery, their Budweiser but approximately $12 to 15 a pint.
One day we took the train to Holmenkollen Ski Jump. This was a lot of fun. Warning, it is quite the uphill walk from the train station, but it is worth it.
They have a variety of activities including some sort of ride where you ride a zipline down the jump, but we just looked around and went to the Museum, which was great and also nice as it covered some of the stuff from the Fram again in a different way so we felt like we were actually learning.
You could see another view of the Oslofjord from up there, but it was of course hard to capture in pictures.The bottom of the ski jump.The top of the ski jump.
The museum talked about the history of skiing and the ski jump.
Somehow this sculpture was involved. With a statue of Nansen, one of the great Arctic explorers from Norway.Somewhere on Louie’s phone exists a photo of me in this prop.The lift.The Throne of Skis.More Akerselva River.
We ate at Mucho Mas in the Grünerløkka neighborhood one night. We ate most of our meal outside, but at the end it started raining so we had to run inside to finish.
The internet said Mucho Mas was terrific and also overrated. We liked it quite a lot, and it was fun to sit outside and people watch as well.
And one day we spent over 4 hours at the National Gallery, which had recently reopened.
For some reason I take a lot of pictures of musical instruments.The shields looked like Humpty Dumpty to me.This doesn’t look that different from the room Louie’s mom keeps her harps in, though I suppose it’s a little fancier…not by much. I laughed at the idea that my old Nokia phone could be in the National Gallery.Very popular, The Scream. There was a room dedicated to Edvard Munch, even though there is also a whole museum elsewhere. Not the original, but still fun to see. Another dinner at Lorry, shrimp sandwich and fish soup. We made the mistake of not asking for the soup to come out first.
I think that’s the gist of our trip! Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions. We loved Norway, I would go back in a heartbeat. If I could do anything differently it would be to try to relax more when things didn’t go as planned. I had some stressful times that in retrospect weren’t a big deal. But we saw some awesome stuff, enjoyed just wandering around, took advantage of a terrific transportation system, ate wonderful food, and really got a sense of the culture, we think.
We had an early flight to the airport, and that was a little stressful: we had to take the very first train, which left at 4:34 and arrived at 5:02. Our flight left for Heathrow at 7:05, which was as tight a time as we would want, but there was no other way. It was a full train, and the airport was crowded upon arrival, but we had no trouble: the biggest line was going through passport control, but we were at the gate by 6:15 am, which was plenty of time. London was a mess, security, passport control, that took about an hour, and then we wanted coffee before the plane which should have been quick but wasn’t. All was “forgiven” when we boarded the long haul flight and a lovely flight attendant randomly decided we should be seated up further in the comfort seats rather than the regular economy, which meant slightly more leg room and really made things better.
We got to Charlotte, went through security for the 3rd time that day, had the worst fish tacos we’d ever had at a restaurant while paying prices comparable to Norway, and after about 2 hours of delay, finally boarded the last leg of our flight. We got to St Louis, took a cab home (more expensive than uber, though I like to support cabbies sometime) and I think I was asleep within 20 minutes. I believe we had been traveling for 22-23 hours by then and it felt like it!
Looking back though, I can’t believe we were there. It feels like a dream!
I thought I’d dedicate today’s post to some of the things I saw on my own when Louie was in his conference. I’d initially planned a few more guided tours but canceled two things due to being sick and not feeling up to it/not wanting to be around people.
One of the conference days was my birthday, so I treated myself to a nice lunch sitting down at a restaurant. I went to Engebret Cafe and enjoyed a delicious shrimp sandwich: the best I had the entire trip. It was huge as well (with a price tag to match, but oh well!).
You can barely see it under the salad topping, but there is a ton of shrimp on top of a piece of bread, with a side of mayo for dipping, I guess.
I never mind sitting alone at a cafe or restaurant if I have my kindle, at least, plus people watching can be fun.
I wandered around, either walking or taking the tram somewhere, with some days not having any specific plans. I took a tram all the way to the end of the line once, thinking I could stay on and ride back and finally realizing the driver was trying to tell me I had to get off! That was a little awkward.
The entrance to our AirBNB: me coming down to meet Louie at the end of the day, as our place had only one set of keys.Near the Akershus Festning. Not a great place to sit.
I always felt comfortable walking around Oslo on my own. The only place anywhere in Oslo that we felt was a bit iffy was just around and north of the Oslo Station. Nothing terrible, just iffy.
