Choosing a Scandinavian country to get immersed in?

Ikea is Ikea - seen one, seen them all. But I can understand the novelty of visiting the first one.

Norway
For Oslo: Lars Saabye Christensen (the novel Beatles has a wonderful backdrop of Oslo in the 1960s). For Bergen, try out Gunnar Staalesen´s books about Varg Veum, a detective.

Your choice would depend on season and interests. Denmark is more continental. Short distances make it easy to travel. Sweden has the flair of being a former superpower (17-18th Century) with old castles and traditions. Norway has the fjords of course, and is probably the most stunning from a scenic perspective. (Not wanting to offend any Swede or Dane - but as a Norwegian I might be a bit biased... )

If travelling in summertime, you can check out historical reenactments and plays. They are popular. Although they will be in the local language, it could be worth checking out.

With regards to design: Perhaps the Swedes have been better at commercialising it, but the quality of Danish design surpasses it (again being slightly subjective here).

Regardless of which country you choose - I am certain you will enjoy your stay. I love the idea of reading other things than travel books prior to visiting a place.

Finland would be interesting for its history, especially the world wars.

It depends on what you like. Norway is hard to get around and maybe there's not quite as much to do in the cities. But the scenery is intensely beautiful.

And Norway has a lot of WWII type museums. I went to the ones in Trondheim and they were nice.

Hi TA,

>Denmark has Kronborg Castle,.....<

It also has, among other things,
http://wictor.dk/wictor/frederiksborg/frbslotGB.html
http://www.tivoli.dk/composite-3351.htm
http://www.roskilde.com/cmarter.asp?doc=2961
http://www.visitodense.com/international/en-gb/menu/turist/turistforside.htm
http://www.louisiana.dk/dk

Not to mention Smørrebrød, Wienerbrød, excellent beer and lovely people.

I've been to the first IKEA in Sweden which is in Älmhult, it is in the middle of nowhere (maybe that's why there is an IKEA hotel),I think the only other interesting thing in the area is Brio toy museum.

If design is of interest, I would suggest Denmark since Danish design is so famous (Georg Jensen, Louis Poulsen, Arne Jacobsen, Hans Wegner,Le Klint, etc etc etc). Plus it has Smørrebrød, Wienerbrød, excellent beer and lovely people.

I would pick Sweden as first choice - Denmark as second. Stockholm has tons to see and do, including a plethora of museums of all types, the Old Town, Royal Palace, Vasa ship, several boat trips to outlying palaces and historic sights. Also there's also to see from Malmo north, stopping at one or more glassblowing works, Oland, Uppsala - and a bunch of places with Viking remains.

We also enjoyed Copenhagen and Denmark tremendously, including several of the castles outside th city and the church and ship museum in Roskilde, but we had limited time there so can;t give a lot more details.

Oslo is a cute town and naturally there are fjords - but IMHO Norway is mostly outdoorsy stuff.

Only spent 2 night in Finland; Helsinki was mildly interesting - but we're much more into history and culture.

My favourite Scandinavian country was Iceland. Have you considered Iceland or are you only considering Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland?

Sweden (in the summer)
Stockholm is beautiful!.

I am shortly about to begin a 4 week trip to Finland. I will be in a home exchange in Lahti (north of Helsinki for 3 weeks). At the end, I will stay in Helsinki itself and do a side trip to Tallin, Estonia.

Basically, Finland picked me.

Such is home exchanging.

An interesting approach in finding literature about a destined country and studying up beforehand. I like to do this before or after, including authors, thus really got into Havel, Kundera, Klima, Kafka when in Central Europe. After being in Norway I enjoyed many Ibsen plays. But of the four Nordic countries I don't favor one over another. Each has a uniqueness not found in books, such as art, music, scenery, museums.

Ozarksbill walongman@yahoo.com

Ozarksbill, I do exactly the same thing. Read, get interested in a place, then readreadread (literature, history, and biography)!

Lots of good ideas proposed here. I've decided to leave Scandinavia for another year, so I've got time to follow up on them.

I would choose Norway or Finland.

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/vlinna.htm Vaino Linna wrote "The Unknown Soldier" - every school child in Finland reads this book. His 3 book series "Under The North Star" is amazing reading. It follows the families through decades of famine, war etc. http://www.amazon.com/Under-North-Star-V%C3%A4in%C3%B6-Linna/dp/0968588166

Whether you go to Finland or not, these books are worth reading.

One book I liked about Norway is "The Thrall's Tale"
http://judithlindbergh.com/ I love Norway and have been on my grandparent's farms. We rented a car and had no problem driving anywhere even up the narrow mountain dirt roads.
A nice tour we took was going from Oslo to Stavanger by train, then to Bergen by ferry and the Norway in a Nutshell back to Oslo. We drove from Oslo to Vinstra and would have gone further if we had more time.

I think more people speak English in Finland than they do in Norway. There are usually 3 languages spoken in Finland - Finish, Swedish and English.

From Helsinki you can take a ferry to Tallin Estonia for the day. We took the train to St Petersburg Russia for 4 days. You do need a visa to go into Russia.

norway
nothing like it
the history is so interesting - we loved the war resistance museum in oslo

but the fjords and general countryside around geiranger balestrand oye lom and flam is breathtaking
depends where youre from
if youre from nz or the canadian rockies - youve got it all at home so spend your money elsewhere lol

tallinn is not scandinavia but it is a wonderful wonderful town to visit for the day

Let us know what country you choose.

bratsandbeer: um, for this year . . . I've chosen south Wales. But I *will* make it to Scandinavia, and I hope the Baltic states, eventually!