Norway

Thursday we had an early flight out to Bergen, Norway. We left our hotel at 5AM only to find that the tube doesn’t open until 5:30. We stood and waited until they opened and hoped we would still make our flight! Luckily all went well. Once we arrived in Bergen we exchanged the rest of our pounds for Kroners, bought a bus ticket and went on our way! We found our hotel, dropped off our big backpack (so glad we went this route instead of wheeling a clunky suitcase around all the cobblestone streets) and then decided to walk up the trail to Mount Floyen. I had been super excited about this hike for months so I couldn’t wait! We took our time going up the mountain since we were starving and hadn’t had much sleep but eventually we made it to the top! There is a trolley that can take you up and back down for about 10 USD but I definitely recommend the walk! The views were incredible! We stopped about every 10 minutes on the way up to stop and take pictures. The view just kept getting better and better. We decided to treat ourselves to an ice cream cone at the top. Best soft serve ever! Or maybe I was just really hungry. Either way, yum. Except that I accidentally put dried onion ring crumbles on top of some of it. I totally thought it was some sort of caramel or cinnamon thing. Whoops. It later proved to be very good on the Reindeer Hot Dog. Much better than on the ice cream. We explored the town, walked down by the wharf and old town and stopped in some little shops.  We went to bed early because the next day was Norway in a Nutshell!

Friday we got to the train station early to hop on our train that would get us started on our journey to Oslo. We ended up taking a train from Bergen to Voss, a bus from Voss to Gudvangen, a ferry from Gudvangen to Flam, the Flam Railway from Flam to Myrdal, and then a train from Myrdal to Oslo. It was quite a day! Norway is such a beautiful country. I loved seeing the tiny little farm towns along the way. It was so picturesque with the little red wooden homes with green rolling hills and sheep and goats wandering around. The ferry from Gudvangen to Flam was incredible. Norwegian Fjords are on a caliber of their own. Most of the people on the 2 hours ferry ride with us huddled inside to stay warm but Tim and I put about 8 layers of sweaters and jackets on and staked out a spot on the top deck outside with the best view. SO worth it! It was 2 hours of the cutest little villages and most breathtaking views. It was quite a long train ride to Oslo so it was pretty late and dark by the time we got there.

We woke up in Oslo on Saturday to a band playing right outside our window and found that the Oslo Marathon was going on right outside our door. We checked it out on our way over to the Royal Palace and Vigeland Park. Vigeland Park is the world’s largest sculpture park. They were all created by one artist! They were a little different (all nude) but pretty interesting! A huge Asian Tour Bus pulled up right as we were leaving so I ended up having to take lots of pictures of people with their ipads. We hopped on the train to the airport to head to our final destination of Stockholm!