Wandering around Akershus FestningFlowers in bloom!Up and up you walk.
I walked around the Fortress/Festning for a bit one day and found the Norwegian Resistance Museum. I spent about 45 minutes to an hour going through and looking at the exhibits, learning how the Nazis occupied Norway and the risks Norwegians took to fight back in a variety of ways.
From atop the Fortress you can see the Harbor very well. There was a large cruise ship in port.Selfie.
I also went to the Nobel Peace Center. Most of the Nobel Prizes are given out in Stockholm, Sweden, but the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, and there’s a nice museum about it. There’s also a little gift shop with a lot of neat gifts, and (good to know) there’s a bathroom that you can get to directly from the outside, no need to go through the museum lobby. We used the bathroom another day when wandering around, and just went in and used it, though then I felt like we should shop a few minutes to act like that was our intention.
The Nobel Peace Center Building.Part of my birthday dinner with Louie. We went to Lorry, a restaurant we ended up visiting twice because of the soup and because we enjoyed the vibe.Lorry from the sidewalk.
Selfie with the boatThe view of the Opera House from the water.I never tire of being on boats. I don’t think the resolution here is good enough to zoom in, but if you watch Occupied, I believe this is the building that in the show is in downtown Oslo and is where the city offices are. It is NOT in downtown Oslo, but it is a very cool building that actually exists. I was thrilled to see it as I rode down the Oslofjord on the boat!The Norwegian Flag Another selfie
After about 1 1/2 hours we landed on Oscarsborg Fortress, an island in the Oslofjord. There is, obviously, a Fortress there. It’s a neat place, with a museum, hotel, boating, and such.
There wasn’t much to do that I could see, so I wandered around a bit, and then caught the ferry to Drobak.
The ferry dock in Oscarsborg.
The tour I bought came with “ferry tickets” for certain times, but I will say this: the one at the end of the day would have been difficult. I came back earlier because the connection they give you is only 5 minutes and it is more than 5 minutes walk away. I saw some people getting on the boat who I believe made it, but they looked like they had run for their lives. I would recommend coming back 1 hour earlier and walking around the island more instead, even if that means less time in Drobak.
When you get off the ferry in Drobak it’s about a 10 minute to town, some of it scenic, some of it less so.
It started pouring rain when I got to Drobak, so I just went straight for lunch at a place called Det Gamle Bakeri. I got fish soup.
It might have been nice to sit outside, but it seemed too stormy.
Drobak was very picturesque, but after wandering around a little bit, I was ready to head back. I was early for the ferry, but I thought I’d go back and sit and read. I waited a bit and then a smaller ferry showed up, and the captain offered to take me and another couple back instead of us waiting for the larger ferry. We were happy to go with him and the couple and I chatted about Norway and the United States and Sweden, where they were from. They were staying overnight at the hotel for research purposes for a travel tv show, I think.
The smaller ferry.
When I got back to Oscarsborg, the sun was shining, so I walked all around the island some more and it was quite warm. And then after awhile caught the boat back to Oslo, which was pleasant after a full day.
I do recommend this tour, if you have been in Oslo awhile and want a day trip, as I did.
The last day of the conference was when we ended up having to change our flight to stay in the country longer. At the time we needed to get negative tests in order to fly home, and we didn’t think we both would, so we made an appointment with a doctor. The doctor said since we didn’t have official proof of being positive, he needed to have that proof first, and then 4 days later if we were fever free and our lungs were clear he could write a “proof of recovery” note for us. (We didn’t both need this, but one did.) Anyway, that meant changing our flight and finding new lodging.
If you are in a foreign country and want to change your flight with American Airlines, do not bother calling the 1-800 number, use the local country number. We were told an 8 hour hold with the 1-800 number, but the local number got us through right away and rebooked within 10-15 minutes. I was able to extend our stay in our AirBNB except for the last night, where we had to relocate to a nearby place.
Watching the Color Line Ship go by Oscarsborg Fortress.Not the western fjords, but still very pretty.The Boat.
That seems like a natural place to stop this blog post, so I’ll continue with another post soon. If you have any questions, please let me know! I love to hear from readers, otherwise I start to feel as if I am just writing into a void.
Okay, and since I’ve actually stopped traveling and even have a few “days off” at home, I have more time to blog.
