Trip to Sweden and Norway
 

Hi,

I am planning to visit Norway and Sweden in April, with 7 days in each country. Need help to plan the trip - which cities to visit, what are the must-dos and being a budget traveler, where to stay, eat and catch a few beers.

Promise to return the favour, if you guys need any help for Dubai.

Thanx

If you don't know which cities to visit or what you want to do, why choose to spend seven days in each country? Neither country is ideal for a budget traveller, and Norway is particularly expensive. April is not necessarily the best time to go there.
You should decide what you want to see or do, then work out the best way to achieve that aim.

April can be rather chilly in Scandinavia, so you'll probably do well to stick with the southerly regions of each country. There are lots of must see museums, historical areas, and parks in both Stockholm and Oslo, and you should probably spend a good chunk of time in each city (perhaps four days in Stockholm, three in Oslo).

The Norway In A Nutshell tour will take you by train and boat to Bergen on Norway's West Coast, with a stopover at Flåm on the Sognefjord. It's beautiful countryside, might be a bit snowy in early April. Exploring the harbor area (Bryggen) of Bergen and a ride up the funicular to Mount Floyen are some activities to fill a day in Bergen. In Oslo, Frogner Park and the Vigelund museum should not be missed. The Viking Ship Museum, the Kon-Tiki Museum, and the Fram Museum, all on the island of Bygdøy, a short boat ride from Oslo Harbor can occupy much of a day if you're into nautical history. Going out to the Holmenkollen ski jump and ski museum will give you a panorama of Oslo and an appreciation for ski jumpers. A town to add to Oslo and Bergen might be Lillehammer, where you can visit the venues from the 1994 Winter Olympics or Ålesund, an art deco fishing town (mostly rebuilt in the early 1900's after a fire). Both of those would not be too far from your Bergen-Oslo axis. If you'd prefer countryside to a small town the Geraingerfjord area offers some stunning hiking.

Stockholm is one of my favorite cities, and there's so much to do there, it would be hard to fit it in to a forum posting. Check out the on-line Fodors guide or some other resources. Don't miss touring City Hall, visit the Vasa Museum and the Modern Art Museum (and several of the city's other great museums), don't miss Millesgarden, an outdoor sculpture garden, give over park of a day to Skansen, where you'll see everything from petting zoos to crafts and restored (maybe relocated) buildings, and be sure to spend some time venturing out into the archipelago. There are boats from the inner harbor, and, depending on the weather, you could spend a very enjoyable day getting all the way out to Sandhamn (on the outer part of the archipelago) and seeing all the intervening islands and architectural styles, or you could opt for Vaxholm (closer in to Stockholm) and explore the fortress there. If you're a fan of the Steig Larsson trilogy, you'll want to wander around Sodermalm, south of the old town of Gamla Stan, and it's worth exploring even if you don't know Lisbeth Salander from Peer Gynt. Going west from Stockholm along Lake Malaren, you can take a boat ride to Drottningholm Palace or on to Mariefred, where you could visit the rather imposing Gripsholm Castle, which houses the Swedish National Portrait Gallery. If you're a train enthusiast, you can take a narrow gauge steam train ride out of Mariefred...great fun.

Uppsala, an old university town about 70 km north of Stockholm, has a lovely cathedral and an interesting museum devoted to Carl Linneaus. The Gustavainium at the university has collector's treasure boxes and tales of the explorers that Linneaus sent out on treks to collect plant specimens in all parts of the world (they didn't always return); it's an overlooked gem, as is the museum at the university library. It would be easy to spend the better part of a day exploring Uppsala. Depending on how much time you have left after Stockholm and environs, you could head for the glass kingdom area in Kalmar, or travel to Sweden's second largest city (Gøteborg), which is en route to Oslo. Gotland, a pretty island off the coast, with the remarkably well preserved walled city of Visby, an old Hanseatic league port, would be a fun place to spend a couple of days. Visby can get crowded in the summer, but it wouldn't be crowded in April. You can get to Gotland by ferry, but if your time is short, you could take a plane from Stockholm. The ferry rides are three to six hours, I believe, depending on whether you have a fast or slow ferry. On Gotland you can also find the Gotlands Brewery, which makes a number of fine craft beers, including Visby Klosteröl, a personal favorite.

