Hi all - this is very late, and has a lot of details that may not be of interest to all, as it was primarily our travel log. Hope you enjoy!

- Pam


Saturday, February 16. We arrived in Norway today and we’re relieved to find plenty of sunlight and temps just a bit lower than freezing in Oslo. We arrive around 12:30 but by the time we got out bags and made it through the airport Duty Free store (we were pre-warned about the costs of alcohol beforehand, and we weren’t the only ones who were savvy enough to take advantage of the lower prices; I’ve never seen such a busy Duty Free store!), it was 1:30pm. We caught the slow train right into the Oslo Central Station - it was so nice! Very clean and organized, with lots of food stores selling healthy, natural foods. We dropped our bags at generously-sized storage lockers and had an hour or so to explore Oslo before boarding a long-distance train to Bergen. Some major city attractions are within walking distance of the station, like the Royal Palace, National Theater, and Oslo University. As it was a Saturday, it was fairly busy and had a cool vibe and nice atmosphere. The population of Norway is only small though, so the capital itself didn’t feel that big based on the relative size of what we saw. An hour was probably a good amount of time - most of Oslo’s major attractions are museums (and we aren’t overly museum-type people), so we had been advised to head straight to Bergen.

The train ride to Bergen was long and uneventful, aside from a less-than-ideal location (between the bathrooms and dining room, with a recurring door screech and some sporadically noisy teens). Thanks to all for the advice and train schedules. About halfway along the trip, we glanced outside to see a dimly lit, desolate trainstop with howling, snow-laced winds and locals running (nay, sprinting) from the train to a nearby bar for shelter out of the cold. The only dude not running was dressed for Everest and had ski goggles on. It reminded me a lot of that barren Himalayan place in the 1st Indiana Jones -- you know, the bar in Nepal where Indy goes to find the medallion and finds Marion? Frankly speaking, the bar in Nepal even looked a little bit warmer than this place.

Thankfully our hotel, Marken Gjesthus, was only a 2min walk from the train station, as it was raining in Bergen. We had some trouble using the keys provided by the local bartender to get into the hotel but two helpful Norwegians drinking beer in the doorway helped us. No idea why they were there, as our hotel is not exactly on a main drag. Due to a reservation mix up, we were given 2 bunkbeds, but pulling the mattresses off the bottom bunks and laying them together on the floor gave us something close to a double. We managed a quick walk into town for a drink before crashing, figuring that it was our only opportunity to do so before boarding. $15 for a beer? Though the prices were a shocker to us, the hordes of locals smoking, drinking, and partying on a Saturday night seemed naturally oblivious. Marken was okay. Not thrilled about the room, and the bathroom smelled like cleaning products applied over old urine. But cheap and very convenient.

Sunday, February 17. We got up slowly, and made our way into town along the now-familiar short walk. Along the way we hit a super cute bakery (called something like Gut Brøt?), and stopped for pastries and coffee. One cinnamon roll, one brownie and two coffees were an inconceivable $30. But yummy.

We left our bags at he hostel so we could go exploring. Despite intermittent heavy rain, we made our way down to the Bryggen area of town, a stretch of parallel rows of very quaint old wooden waterfront warehouse buildings that used to be the commercial center of the town. It was nice despite most stores being closed due to the off-season and the fact that it was a Sunday. We walked around a bit more before taking the funicular tram lift up to what would be a beautiful vantage point in better weather. After having some fun with a random troll statue (trolls are a big deal in Norway -- lots of myths about their continued presence in the hilltops and mountains), we hiked some very scenic trails through forests and streams which took about 45 minutes.

Lunch was at Peppe’s, a Norwegian chain of slightly-nicer-than-Pizza-Hut pizza restaurants. Really yummy pizza but again, with an appetizer, medium pepperoni pizza, and 2 beers the bill was $65.

After lunch we made the long trek to the Bergen Aquarium. In short, expensive and unexciting. With dusk and the diner-hour approaching, we gathered our bags from the hotel and headed over to the Hurtigruten.

