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Norway help..How expensive to visit? How do we best do this itinerary?

Norway help..How expensive to visit? How do we best do this itinerary?

Old Aug 19th, 2019, 04:21 PM
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I was in Bergen, on the Hurtigruten, in Kirkenes and Oslo in August 2015. No AC anywhere, but I would have liked having it in Oslo. (Disclaimer - I spend NC summers indoors with the AC.)
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Old Aug 20th, 2019, 01:32 AM
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Are you settled on a cruise? Just make sure to experience an absolute must in Norway - the scenic train ride on Flamsbanna. It's an hour of breathtaking landscapes
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Old Aug 20th, 2019, 03:15 AM
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Airconditioning is a cause of climate change, not a solution to it. It is a contributor to the heating of cities. You do not need airconditioning, even if it reaches 100F. Really you don't. You body gets used to the heat if you allow it to. You can keep your room cool by keeping the sun out of it.
People work in such heat and more daily. Only the wealthy have access to airco and they are the ones not doing hard manual labour outside.
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Old Aug 20th, 2019, 06:14 AM
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You have clearly not lived in a tropical or sub-tropical climate. Yes, AC contributes to global warming. Yes, people can survive in high temperatures. However, life is miserable, productivity suffers, and people die from excessive heat just as they die from excessive cold. (Just look at the statistics from France a few years back.)

Suggesting that you can keep cool by keeping the sun out of your house is ludicrous. I do keep my house cooler because I have trees growing on the western side, but I can't grow them on the east, and many people don't have that option in the first place. Closing the drapes/curtains/blinds doesn't help much when you have the sun beating down on the roof with temps over 90 for weeks at a time.
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Old Aug 20th, 2019, 07:00 AM
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But we do not need airco. How do you suppose the Pioneers in the US, loaded down with clothing as they were, survived? Clearly they did survive or America would be left to the Native Americans, who also survived very nicely without AC.
AC is not necessary, certainly not in an hotel in Oslo.

Back on thread, OP didn't talk about a cruise - they asked about the Hurtigruten which are not a cruise but, as menachem said, public transport. If you are travelling a few of days on it (which OP would be to get to Lofoten) then a cabin needs to be booked. Meals don't have to be booked, you can either pay on the day to eat in the restaurant with those doing the round trip, or eat at the cafeteria on board.
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Old Aug 20th, 2019, 07:29 AM
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We enjoyed traveling on the Hurtigruten. Passengers and goods would get off and on at each village or town. The food was eexcellent too.
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Old Aug 20th, 2019, 07:46 AM
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If we are going to talk about the "settlement" of the New World, why do you think the Europeans imported all those slaves from Africa to work in the southern US, the Caribbean and Brazil? Why do you think well-off Floridians migrated to the Carolina mountains in the summers before AC?

I did not say that I "needed" AC in Oslo. Reread my post, I said I would have "liked" it. Living in central NC, I need it. Try spending a summer in, say, Atlanta without AC before you go around saying it's not needed.
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Old Aug 20th, 2019, 08:22 AM
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Thank you!! I will definitely check out NIN and the train options.
I'm going to cancel the room with no A/C and just booked Cecil.
I'll try to call Hurtegruten bc I can't find the daily time table, costs etc (if anyone has a link that specifically?).
I will check out Flamsbanna and see if the location will work into the itinerary.
So then train or NIN to Bergen and then Hurtigruten to Lofoten (possibly via Flamsbanna) and then should we head to Trondheim and fly out from there or is better to loop and fly out of Bergen?
Is the Hurtigruten route Bergen to Lofoten through the Fjords and if so, is it in a good spot for it or would we need to do a side trip for that?
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Old Aug 20th, 2019, 09:16 AM
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The itinerary for the daily departures is here: https://www.hurtigruten.com/destinat...gen/#itinerary
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Old Aug 26th, 2019, 05:41 AM
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One thing to consider for food is that some hotels offer buffet dinners included in the hotel rate, at least in bigger cities.

It’s not great food but there’s one hot dish. Also, for some reason, tacos seem popular over there.

IIRC, the menus at restaurants weren’t particularly appetizing. Salted cod is suppose to be a local specialty?