Let me tell you. The hardest part of trip recaps is figuring out what photos to include. I took around 1400 pictures on this trip, but of course some are better than others. It’s so hard to decide which those are, however, looking at the phone screen. And since I have an iphone but a pc, that means getting them from my phone to my computer takes a little finagling. So over the past few weeks I’ve finally settled on the photos I want to consider for the blog. Now that that is done, the rest should be easy!
And now we are back in Oslo, for a day or two to recover before Louie’s conference started up. I think now is when I’ll stop doing a true day by day and instead just show you some pictures and tell you some cool stuff we did in Oslo.
We stayed at a fantastic AirBNB. While we could have stayed at a hotel for the conference, I thought it would be more fun to have an apartment of sorts. Initially I’d thought we might even cook, but that never happened. We did use the coffeemaker and refrigerator often though. What was BEST about the AirBNB we had was the location. It was in the Frogner neighborhood, only a few minutes in any direction from trains, buses, and trams, very walkable, with grocery stores, restaurants, etc all around. I would highly recommend this location if you are in Oslo, with one caveat: the bed is a loft. We loved it, but if you have mobility issues or young children it wouldn’t work.
The view at night from the loft bed. It did get dark closer to 11 each night and stayed that way until at least 3 or 3:30 am.Art on the wall of the apartment.The loft bed above, the couch and coffee table below. We were told the couch also had a pull out bed which was less comfortable. The ladder took some practice getting used to but it wasn’t too bad.Random picture of the apartment: a little closet/storage area. It was a small place, with a narrow hallway to the bathroom, and a tiny kitchenette.
The first morning I discovered we were around the corner from what ended up being our favorite coffee house and bakery ever. We didn’t go every day, but we stopped by almost every day, for coffee, baked goods, or bread. We had been wearing masks of course, and one of the employees, being very friendly, said, you know you don’t have to wear masks in Norway! We said, yes…but we have to test negative for COVID to get back to the states so we are being extra cautious.
Our first few days we were still recovering from COVID: I was feeling better, just tired. Louie was still feverish and with a bad cough. We finally got to a pharmacy to get him some medicine for that: note to readers, bring some NyQuil tablets with you when you travel, as at least in Norway they wouldn’t give us anything to help him sleep without a doctor’s note.
We did a bunch of outdoor stuff first: Vigeland Park is a real gem in the city. It’s a whole park dedicated to statues by one man, Gustav Vigeland, and as I exclaimed at one point, it’s just a bunch of statues of naked people! Louie pointed out that most statues are of naked people, which is true. We went on a beautiful weekend afternoon and the park was full of families, people grilling on little “one-time grills”, and it seemed like the entire city was out enjoying the beautiful weather.
All of Oslo at Vigeland Park. It reminded me of Forest Park in that way, except even more crowded (though smaller) more public transportation options, and more naked people statues.Angry Baby is one of the most famous statues in the park.The big obelisk statue was the center of everything. It is basically a big pile of naked people. It’s hilarious to see all the kids climbing around the statues, I wonder what they think of it all? In which I briefly discovered portrait mode on my phone, and then forgot. We were thrilled to find St Louis Ribs on the menu here. I’m kidding, we didn’t go here, but I thought this was a hilarious sign!This is in the neighborhood near where we stayed. Fish and chips at an Irish pub. There were a lot of Irish pubs in Oslo, and we needed a little break from Norwegian food.Manunderwear is presumably what it sounds like. Norwegian seemed to be like German in that sometimes they would just put a bunch of words together to make one longer word.
One of my favorite museums was the Norwegian Folk Museum. It’s an outdoor museum (perfect when you are trying to avoid people) and is on the Bygdoy peninsula. We took the bus there and enjoyed the public transportation.
Oh, notes again: you can use the Ruter app for travel. It’s so easy to buy tickets on your phone and use the app for directions places. We both got weekly passes, which meant we really used the system during that time.
The Folk Museum is a large collection of buildings used throughout Norwegian History. We spent over 3 hours there and felt like we could have spent 3 days there.
My usual favorite type of house: with a grass roof.Another house with a grass roof.A Stave Church. This is a thing throughout the country, but it was the only one we got to see. Inside the Stave Church.The roof of the church.Gorgeous woodworking on this building.A bicycle. It was locked up so nobody could ride it.
Some of the places were more modern: there was an apartment building that had a variety of apartments set up like they might have been during various times in the 1900’s. We were surprised to find that one was like an apartment would have been way back in the 1980’s…who would even have been alive then???