The ship looked VERY big from the dock, although it’s probably a lot smaller than one of the Caribbean cruise lines. The entry onto the ship was very formal, through an enormous Hurtigruten building, making us feel more reassured that we weren’t embarking on a major rip-off. That said, it was empty. I assume it gets busier in the summer. Our cabin is quite spacious, with a great location (30 feet from the outdoor hot tubs off the back of the boat) and a much sought-after double bed. We are a bit dismayed to find so few younger passengers, but it was to be expected, I guess.

Monday, February 18. We had a lazy morning lounging around, followed by an afternoon shore trip to Ålesund. We hiken up for some views, then explored a bit more and discovered an open-air museum with historical buildings and decent views of the city. The rain and overcast skies have been incessant here so far. It hasn’t poured, thank goodness, but there’s always a steady trickle or heavy misting. No snow anywhere; it’s all been washed away by the rain. I was expecting colder temps and better visibility. If this keeps up, we’re sure not to see the Northern Lights. We stopped in a couple of cute craft stores and debated buying something, but nothing really called out to us.

The food on board is okay overall - moderate selections for breakfast and lunch and decent dinners so far. Nothing special. The staff is friendly though distant.

Tuesday, February 19. Today we woke up a bit early as out first stop in Trondheim was from 6am-12pm. We had a nice morning wandering around the town, walking up to an old fort for the views (lovely despite limited visibility) and seeing St. Olav’s cathedral from the outside (apparently a famous pilgrimage destination right up there with Jerusalem and Santiago de Compestella). We’ve had mixed success seeing attractions here in Norway, hampered again by the fact that it’s the off-season and we can’t time our stops. But seeing the outside of the cathedral was perfectly fine and definitely left an impression.

Later in the morning we made out way into the center of town, including the shopping district, where things quickly went from good to super. We found a pharmacy, where I was able to buy Claritin (to try to clear up my lingering cold). Then we found a McDonald’s - featuring hot chocolate for 5 krone i.e. just $1!! When you realize the average price for a soda or bottle of water in a convenience store is $5, you’ll understand how exciting this was. Perfect to have in hand while exploring a new town on a rainy day. Finally, got some delicious pastries.

Norway seems to have a plethora or certain types of stores - hairdressers (we’ve counted up to 5 in towns that only have 10,000 inhabitants), eye glass shops and home décor shops. The latter are very cute, but $150 for an adorable pillow is a bit much. Still, it’s fun to browse these. We have also been searching for a cheap wine opener, being tired of the “push the cork into the bottle” method we’ve been using on our duty-free wines, which are, in retrospect, the best purchase we’ve made at $18/bottle, as wines with dinner are $70/bottle.

Most homes and buildings in Norway are all painted within the same color palette - the primary colors being rich red, mustard yellow and white, with the occasional navy or dark olive green thrown in. Sometimes you’ll see an incongruous deep preach or mint green. It makes for very picturesque towns and cities, almost making us wonder if there are regulations on painting. As we go further north, even the dockside warehouses follow these colors.

Back on board, we have been taking time to sit and look at the mountainous fjord scenery, but honestly it’s been hard to see much with all the rain. It also not worth walking around the outside deck given the rain, so we’re spending some major time in our cabin, making us glad we got the larger size. The fact that it came with full dining board is another big bonus, though it also means we’re probably eating more than we should. Well, I am, at least. Good thing we’re getting several hours of walking around the port towns every day.

Wednesday, February 20. In what is quickly becoming a pattern, we wake up around 9am, make it it to breakfast, then lounge until our first shore excursion. Today’s major stop was Bodø, which was, quite simply, a dump. We spent about an hour wandering around the town then headed back. The rain stopped shortly after we left Bodø, of course, but it meant we had better visibility, so we watched the scenery for a bit in the afternoon. By nightfall, we finally ended up with some gorgeous snow-capped peaks on either side - definitely more like what we were expecting! We again hit the hottubs, this time before dinner, and got some of the more gorgeous views to date, including a quaint lighthouse with cute, smiling caretakers waving up at us.

Dinner was a bit of an adventure, as they were serving reindeer. We both decided we were up to the challenge, and found it delicious! Tender, tasty and not gamey at all. One of our best meals yet.

