Norway!

I am safely returned from Norway, and a whole decade older! Or something. And it was fabulous.

Things to know about Norway:

1. It is expensive. INSANELY expensive. PAINFULLY expensive. After a day or so the best thing to do is just stop mentally converting the prices; I found that on my first day there I was like: “£5 for a beer? That is HIGHWAY ROBBERY!” and by the time we were leaving I was all: “hey, a coffee for £2.50! I am so thrifty!”

2. It is gorgeous. On the penultimate day, on a bus between Ålesund and Åndalsnes, I found myself thinking hyperbolically Norway is the most beautiful place I have ever been! And it is possibly even true.

3. The weather is about as unreliable as you’d think it would be. We had glorious sunshine in Oslo, snow and ice in the mountains between Oslo and Bergen, relentless rain for one day in Bergen, followed by a day of intermittent rain and sunshine, relentless rain and mist between Bergen and Ålesund, increasingly good weather while in Ålesund itself, glorious sunshine again on the penultimate day, turning into torrential rain as our train swept back into Oslo. Pack layers, umbrellas and waterproofs.

Flew in and out of Torp (from Prestwick) and got the Torp Ekspressen bus into the city, which was conveniently timed to meet the flight. We were only in Oslo for two nights and one day all together, and we did little but just wander around. Oslo’s got a really nice feel to it (and is way, way more ethnically diverse than I would have expected), but it’s the sort of city where you just want to hang out in cafes and bars, and that was somewhat beyond our budget.

Stayed in the Anker Hostel, which was perfectly fine for our purposes (double room with en suite for 500kr - cheap by Norwegian standards), and I’d probably recommend it, though next time I may plump for MS Innvik: beds on a boat! In terms of food, we didn’t set foot in a proper restaurant the entire time we were in Norway, but there was good felafel to be found in the Grünerløkka district nearby.

On the second day we got the early morning train from Oslo to Bergen. I’ve got to say that NSB really puts UK trains to shame, largely due to the ease of online booking, and the rather superb service they offer of picking up the tickets while on the train. Brilliant: you make your reservation, sit in your allocated seats, and then a nice conductor comes along and gives you your tickets. It is awesome, and every country should have this. Also, the Bergen line is pretty spectacular - as we headed into the mountains we were excitedly photographing every smudge of snow we saw, but by the time we reached Finse, the highest point of the railway, the trainline was surrounded by drifts of snow and half-frozen lakes. Fairly impressive, given that it was the day after midsummer.

Photos are available here. At some point I’ll get round to labelling them, not to mention removing the embarassing ones…

More tomorrow.