A two story outhouse building as would have been used for an apartment building.An old gas station.Lunch at the café, I was obsessed with shrimp sandwiches, and would continue to be so if it were an option here.Pastry from Apent BakeriCoconut drink at Roti Shop Oslo.Pizza at Olivia’s…it wasn’t our best dinner choice, but it was fine.I thought this building had a lot of expression.
I think I’ll stop there and keep this post shorter. I know I may have promised less posts overall, but I think I will return to more Oslo in another post. In a nutshell, this was our first weekend back there, and then Louie’s conference started.
We left off when Louie and I had boarded our express boat to Balestrand. When I first started researching Norway, I knew we were going to Oslo, and then I had to figure out what else to do. Bergen seemed like the other obvious choice, and then I started looking at the small towns…some people say to just do the fjords and small towns, and I’m sure that would have been a perfectly gorgeous trip. Once I found out about “Norway in Nutshell” which is a way to see fjords using only public transportation from Bergen or Oslo, I knew we wanted to do something like that. I ended up going with a version of it called “Sognefjord in a Nutshell”, which for the record, several people on Trip Advisor poo-pooed as being boring because of the long boat ride. Our first segment of the ride was 4 hours long, and even with not feeling well I found it to be phenomenally beautiful and I am so glad we did it!
Leaving Bergen: seeing Bryggen from the water was great!You often hear that other countries don’t fly their flag as much as the US. That very well may be true, but we saw a lot of Norwegian flags, not just on boats or government buildings.It was incredibly windy outside so we thought we could take our masks off for a better picture.The scenery…not bad!Some large statue, I’m not sure what it was.I thought this was a funny sign/translation. The ship, which is a restaurant, is only allowed to drink beer and wine purchased onboard.We got into some amazing mountain scenery. Pictures of course, do not do it justice.The boat made several stops along the way. It was fun to see each tiny port and watch the crew get the ship ready to allow passengers on or off. Not many got on or off along the way, but here and there.
There was a giant cruiseship outside of Vic, one of the bigger towns we stopped at.
After about 4 hours, we started coming into the Balestrand Harbor, our home for the next two nights. A large group were getting off with us, so we had to wait our turn to disembark.
Our ship, the Njord.
We had about a 5 minute walk to our hotel, the Midtnes Hotel. The fancy hotel in town is the Kviknes, but we aren’t fancy people (aka it was way more expensive). We weren’t able to check in yet, but we were able to drop off our bags and headed back out to explore. We ate a picnic lunch and then looked into getting information on short hikes.
Initially I had planned for us to hike this afternoon, but it looked like it was about to rain, in fact, rain was forecast in one hour. (We didn’t know it at the time, but rain would be forecast in one hour for the next day or so, until it finally rained.) I also felt utterly exhausted and wanted to rest. Louie decided to go for a quick hike on his own “before the rain” and I went back to the hotel to rest. The hotel room was nice: it had a balcony that overlooked the fjord (if you angled a little bit) and while the hotel was dated, it was perfectly lovely.
The view from the room.The view if you angled a little bit. In the distance you can see the ferry from Vangnes to Dragvik, taking cars back and forth.Louie’s selfie from his hike.
It turned out Louie got in a nice hike for a few hours in the sun, while I was able to check into the room. When he got back, he crashed for the rest of the night. I ended up having to go to the grocery to get supplies for dinner in the room and he had a rough night of sleep as well.
This was a portion of our visit that definitely didn’t go as planned. I am still a little sad writing it. I wanted to have done the hike, we planned to take the boat to Vic in the morning to see a Stave Church/maybe even meet up with a distant relative of Louie’s since the area is where his great-grandfather was born. But I was also thankful that we weren’t stuck in the hotel room as we might have been in another country!
Balestrand.The Midtnes is the white building in front and the white building behind. The little church is St Olav’s and it inspired the church in Frozen, I am told.
As far as the hotel: we had asked about breakfast in the morning, because initially we planned to leave early for the boat to Vic before breakfast at the hotel was served. The owner put the spread out early for us, and even though then we didn’t go, it was still so nice! I took plates of food up to the room for us to have: at that time Louie was in no position to get up and we didn’t want to eat around others in any case.
We rested in the morning, and then met our afternoon tour: a boat to Fjaerland to see a Glacier! Like the day before, we kept our masks on, and spent as much time as possible outside. The tour only have about 10 people on it so there was plenty of room to spread out.
On another boat!This little owl had a head that went all the way around.