After diner, we hit our 1st tourist trap. Our boat was docked for only an hour -- giving us (and many other eager travelers) just enough time to make a 2 minute walk to the “Magic Ice” ice sculpture show. For $15 a person ($20 if you wanted the complementary drink) you gained admission into a gamey old warehouse that reeked of fish and had less-than-stellar artwork in the form of various ice sculptures. I started to laugh out load when the music changes tracks and Carmina Burana came on. It was probably worth the $30 just to see the fully-functioning ice bar, ice seats covered in reindeer pelts, and shots of a mystery liquor being served in ice glasses. But let’s just say, we wouldn’t do it twice (and in fact, left early to go back to the boat).

Thursday, February 21. Today’s the big day - our dog sledding trip! We woke up in the morning to a bright, nearly sunny day, offering gorgeous views all around, so we spent the morning on the top floor looking out over the scenery - definitely the best of the trip, with tall, snow-capped peaks everywhere. The water actually looks arctic, a deep teal green with enough froth to make you nervous about how cold it would be if you found yourself swimming.

In the afternoon we docked at Tromsø and quickly hopped a bus out to, get this, the “husky farm” for our “dog safari”. It was a nice 30-minute ride, allowing us to get some nice views of the area, which is nestled in-between deep, snowy hillsides. We pulled up and were immediately met by our hostess -- a hardy camp-counselor type who claimed there was a three phase organization to the visit (i.e. meet the huskies, have some coffee, then go for a ride) which quickly evaporated as lots of pushy European tourists sprinted over the be the 1st to go dog sledding.

Despite some of the crowd dynamics, the husky farm was absolutely amazing. Since we had brought all our cold-weather clothes, we had lots of time to walk through the dog pens and say hello to all the pups.

To pass the time until our chance to ride, we joined a large group of other visitors in this cozy teepee (supposedly a “traditional” Sami, aka Native Norwegian, hut) where everyone was sitting around a campfire in the middle. One of the trainers spoke about the ins and outs of training the huskies while hearty portions of coffee and café were passed around. Like so many locals we’ve met on our travels so far, our speaker spoke fluent German, English, and Norwegian. Unbelievable.

When the 1st group of sledders came back, we were the 1st pair to hop into a sled and head out for a ride. It was unbelievable! We had about 10-12 dogs pull us around views of snow-capped peaks and mountain lakes in the early twilight of the light. Our “musher” kept a good pace, but the whole ride around the area took bout 20-25 minutes with lots of mini jumps and twists along the trail. The place was fairly professional, with 250 dogs, of which they sent 2 teams of 18 to the Iditarod in Alaska in 2006, finishing 28th and 29th - no idea if that’s good.

With only an hour to spend back in Tromsø before our ship departed, we hit a local pub to sample some local pilsner from a nearby brewery (“Mack’s”) and sprinted over to a few stores to window-shop for a few souvenirs. Tromsø has a great party-vibe and we could have easily spend a couple of days there exploring all that this town had to offer - a big difference from Bodø.

The night skies were brilliantly clear and beautiful with a fill moon shining over the water -- giving us hope that the Northern Lights might actually make an appearance before the end of our trip.

Friday, February 22. We had originally planned to spend today on a 3 hours excursion up to the Nordkapp -- a spit of land which is the official northern-most point of all of Europe. That morning, however, we consulted our trusty Lonely Planet who warned this was a mega tourist trap, so we skipped.

The decision to stay behind and explore the tiny hamlet of Honningsvåg a bit instead of joining the hordes to Nordkapp turned out to be a great decision! The town was stunningly cold but beautiful with snowy streets and mountain hillsides tumbling into a cozy harbor at the center. Interestingly, locals make their way around with individual shopping sleds, simple contraptions of wood and thin, ice-skate-like runners that have baskets on the front. Easy to push on flats and uphills, fun to ride downhill. We walked up into the hillsides a bit before stumbling across the “Nordlands Bryggerie” -- the northernmost microbrewery (or any brewery, for that matter) in the world! The beer tasted a lot like Bud, but the pizza was hot and tasty -- much better that any we’ve had in Germany.

