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.
After several years of everything being canceled due to COVID, Louie was speaking at two conferences in June, with just a week between. The first was in Oslo (if you are reading this and missed my posts about that trip, I recommend!) and then in Austin, Texas. Neither of us had been to Austin before, so as he was making his travel plans, I decided to come down for part of the conference. I wanted to teach a few days that week, so I went from Sunday to early Thursday, and he came back the next evening.
We were regretting our travel plans on Saturday before we left, as we had only been home for 4 days really before having to leave again, and still recovering from jet lag (and/or COVID, who really knows). With our original plan we would have had 6 full days of jet lag recover (and no COVID, that definitely wasn’t in the plan) but…anyway, we left bright and early Sunday morning and flew direct to Austin.
We decided to mask in the airport because there are a lot of people there and COVID isn’t the only thing you can catch!Our plane was getting ready.
The plane flight was uneventful, and we got to our hotel easily. We were staying at the conference hotel, the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center which was on the edge of the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. We were able to check in to our room early and got settled. It was hot outside, but very nice and cool at the hotel. I had had images of hanging out at the pool, but the pool was located on the side of the hotel by a busy street and never looked as appealing as the pictures of it (surprise!).
Louie didn’t have anything scheduled on Sunday, so we headed out on foot for some sightseeing and ultimately a late brunch reservation at Comedor.
We walked by the Texas State Capitol and realized you could also go inside, so we did that (it was good to get out of the heat).
The grounds were very pretty and had many different statues.
We had to go through a metal detector to get into the Capitol, but I think if you had a gun you just had to declare it. I was struck by how many non-English speaking people were at the Capitol, as well as many different looking English speaking people, likely a full cross section of America as it is, rather than America as…well, the people who run the Texas State Capitol wish for it to be. Keep in mind this was also still before my rights to my own body were taken away from me…it was an interesting visit and a beautiful building, but the underlying message that we have received from the Texas government is not a welcome one.
Texas is obsessed with stars. You see them everywhere!Looking down into the rotunda.It’s the little details, too.A sculpture outside on the grounds. It was hard to get in a picture, but it was the Texas African American History Memorial, and had a lot going on. It is interesting to note that we were actually there on Juneteenth! That sentence: “The conflict did not readily change the Black experience in Texas, as most African-Americans continued to be held in bondage and forced to labor.” I didn’t know until a few years ago that it took a long time after the Emancipation Proclamation for enslaved people to be freed. Austin is full of murals. The idea of “Keep Austin Weird”, they say, isn’t about the murals necessarily but just about having so many local businesses rather than chains. Brunch at Comedor. We were used to Norway prices, so it seemed reasonable.
We LOVED Comedor. We had fish tacos and a few other things.
Fish tacos!The Huarache with mushrooms, egg, and tomatoes.We finished with a pancake the size of a car tire. We did not eat the whole thing.
After lunch we walked down to the Congress River for a bit, which was beautiful but I was really hot, so we headed back to the hotel then.
The hotel room was nice enough to hang out in, and we cooled off and I chatted online with my family for the weekly meeting. Louie was able to work a bit as well as check into the conference and get the official book.
After that, we decided to go to a nearby restaurant called the Texas Chili Parlor. It was a dive bar, but it was welcoming, very near the hotel, and ended up being terrific. The prices were good, quick service, and we enjoyed chili and frozen margaritas.
The conference started Monday, so I had a few days to figure things out for myself. Some of the things I’d hoped to do Monday ended up being closed due to the Juneteenth Holiday, so my Monday ended up being fairly uneventful. I ate at the Driscoll Hotel at the1886 Cafe for breakfast, and did a little wandering around after that. I had tacos for lunch at the Velvet Taco, and spent the afternoon at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, which was one of the reasons I’d decided to go to Austin.
People had a lot of things to tell us to do in Austin, and I’m sure many of them were great fun, but I was most interested in the museums. Unfortunately visiting from Sunday to Wednesday wasn’t the best to see museums, as I only managed to fit two in during that time, but those were great. I loved the LBJ Library and learned so much!
Inside the Museum–you can see the documents, filed on shelves.I read this as “Please do not touch the Murial.”Selfie in the Oval Office replica.The view from Lady Bird Johnson’s office.
I walked back to the hotel after that, losing and finding my walk since nearly everything in the area was under construction. We met up with Louie’s boss for dinner and planned to go to a nearby Indian restaurant, but the wait was estimated to be 1 1/2-2 hours, so…we decided to go to the Chili Parlor again. And yes, it was again for all of us.