We got on the boat and stayed on top in the open for awhile, until it just got to be too cold and windy. There was a nice area below to hang out, with windows and a cafe selling coffee, snacks, and even pasta bolognese. We did not order it, but somebody did on the way back!
The landscape was full of mountains, waterfalls, and tiny little hamlets, some deserted, some only occupied in the summer (former homes that remained in families from before that now people use as summer homes).
I had wondered if going on another boat ride was overkill, but it was not. This fjord was different enough (smaller) and the views, frankly, never get old!
We imagined boating around from village to village, hamlet to hamlet.
The weather was more overcast today than the day before. We had been lucky with the weather in Norway so far, but today was a bit more overcast and seemed to threaten rain.
It was a short drive to the Museum, where we were given an hour to look around. There was a wonderful introductory video and then various exhibits to learn about Glaciers and other related topics. It was a small museum, but an hour was just barely enough time.
The museum itself was an interesting site.The mammoths from above–you could walk up to the roof of the museum.
Next the bus took us close to the Jostedeen Glacier. This was an amazing view!
You could hear the hundreds of waterfalls running down the entire time.
The visitor’s Center at the Glacier was adorable and blended into the landscape. Norway’s “parkitecture” was delightful.
Definitely take the Fjord and Glacier Tour if you are in Balestrand. Some of the reviewers complained that it wasn’t an active tour, or that you were herded from place to place. Well, maybe if the tour was full: we were only about 10 as it was early in the season and I can imagine if the boat and bus were fuller it might feel more like being herded. But it’s a lovely boat ride and then you see a cool museum and a beautiful glacier, which plenty of cars were parked at as well…what’s not to like?
The boat ride back was uneventful. It was a bit rainier feeling and we were more tired, so we mostly rested inside.
After we got back from the cruise, we went back to the room to rest up for a bit, and then decided to get dinner outside at a nearby restaurant. We chose Gekken’s since it advertised a special that seemed more affordable than some places, and had outdoor seating. It was cold and finally did rain for real, so we were the only ones seated outside, which was likely for the best!
We got fish soup and salmon. It was good enough!
Fish soup.Salmon with boiled potatoes, carrots and a side salad.
We enjoyed watching a seagull nest nearby. The seagull had chosen to make its nest on top of a shed, right near the restaurant. At one point another seagull came and they squawked back and forth a bit and then traded off.
New seagull, who this?
After dinner we got a cider to split in the room and went to sleep.
Oh, and after the rain there was a gorgeous rainbow! It was wonderful to see from our balcony.
The next morning we got “takeout” breakfast again and rested in the room until check out time. We were sad to leave Balestrand, but we had tickets (nonrefundable) to go through Flam en route to Oslo and needed to keep moving. I do wish we had felt better while in Balestrand, but what can you do.
We had a picnic lunch before catching our boat, the same route that dropped us off two days ago. Louie felt particularly bad this day, and it was to be a rough travel day for him. I hated that, since this was supposed to be a wonderful scenic day of finishing up the “Sognefjord in Nutshell”: the boat to Flam and then the Flamsbana Railway to the Bergen Express back to Oslo. It was a lot of travel, all quite scenic, but not fun if you are sick.
A huge waterfall we detoured to see. My pictures closer up didn’t turn out too well.You can see how the fjord is getting more narrow. That’s the part we missed seeing not doing Norway in a Nutshell, but we were absolutely pleased with our choice to do Sognefjord in a Nutshell instead.
The boat was relatively crowded but we found some good seats anyway, and relaxed and enjoyed the view for a few hours. We continued along Sognefjord, took a tiny detour into the start of the Nærøyfjord, and finally arrived in Flam. Flam could have been a cruise port anywhere, and I found it a little offputting what the cruise ships had done to what was likely at one time an adorable little hamlet on the fjord. We had lunch and looked at the Train Museum there and finally boarded our Flamsbana, the Flam Railway. I had chosen to have a few hours in Flam to look around rather than catch an earlier train, and I would say to you, eh, don’t bother. If you don’t have a particular activity planned, just keep moving.
The Njord, docked in Flam.Flam. Generic shopping and mediocre restaurants, surrounded by gorgeous landscapes!The Flam Railway, one of the most amazing train rides in the world.
Anyway, we boarded the railway for the journey. It was great! I didn’t think it was the greatest experience ever, simply because as a hiker, you can stop and enjoy things so much more, whereas on a train the landscape just whizzes by.
The train car was very red!