After another dicey buffet diner with some very scary whale steak (VERY gamey and chewey with the color of a blood-purple eggplant -- gross) we went back to our room. About 10 minutes before the movie end, the captain got on the loudspeaker and announced the Northern Lights were showing off the fore of the ship. We grabbed sweaters and sprinted to the lookout deck before a lot of the cruise horde got a chance to catch up. Upon getting out side, the winds were howling and the deck was jumping up and down with the turbulent seas. We grabbed onto the deckrails and pulled our way forward -- just in time to see the eerie green light streaked behind a few trailing night clouds. Another 5 minutes and we would have missed them!

The weather was really extreme, so we snuggled close and watched for just a few minutes before deciding we really needed to get inside just as the hordes of fellow tourists crowded up the deck (many of them just standing there...unsure whether it was worth the risk to try and fight the wind and rocking of the deck). Hubby saved the day here - throwing a sweater at me, and directing us outside, where I would have sent us up to the viewing deck - if we had gone there first, we would not have been nearly as impressed, as the view just wasn’t the same, and didn’t have the impact of adrenaline and icy winds threatening to throw us over. At one point I couldn’t take a breath for a good 5 seconds the winds were so strong. Very scary and very thrilling. We felt really fortunate that we had seen as much as we did -- earlier in the day, we were talking to a nice British couple who had done the same tour three times and still hadn’t seen the Northern Lights!

Saturday, February 23. We docked in Kirkenes in the morning after one of the roughest nights we have ever spent. The next morning we were told that the sea was so rough it was a 9 on the Beaufort scale – wonder what that means. Despite the beautiful weather (sunny skies and crisp, cool temps) we were anxious to get home and managed to get early flights back home.

This was a really enjoyable trip report - there's precious little on this board about Norway, and yours was full of interesting detail and enthusiasm - thanks for taking the time to post it.

My pleasure!

Thanks for the great report, pam...I'm off to Norway (and other countries) all the way from Australia in September. Have four days in Bergen and from your report this might be too many? Maybe with (hopefully) sunnier weather we will have a chance to see a bit more.

Interested also in your report on the Oslo to Bergen journey by train. As this was one of the main reasons for flying to Bergen - to do the trip the other way round- I'm a bit worried by your report. This is supposed to be one of the world's best train journeys.Not so?!!!?

Norway continues to be on our list of places yet to visit. Your report has helped move it closer to the top. Thank you.

Oslo is a great city. It is too bad you missed Vigeland Sculpture Park, the Viking Museum and the Norwegian Folk Museum which is outdoors. http://www.museumsnett.no/vigelandmu...bframeset.html

The Norway in a Nutshell tour from Oslo to Bergen or Bergen to Oslo would be better than just the train ride to Bergen. We have taken this tour both ways and stayed overnight on the fjord. You can purchase the tour ticket at the train station. http://www.norwaynutshell.com/default.asp

A great trip would be Oslo to Stavanger by train, ferry to Bergen and the Norway in a Nutshell trip back to oslo with one night on the fjord.

I have to disagree on 'Oslo being a museum city'. Bug you did not have the time to wander around to explore the-not-so-known places.
Bergen: I'd say two full days will do, the third could be used on the Nutshell, the fourth to discover out-of-city attractions.
So many come in winter to see the Northern Ligths, and so many return disappointed. We might as well have grey skies, as mentioned, or clear cold nights with temps down to 30 or 40 inland North. Below 50 in Finmark few years ago.

Great report, Pam! I enjoyed reading it very much, as someday (someday!) I will make it to the Scandinavian area. I was born in Denmark, but didn't stick around more than two months -I'll make it back!

I'm so glad you got to see the northern lights! That's something I've always wanted to see as well.

Glad so many are enjoying this!

Libretto - hope this isn't too late - our train ride was the exception, not the rule. Many of the legs of Norway in a Nutshell are supposedly wonderful, as someone else noted. If we go again, I'd like to do NIAN just for the views possible. You'll be fine.

- Pam