Jennie_Chen

Dear fodorites,

I have a short trip to Scandinavia early May and was wondering if I could get some feedback on my itinerary. I'll be doing the Norway in nutshell tour from Oslo to Bergen and stopping along the way:

Day1: Oslo to Vik, overnight in Vik
Day2: Hopperstad stave church in morning, then off to Balestrand for Glacier tour in the afternoon. Overnight in Balestrand
Day3: Balestrand to Bergen, explore Bergen, fly out of Bergen late evening.

I'm mostly concerned about Day 2, since the ferry times are very close, and I'll have to drag my luggage around. Is there anywhere I could store my luggage at Balestrand's harbor area?

Thanks so much!
Jennie

Marija

I found public transportation in Norway to be phenomenal--buses, ferries and trains are synchronized and they wait for each other if necessary. We had buses drop us off two minutes before scheduled ferry departures and it was not a problem. In early May public transport is somewhat limited so make sure you know the correct times. You could store your luggage at your hotel in Balestrand but if you don't have enough time for that maybe there's a place to stash it before the Glacier tour. Have a great trip!

lanejohann

not a busy time so surely the hotel will help
i know that the hotel balestrand was very helpful in all matters and offered to keep our car on their grounds if we wanted to do a ferry trip to bergen

enjoy it all
vik is expensive..seemed more expensive than the other towns we visited but still worth it
balestrand is breathtaking

Jennie_Chen

Hey Marija & lanejohann, Thanks so much for your replies. I ended up switching my itnerary a bit so I'm staying two nights in Balestrand. Unfortunately the Balestrand hotel isn't open 'til later in May. Do you know of any good websites with information on hotels in Balestrand? The only one I found was fjordtours.com, but the options seem rather limited. Thanks again!

Marija

Take a look at:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g6...ds-Hotels.html

We stayed at Kvikne's in mid-May and it was open and perfectly good.

Jennie_Chen

Thanks, Marija! Just booked on Orbitz. ^_^

dani_dani

Hi jennie,

I am travelling to Norway as well and liked your fjord tour itinerary. You said you booked the Norway in a nutshell tour however the tour website does not show any stops in Vik or Balenstrad. Can you please let me know what fjord tour you booked so I can check it out and maybe do the same.

Thanks so much,
Daniela

Jennie_Chen

Hey Daniela, you can stop along the way of the nutshell tour. I read somewhere that the ticket is valid for at least a month but I forgot the website. When you go through their online booking process, you'll have the option of stating whether you want to stay overnight and book hotels with them, I picked the stay overnight but booked my hotel elsewhere. Good luck and have fun!
Jennie