But it was a gorgeous ride, and we saw so many beautiful things. At one point we stopped at a waterfall and had a few minutes to get out. It was hilarious because a woman comes out and starts singing and dancing. This is when Louie recalled he had done this before, over 20 years ago, and he remembered the woman.
The train, just through a tunnel.You can see the lady in red in this photo.
Anyway, we got to Myrdal after an hour or so, and then boarded our train to Oslo. I had hoped this would be relaxing, but it wasn’t so much. Our seats weren’t as nice as the way from Oslo to Bergen, and we ended up facing backwards the whole way and sharing a space with two people facing us, which was a little more uncomfortable, less foot space, etc. It was a difficult 5 hour journey because of this. I was able to enjoy the scenery still, but Louie was just barely hanging on.
Finally we arrived back at Oslo Station. Since we were exhausted and it was actually somewhat dark, we decided to just get a cab to the AirBNB that would be our home for the next week or longer. Cabs in Oslo are definitely expensive, and if we had had any energy to take a train or tram instead, it would have been a better idea. But we got there, met our AirBNB host, and found the place.
So that was Balestrand. Not quite as hoped, but we made the best of a bad situation. Maybe someday we will return and do more hiking!
I never know if it’s better to do day by day recaps or more of a general thing. Travel blogs that are monetized do lists like “the top 10 things to do in Bergen” or “7 Things to make your vacation in Bergen Ultimate!” I know those things have better SEO but when I’m looking at information and trying to research trips, what I love most is reading about someone’s trip, what did they actually do, how did they fit it into the days they had, that sort of thing. But what I don’t know is if I am the weird one for enjoying reading that sort of thing!
I think I’ll continue my day by day for now, but I may be more general in Oslo later. *shrugs*.
We arrived via train around 5:15 pm and walked about 15-20 minutes to our AirBNB. It was raining, and I had the hardest time following my phone map (jet lag/brain fog?) but luckily not raining too hard. We finally found the place and the keys were in the lockbox as promised.
The AirBNB was cute, great location, with an amazing view. It seemed as described, and we were excited.
We were visiting Bergen during the Bergen International Festival, an international arts festival. We wanted to take advantage of a few things, so the first night we were headed to a free Hardanger Fiddle concert played by Benedicte Maurseth in the public square, Torgallmenningen, so we needed to head out to get there. It was a 10 to 15 minute walk and we were eager to see Bergen along the way without the worry of our luggage.
Louie in front of Bryggen, the old part of Bergen.
The outdoor space! There were some chairs set up and we managed to snag a pair after the rain started up again. Most people just pulled out their umbrellas, so we did the same. When in Bergen…
Selfie time!
The concert was about 45 minutes long and we enjoyed it. All of the commentary was in Norwegian, and seemed to be interesting and relatively funny based on the audiences reactions. After that we headed for our dinner reservation at Bryggeloftet & Stuene, an old restaurant in the Bryggen area that was supposed to be delicious and traditional. I had made a reservation because I didn’t know if Sunday nights were busier since some other places were closed and I also knew there was an International Arts festival going on! The place was packed, so I’m glad I made the reservation. We got seated promptly, and I decided to order the mussels which were in a cream sauce and came with fries. Louie ordered the Wolffish with his choice of potatoes and he chose potatoes dauphinoise. (Lots of potatoes on the menu!) They ended up bringing out boiled potatoes by accident at first, so he ended up with double potatoes!
It was a lot of food!
We thought we were surrounded by Norwegians as we heard a lot of languages we didn’t understand, but the server spoke to nearly everybody in English, so I suspect we were surrounded by Swedish people, Germans, etc. Everybody in Norway speaks English really well, with American accents for the most part.
After dinner we were exhausted so we didn’t wander too much and headed home to sleep.
A word about Norwegian beds: everywhere we went instead of one large comforter, quilt, or duvet covering the bed, there were two smaller duvets. No top sheet, but of course the duvet cover is washable. So we each got our own duvet, which was weird at first but we got used to.
I had a little trouble sleeping at one point and took this picture in the middle of the night. Notice how the sky isn’t too dark-that’s not from the lights of the city, it’s because the sky never gets too dark in the summer.
Our place in Bergen was chilly that night but we couldn’t (in our jet lag/brain fog) figure out how to turn on the heat, and only managed to turn on the heated bathroom floor.
The next morning we got breakfast at a nearby coffee shop called BKB coffee. I had a cappuccino and a scone. Louie asked for the apple scone and the barista was so confused until we all realized that Louie meant “applesin” which isn’t apple at all but is orange! VERY FUNNY!
