Norway

Monday 31 August was a Bank Holiday in the UK, so that combined with my awesome flex schedule gave us a 4 day holiday! I searched RyanAir’s website for the cheapest flights I could find to anywhere and booked us onto flights to Oslo, Norway for £10 (about $16.50 right now) each way! I really wanted to visit Norway, and wanted to do it before it got too cold, so this seemed like the perfect time.

We flew into Oslo late Thursday evening and, because everyone told me that Oslo itself is completely skippable, only spent the night there before catching a train early the next morning to Flam.

The train ride itself was spectacular and alone would have made the trip to Norway worth it. We took the Bergen Railway as far as Myrdal and then the Flam railway from Myrdal to Flam. It took nearly 4.5 hours, so I brought a book along, but never picked it up since I couldn’t stop looking out the window!!

The Flam Railway was simply amazing. You climb down mountains and around waterfalls. Bobby and I positioned ourselves on either side of the train so that we could take pictures in each direction the entire time and not miss anything!!


We spent only an hour or two in Flam before getting on a ferry and heading to Balestrand, which was recommended to us by a friend. I really loved Balestrand. Just a small Norwegian town situated at the junction of the Sognefjord and Esefjord, there wasn’t much to do other thank soak in the amazing scenery. We visit St. Olaf’s Church, built in the Stave Church Norwegian style, but I think that may have been the town’s soul attraction.

Luckily, while it was by no means sunny on Saturday, it wasn’t really raining either, so we decided to take a hike up the mountain. This was my favourite part of the entire trip. The hike took us nearly 5 hours, but the view was amazing!! The owner of our hotel let us borrow some walking sticks which proved essential as the first 1.5 hours of the hike were nearly completely vertical and the last 2 hours were very muddy and slippery (I have the bruises to prove it).

On Saturday evening, we caught the ferry from Balestrand onto Bergen.

View from the ferry

I don’t have much to say about Bergen. It was nice, much bigger than Balestrand but not as big as Oslo, but I found it much less beautiful than the smaller Norwegian towns we visited and kind of boring. It also rained all day Sunday. I mean, it POURED all day- so that may be affecting my opinion. We did have a wonderful dinner of reindeer and elk though, so that was enjoyable.

Bergen

On Monday, we caught an early train for the 7.5 hour journey back to Oslo to catch our flight back to London.

I really enjoyed Norway. We had miserable weather the entire time and I still liked it, so I think that says a lot about what a fantastic place it is.

If you’re thinking of travelling to Norway, some things to consider:

1. It’s expensive. I mean REALLY expensive. I live in London, one of the priciest cities in the world, and I thought it was expensive. So, just keep that in mind when you’re budgeting for your trip.
2. I think Oslo and Bergen are both totally skippable. The train journey was spectacular and I would definitely recommend that, but I would only visit those cities again as a jumping-off point to explore the smaller towns and fjords of the area.
3. Retrospectively, I would have liked to have spent at least one entire day in Flam. We learned later that you can rent bikes and travel nearly the entire path of the Flam railway on them. I think this would have been so much fun (and given us a better view of the sights!)
4. If I were to go back, which I definitely hope to do one day, I’d go earlier in the summer. I hear that it rains less then and that the weather can actually be quite warm. I think swimming in the fjords would be fantastic.