My recollection of those cruises was that the schedule was weird like boarding late at night so I guess you sleep overnight and arrive at your destination at night. Wasn’t cheaper than an hour flight between many coastal cities. Also those giant cruise ships would cause an ugly haze of smoke to hang over Geiranger fjord.

If I go back, I would look to have a rental car for some portion of the trip.
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Old Aug 26th, 2019, 05:52 AM
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scrb11 - you should not confuse the big cruise ships with the Hurtigruten boats. Look them up and you will see that they are the lifeline for the coastal communities and do cruises as an extra money maker. They are not huge, and they don't have casinos and floor ahows. They do show you a lot of wonderful scenery.
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Old Aug 26th, 2019, 11:40 AM
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I think that scrb11 is conflating two different cruises: the giant cruise ships with their pollution and the at times inconvenient schedule for tourists of the Hurtigen line. Before our trip to Norway, I called the Hurtigen to find out the cost. It turned out that for the same amount of money, or less, I could rent a car and travel between Bergen and Trondheim, enjoying the fjords and the high mountains. I also think that one is more likely to see the stave churches and small fishing villages like Bud when traveling independently, whether by car or by bus.

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Old Aug 26th, 2019, 12:08 PM
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Never claimed they were the same. But looking at the Hurtigruten site, I see pictures of some large ships.

Do they carry cars as well as have room for overnight cabins?

Now maybe they don't just dock for days in fjords spewing that smoke.
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Old Aug 26th, 2019, 12:18 PM
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Originally Posted by scrb11
Never claimed they were the same. But looking at the Hurtigruten site, I see pictures of some large ships.

Do they carry cars as well as have room for overnight cabins?

Now maybe they don't just dock for days in fjords spewing that smoke.
I do not think that cruise ships dock for days in the fjords. But on the one day we were in Geiranger, we saw three cruise ships. Here are two on the day we left:


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Old Aug 27th, 2019, 12:04 AM
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Norway is absolutely beautiful, but absolutely expensive as well. I know, because I was there. It’s not easy to travel around Norway on a small budget; as everybody knows, Scandinavian countries tend to be pretty pricey for travelers. You can hire a campervan rental in Norway which saves your hotel expenses. And in the campervan, there is also gas stove available with utensils. you can cook yourself as fresh vegetables
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Old Aug 27th, 2019, 10:36 AM
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Originally Posted by scrb11
Never claimed they were the same. But looking at the Hurtigruten site, I see pictures of some large ships.

Do they carry cars as well as have room for overnight cabins?

Now maybe they don't just dock for days in fjords spewing that smoke.

Hurtigruten have no time to dock "for days". The clock is ticking.... (Hurtigruten means "fast route"). I've seen people put cars on Hurtigruten ships, to transport them to a next port, especially around North Norway, where Hurtigruten often still is the fastest means of transport between islands.
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Old Aug 27th, 2019, 10:38 AM
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Originally Posted by JES28
Thank you!! I will definitely check out NIN and the train options.
I'm going to cancel the room with no A/C and just booked Cecil.
I'll try to call Hurtegruten bc I can't find the daily time table, costs etc (if anyone has a link that specifically?).
I will check out Flamsbanna and see if the location will work into the itinerary.
So then train or NIN to Bergen and then Hurtigruten to Lofoten (possibly via Flamsbanna) and then should we head to Trondheim and fly out from there or is better to loop and fly out of Bergen?
Is the Hurtigruten route Bergen to Lofoten through the Fjords and if so, is it in a good spot for it or would we need to do a side trip for that?
Maybe it's wise to plan your itinerary on a map.
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Old Aug 27th, 2019, 12:35 PM
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We were in the Lofoten last summer at the end of our Scandinavia trip and I am going in a few weeks with my elderly mother. She would have preferred a cruise so I did research the Hurtigruten quite a bit so hopefully I can help you out.