It was a lovely day so we went to the Floyen Funicular to ride up and see the city from above. There no line to speak up and before we knew it we were at the top. It was a wonderful view!
You can see the funicular in this photo.
We walked around looking at the view and then headed down a path and saw some goats!
The goats are all tagged and apparently stay within a fenced area but are allowed free reign within that area.
We walked around a bit, and took a short trail to a lake, and enjoyed the Norwegian “countryside” a bit.
I was still feeling tired/exhausted so we didn’t hike too far, but we decided to walk down rather than take the funicular. We finished our exploring at Floiyan, had a coffee and quick snack, and then headed down.
We took a short break back at the house to change and rest, and then headed out in search of fish soup. We ended up having our (first) bowl of fish soup at a tented restaurant by the harbor.
Fish soup, a Bergen specialty, though we found it all across Norway.
We had tickets for a cello recital that evening at Edvard Grieg’s House, and needed to get ourselves there: it involved a train and a 20 minute walk, not a huge deal, but we wanted to be on the early side to look around as well. For those of you who don’t know: Grieg is the most famous and accomplished Norwegian composer of classical music.
After our soup we walked around taking pictures, looking at stuff, etc., getting a coffee and dessert to pack for later, and finally catching the tram or train to the stop.
We managed the uphill walk to Grieg’s house: it seemed somehow hotter than I thought it would be and I was still struggling with what I assumed was jet lag, with the niggling feeling in the back of my head that this was something more, but when we got there, wow, it was gorgeous!
The concert hall!Grieg’s composing hut. What a lovely and inspirational place to create music!In front of the hut with the concert/recital hall building in the background, further up the hill. The boat dock.Lifesize statue of Grieg himself. He was evidently under 5 and 1/2 feet tall.Inside the concert hall. You can see the window in the back to look out.
The concert was great. It was played by a cellist, Amalie Stalheim, and a pianist Christian Ihle Hadland. Amalie had won the Norwegian Soloist Prize recently and she was fantastic. Also likely very funny but who would know: this was another time when the performer spoke Norwegian and we just smiled and nodded, haha!
One thing I particularly enjoyed about the concert was the end: the audience loved the concert and clapped wildly for her to return. They don’t do standing ovations and instead everybody started clapping all together in unison. It was very exciting to be part of, and of course they came back out and played an encore.
We went back the way we came, down the hill to the train stop, and made it relatively easily back to the city. We had a little trouble getting tickets, but it turned out one of the machines was broken. And we even had time to eat the aforementioned dessert before the train came.
I should say: we wore masks at the concert and on the train, even thought nobody else was. I was feeling quite tired/exhausted/warm on the ride back and luckily managed to get a seat after a few stops: I wasn’t sure I would make it all the way leaning against the wall.
We were hungry so we stopped at a sausage stand, Trekroneren, and got a street sausage. Not something we normally eat, but we chose to eat very little meat for reasons that do allow us to eat meat on occasion. This was reindeer sausage with lingonberry jam, mustard, and fried onions, which was how the employee suggested I try it.
Then it was time to say good bye to another day, even if the light was still with us. I was feeling not great, so Louie ran over to the nearby 7-11 to get a few drinks/sodas and a quick lunch to split. We did figure out how to turn on the heat as well: the evenings were pretty cold, down into the high 30s/low 40s. I also figured I’d run a load of laundry: there was a combination washer/dryer, which was pretty unusual to us, but we figured out how to use it. It took about 3-4 hours and didn’t finish until late at night, and sang a song then that woke me up, but in the morning when I checked the laundry was clean and dry!
The next morning we went to the supermarket first. We bought some things we needed and enjoyed browsing the aisles for all of the things that were different from here. After that we went for breakfast at a nearby restaurant called Godt Brød, meaning literally, Good Bread. We ordered coffees and scones and the barista suggested we get brown cheese on our scones. We had heard of brown cheese but hadn’t tried it yet so we enthusiastically agreed.
Sitting outside the Floiyen Funicular, the white building in the back. I actually had a cappuccino.
After our breakfast, we headed towards Bryggen and then to the Bergenhus Festning, the Fortress.
We decided to buy tickets for the Rosenkrantz Tower, which was a tower that kept getting added on to. You went down into the dungeon first (which made us really realize how awful being in a dungeon would be, if we didn’t already realize that).
At least we had electric lights!