Speaking of beers, you will find alcohol to be very expensive in Sweden and more expensive in Norway. The same is true for dining in general, which accounts for the fact that Oslo is one of the most expensive capital cities in Europe (Sweden is a bit cheaper). Hotels are not terribly expensive relative to other European capitals, and you may actually save by booking a cut above a budget hotel. The reason for this is that almost every hotel in Scandinavia gives you a huge breakfast buffet to start your day. Given that food is so expensive, you can certainly get fuel for a day at a good breakfast buffet, which is featured at most of the mid-range hotels. It's also the case that in such establishments, you won't get any grief if you leave the breakfast room with an extra roll. The lower priced establishments have less on the table and frown on your leaving the breakfast rooms with even a half-eaten pastry. The Hotel Cecil in Oslo, First Hotel Marin in Bergen, and the Nordic Sea in Stockholm are some hotels we've enjoyed in the 120-140 euro per night range, but you could probably find some good places for slightly less. There are sometimes summer specials in the big city hotels, especially on weekends, but I don't know if you'll find any such deals in April.

Well, I've been waiting for my 9:00 appointment, who obviously never showed up...so I just went on....hope you enjoy Sweden and Norway.

Some good suggestions from Midnightsun.

Oslo is a very easy city to walk or cycle round. I would second the Holmenkollen ski jump, as the views from the hilltop are quite amazing - you can see right out into Oslofjord, with all its islands. One tiny correction - Bygdoy is actually a peninsula, not an isalnd, so you don't have to take a boat to get there (though it's a nice way to travel). Best museums on Bygdoy are the Fram museum of polar exploration and the musuem with the longboats recovered from the fjord.

Midnightsun makes a very good point in that Norway and Sweden are usually criticised for being expensive, but this is too much of a generalisation in that hotels, museums and galleries are often on a par with costs in other European cities, food is somewhat more expensive (actually , but it's alcohol which is the real killer in terms of cost.

great - submitted half way through!

...food is somewhat more expensive (actually this is more apparent at high end establishments than at cafes and sandwich bars), but it's alcohol which is the real killer in tersm of cost.

@GeoffHamer - Thanx for your reply. I am planning to identify what i wanna see, and hopefully fit it in my budget. Hope it all works out. Cheers.

Also visit the Ice Bar in Stockholm - very touristy, but fun for a short visit.

@Midnightsun - thanx a lot for your detailed response. I will make a note of each of your points and i am sure it will help my planning. I love Beer - having had over 100 different ones from across the world, will try Visby Klosteröl. Thanx once again.

p.s. hope your 9am didn't keep you waiting very long

@RM67 - read both your mail. Thanx a lot. I love to walk, so it should be fun. Cheers.

@Chamonix - Thanx. For a guy like me who has never seen snow, an Ice Bar, should be fun.. even if its for that one expi. beer! Cheers to that!

You might want to look at my trip reports. Just click on my name to find them. Our 5 day car trip in Norway would not fit your purposes, but we did stay at lower cost accommodations in Oslo, Bergen and Stockholm. If you remember that you do not tip more than any loose change, beer is not that much more expensive in Scandinavia than in large U.S. cities where you add tax and tip (roughly 25+%) to the price of your drink.

SunnyRayz: The Ice Bar is in the Nordic Sea Hotel. It's something to do once perhaps. A drink and forty minutes in the Ice bar will set you back 150 SEK (approximately $22), a little more if you're not a guest of the hotel. In high tourist season and on weekends, there's sometimes a waiting list, but they do take reservations. You'll probably have to settle for some kind of vodka based drink (Absolut sponsors the Ice Bar), which is served in a glass made of ice. No beers as far as I can recall. They do also give you a warm hooded jacket and gloves to make your forty minutes tolerable. Skål!

bookmarking

MS, found your insight great re:Nor/Swe. Our trip much shorter but during Aug 6-10. Plan to do Bergen-Flam-Oslo with a nite in each. Have heard this can be a foggy time of year. Just have to hope for weather luck! Ha! Does it make sense to stay near train in Bergen or are morning cabs readily avail? We are going via N in Nut. Would an earlier train out of Flam be poss.(doesn't appear poss from their Website)

Annelew: Bergen is not that large, and the train station is a little more than a kilometer from the Bryygen area (the old harbor). That's the most scenic part of town, close to the funicular as well, and I doubt it would be hard to get early transportation to the train station. FWIW, we stayed in the First Hotel Marin just a block or two uphill from the harbor, and it was quite nice and reasonable (although we were there on a weekend, and the weekend rates are a little lower than weekday rates). I wouldn't know about an earlier train from Flåm, but I wouldn't count on it). Last time we were in Bergen (in July) it was pure sunshine for three days. Hope you get the same.