The boat is the ferry system for the coastal part of the country and it stops at 34 ports. Some for 5-10 minutes, some for a few hours. Northbound, you have daytime stops at the major cities--Alesund, Trondheim, Tromso. You will pass the spectacular Lofoten wall in the late evening. In July, you will probably be able to see it. We were in the Lofoten July 31 to Aug 3 and it was still light enough to play golf at 1 am. Southbound, the boat hits those towns in the middle of the night but you get the Lofoten scenery during the day. You will have a few hours to wander the towns and they do offer different excursions for extra $. They will not wait for you to return, so if you are late, you are stuck. They are focused on selling their 7 day cruises from Bergen to Kirkenes (or reverse) or the full roundtrip. You can book port to port but only three months out if there is availability. You can check it out on their Norwegian site, hurtigruten.no, and have Google translate for you. I don't know how often they sell out but would think that July is a popular time. People have said they do have to retain some cabins for walk on passengers but I have no idea if this is true, how many or what preference you, as a tourist, would get over a local. I wouldn't want to use that as my plan. If you are on board for more than 12 hours (maybe 24?), you must book a cabin. For port to port, you can choose half board or full board and there are a la carte restaurants on board. I found their website to be very klunky and very glitchy, it was very frustrating to use. I also emailed them a bunch of questions and never got an answer, but did have an online chat with someone that was helpful.

A number of years ago, I did the Norway in a Nutshell itinerary and stayed in Bergen and Oslo for a few days each. This time, we decided that the cruise would take too much of our time (we are also going to Sweden), so we are taking the Rauma Railway from Oslo to Andalsnes and back. Renting a car in Andalsnes and driving around the area for a few days. If you aren't picky about accommodations, you should be able to find reasonably priced ones. Just start looking /booking now. Try to find ones with free breakfast to fill up in the morning. Restaurants can be pricey but I don't think any moreso than NYC which you are used to. You don't need to go to highend places either. We were with our picky-eater teens last year and damn if I was going to spend money on a $40 entree to have my son stare it down and not eat it. We ate sandwiches in cafes, pizzas, many burgers are $20-25 so not that cheap and in the Lofoten, where restaurants are fewer, we lived on gas station hot dogs which I thought were really good. (I would never eat one from a gas station here in the US.) We stayed at two places in the Lofoten--Lofoten Rorbuer in Svolvaer, and Eliassen Rorbuer in Hamnoy--and both had good kitchens. Good grocery stores nearby so we made most of our food there.

Buy your train tickets as soon as they are available, 3 months out, and they'll be much cheaper. Rental cars are expensive and if you do a one way rental there is a large fee. I think ours in Lofoten was $90/day but I can't imagine not having one there. The one we are renting in Andalsnes is $80/day.

Last summer, all of Europe had a massive heatwave most of the summer. This summer, I don't think Scandinavia was much above average but there are always hot days each summer. Just unusual to have a prolonged spell of high temps. We did not have A/C other than in Stockholm and managed fine though it would have been nice. The day we arrived in the Lofoten, it was 88. Our first hotel was stifling, my husband slept on the dock. Luckily, we had cross windows at our next place and temps dropped back to the 60s.
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Old Aug 27th, 2019, 01:02 PM
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Is it worth taking a car on board for some portions of the coast between Bergen and Alesund say, then either rejoin the cruise the next day or two in Alesund, to continue going north to Trondheim or other points north?

Looks like it mostly stops along the coast but Geiranger is one fjord where it goes eastward from the coast?

https://www.hurtigruten.com/practica.../sailing-plan/


Or maybe in the summer, without Northern Lights, you go more towards Stavenger, though I don't know if I want to spend a whole day hiking up to Pulpit Rock -- in fact, you'd probably stay a couple of days to minimize chance of bad weather?
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Old Aug 27th, 2019, 01:06 PM
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Originally Posted by lolfn
Rental cars are expensive and if you do a one way rental there is a large fee. I think ours in Lofoten was $90/day but I can't imagine not having one there. The one we are renting in Andalsnes is $80/day.
Automatic or stick?

I only went on a bus trip from Alesund to Geiranger. Roads were spectacular, especially that lookout at the top of the fjord. Having a car would let you stop at some more scenic points.


Maybe you can rent for couple of days and then take the ferry or train for the longer trips and then rent at the next location rather than renting for a week or two with a big one-way charge? But then I wonder if renting for less than a week probably means you pay a higher per-day rate.
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