The bathrooms were built into the dungeon area.
Of course we both had to take advantage of them! When traveling the rule is if you see a bathroom you use it. Also, bathrooms in Norway tended to be impeccably clean.
Then we started climbing up the stairs to higher rooms for various royalty.
The King had had his own bathroom!
When you are the King, you get a private toilet that goes…somewhere lower I suppose!
And from the top there was a lovely view!
The Ferris Wheel was near where the cruise ships dock.
After the Tower we just walked around the Fortress a bit. We came across a museum about the Resistance and popped in. It was free, and seemed like a lovely museum, but it was really hot inside and I just couldn’t read anymore, so we didn’t stay too long.
We decided lunch would be more fish soup! Rick Steves recommended we try Søstrene Hagelin so we did. It was good, different than the previous soup, more chowdery and full of dough balls of fish. They also sold a lot of “fish cakes” so we tried a few of those as well.
And then we walked around a bit more, getting a coffee at Cafe Opera, before going to the Bryggen Museum. The Bryggen Museum was very interesting, about the history of Bergen and how people lived and lots of archeological finds. It’s also so interesting to think of how in Europe you are literally on top of all the places people have lived for hundreds and hundreds of years, and it just keeps getting higher and higher.
(Of course, we have the same here, it’s just different because we prefer to pretend nobody lived in the States before the white people “discovered it”. )
After the Museum it was time to face some facts. I wasn’t feeling well, and we had dinner reservations for a Michelin-star restarant, Lysverket, and that would mean sitting unmasked in a restaurant for 2-3 hours and…we took COVID tests.
Here’s where I hesitate, how much to tell you? I know that some of you will think we were wrong every step of the way, that if you got COVID on your trip to Norway for two weeks you would do everything perfectly and know exactly what to do. But I will tell you, nothing is black and white.
We took the tests. I was positive, Louie was negative. We were in shock for a bit, and then started trying to figure out what to do.
We canceled our dinner reservation. This was a no-brainer, but absolutely devastating!
We were supposed to leave the next day on a nonrefundable ticket. So our choices were: cancel, buy it again (when, it was purchased weeks in advance, so who even knows what is available) and try to find a place to stay somewhere in the city during a big festival. Or not. Just mask up, stay away from people.
Norway doesn’t care. Their official COVID information is: stay home if you don’t feel well. Don’t worry about testing, we don’t do that anymore. Effective February 2022, they stopped worrying about it.
The US Embassy website in Norway tells you to visit Norway’s health page to find out about COVID testing. The links they give are broken. So there was no real information about what to do, and we felt absolutely on our own.
So, we had Royal Kebab for dinner, got takeout and ate in a nearby park. We decided that our masks would protect others from us, as well as distancing, and we would just do our best to avoid people and be outside as much as possible if we felt up for it (we assumed that Louie would be getting it as well.) You can judge me, but you weren’t there, in a foreign country, away from all of your cold medicine and your box of extra food and your grocery delivery, having spent thousands on your trip and wanting to enjoy it after years of the pandemic.
Now, I realized that all of the weird symptoms I’d had, the extreme tiredness, the constant headaches, the fever, the chills, the sore throat, the runny nose, that was probably NOT jet lag and was actually COVID. So according to the idea that you get the latest omicron 2-3 days after being exposed, I likely got exposed the day before the trip, or possibly on the plane. Where masks are not required and few people wore them, even though WE DID.
I feel weird putting this out there on the internet, but I want to be truthful with you, and we did nothing illegal or wrong. Morally questionable, except we just didn’t see any other way that wasn’t horrendously expensive and would absolutely ruin the entire trip. If I sound defensive, it’s because I am!
Another statue of Edvard Grieg
So the next morning, we packed up, we got breakfast (outside at Good Bread again) and then went to board our boat to Balestrand, our next stop. I felt…okay. Stressed out beyond belief (would we ever be allowed to fly back home, remember at this time you needed a negative COVID test to return home) and worried about getting sicker, worried about Louie getting sicker, and frankly, feeling like we were in a lose-lose situation. I kept my mask on inside the entire trip and only removed it outside to eat or drink, or a quick picture, away from people (it was very windy outside so we weren’t concerned.)
Remember, I wear my mask to protect you!
So that’s Bergen. We were incredibly lucky with the weather: it was fairly warm and hardly rained at all, and incredibly unlucky to get COVID.
We came across a brass band of students playing in this gazebo at one point. It was fun!