The next day I had signed up for an organized tour for BBQ and wineries in Texas through the company Austin Detours. I am finding that when traveling on my own it’s nice to have something organized and pushes me out of my comfort zone. I get so worried meeting up with things, and of course, it was easy and the tour guide was welcoming and friendly.
There were just 6 of us plus the guide, and it was a wonderful day. We started downtown with a tour around from the van and then headed to the hills to the Salt Lick Barbecue. Now, you may know that I eat a mostly pescatarian diet, but my reasons for doing so allow for occasional meat eating opportunities, especially when it seems integral to the understanding and culture of a place, or for special occasions.
I got the burnt ends and the pulled pork. It was pretty good, but nothing will ever hold a candle to the barbecue of my youth, Hickory Hills in Clinton, South Carolina.
Next we went to the Fall Creek Winery, which was very nearby.
The tour guide liked taking pictures of us so I got some fun photos from the day.
We did a tasting there of about 6 wines and there were enjoyable. Not great, but certainly…as good as Missouri wines, I would say.
And then we went to the Duchman Family Winery. The tasting was different: we stood at the counter rather than sitting, but it was another 6 or so wines and though most in the group preferred the Duchman wines, I preferred the Fall Creek wines. I didn’t buy anything, as flying home with it would have been too difficult.
We stopped at this sign on our way back to Austin for pictures.
I recommend the tour if you have an afternoon free and want to do something different.
That evening Louie and I went back to Comedor for dinner. We are evidently creatures of habit, and loved the food for brunch so wanted to try it for dinner. I know there are many more places, but it seemed like most recommendations were barbecue and tacos and this was like, fancier tacos. We had an avocado tostada, an okra and corn side, a quesadilla with mushrooms, fish with mole sauce, and for dessert, chocolate tamal with ice cream. The meal was great, especially the okra side and the fish with mole sauce. The odd thing was that the restaurant, as it got darker outside, simply got darker and darker, to the point that I was struggling to see my way to the bathroom after the meal and nearly bumping into everyone. It was an interesting mood lighting choice.
The fish with sauce.
Wednesday morning Louie took the morning off from the conference, and we went to the Texas History Museum. It was a nice way to spend a few hours.
I told you they like stars. This one outside the museum is probably the largest.Standing in front of an Alamo replica. Remember!
The museum was interesting, and covered the history of Texas from the beginning of time until the present day. Some of it was a little starry eyed, and some of the stuff about slavery was especially starry eyed/propaganda, but I’m glad we went.
I met up with a friend for lunch then. A friend who used to live in St Louis now teaches at UT-Austin and we went to Kerbey Lane Cafe for lunch. It was great to catch up and chitchat, and reminded me that sometimes you can just have a nice time meeting up with a friend. (Sometimes it feels overwhelming visiting places where you know people and feeling like there’s no way to fit everything in, seeing the sights, seeing people, making people happy!) And then for dinner we met up with an old friend of Louie’s and had pizza and beer at Pinthouse Brewery.
Beer.
So that was my trip to Austin. I didn’t get to any of the Art Museums I wanted to see, I didn’t get to see my friend Heather who was also in Austin that week, we didn’t see the bats at dusk on the Congress Street bridge, we didn’t get Torchy’s Tacos or Franklin’s BBQ, we didn’t get to the swimming hole at Barton Springs, but we had a nice time, we still miss the Chili Parlor, and I was especially glad to have seen the LBJ Presidential Library.
Traveling is funny: it’s wonderful to explore and see new places, but with the internet and instagram, there seem to be these ideas that there are certain places everybody must see and do, and that there are places you must take pictures and post online, and…I think it’s important that we don’t see traveling as a series of checklists to cover. I enjoyed Austin on my terms, taking what people said and choosing from them and adding in stuff that I found.
The same with Norway: we loved what we did, and we definitely did some of the most popular things, but we also did things that particularly interested US, which isn’t necessarily the same thing that interests everybody else. In my day to day life, I do things that are very different than many people, so why would I do the same things in travel? I do think we might have enjoyed the bats, but it just didn’t work out with our dinner plans.
When I was young, my family took a long road trip “Out West”, as we called it, and one thing we did one night was sit in an amphitheater outside Carlsbad Caverns and watched the bats in their mass exodus from the cave at sunset. It was awe-inspiring, and part of me wanted to keep that in my memory as it is, and thought, maybe that’s enough bats for me right now.
My flight home was early on Thursday, and I had been hearing that the Austin airport was a nightmare, so I arrived about 2 hours early. The airport was the opposite of a nightmare and security took no time at all, haha, but it’s always better to be too early than running late. I’m glad I went to Austin, and I hope that Louie does some more conferences in the future that I can tag along on!
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!
