Norway - sunny side up!

Norway, part of Scandinavia, a country so gorgeous, it’s a shame it is covered in darkness for majority of the year. It’s like a beautiful lady under veil. Then the summer sun comes along singing “Rukh se zara niqab uthao, mere huzoor” and visitors throng the Nordic region to be enthralled by its hypnotic beauty. Nothing that can be blogged will do justice to the beauty that is Norway. Norway is famous for it’s fjords – narrow inlets of water in land - creating it’s characteristic indented coastline. 

But it’s not just the fjords – water is everywhere. While travelling it won’t take more than five minutes to pass some kind of water body – be it a lake, a waterfall, a river or a fjord itself.  

 Add to that tall mountain cliffs, thick forests with pine trees and you have a screensaver-perfect view.  How the Yash Raj Films location scouters haven’t reached here yet, is a mystery to me!

Aargh, I pictured SRK with his arms open wide on that rock!

We visited Norway in mid-July for around a week. This happens to be peak season. Yet, it never felt crowded. The Nordic sun set around 11PM in Oslo and rose around 4:00AM – that’s a 19 hour long day – plenty of things to do and plenty of time to do it! Here's the Bergen town center clock at 10:59pm very close to sunset.

In this blog I cover Norway in general and then take you through three main cities - Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger, All three lie towards the south of Norway. Norway as you may have seen on a map has an elongated shape, with a 13 degree latitude stretch from North to South. Visitors who visit Norway in summer, often visit the northern regions of Tromso to experience the midnight sun – if you ever fantasized reading a book at midnight on the street, this would be the place. Travel distance to Tromso however is approximately 1000km, so we decided to give Northern Norway a skip. Bergen had sunset at 11:00pm and we did not fancy reading a book that late so we decided to concentrate on Southern Norway only. 

Travel: 
We normally travel by car when we travel to Europe. This time we decided to use public transport. There were four main reasons for this.

1.      We were travelling sans kids, meaning light. So we were comfortable catching trains at 6:00am (I had made sure my better half steps up 😉 ) and travelling long hours.

2.      Based on our observations on google maps we realized that distances were long, and roads typically single or two lane, so travel times would be more.

3.      We had a packed itinerary, with lots to do during the day. Public transport made it convenient, because we could catch up on some sleep while travelling.

4.      Petrol prices are quite high ( surprising as it is one of the largest oil producers in the region) as is the cost of rental cars (compared to rest of Europe). Public transport worked out cheaper.

We did not regret. The public transport system in Norway is one of the most efficient and systematic transport systems I have seen anywhere. Air, rail, road and water – all forms of transport are managed efficiently with seamless hopping from one to another. E.g. when we booked our bus ticket from Bergen to Stavanger we did not realize it included 2 ferry rides too. The bus would reach the ferry point, a scheduled ferry would reach within 5 minutes (hats off to the Norwegians for their precise schedules). The bus would then hop and park on the ferry. 

We would get out onto the ferry, enjoy snacks, have a toilet break, and when announced, go back and sit in the bus. Off we got onto the road again. This happened so seamlessly we were amazed. (Another reason why public transport worked – their connections from one form of transport to another were so accurate, it would be hard to match them when travelling in our own car).

Travelling was also very comfortable because of the facilities provided. Read the following four sentences carefully as they give ample practice for a  reading comprehension test :) - 
All buses, trains and ferries had charging points for devices. 
All trains and some buses and ferries had free wifi. 
All inter city trains had a pantry. 
All trains and ferries and some inter city buses had toilets on board.

Booking online can be a pain, as their online systems aren’t the best. We did all train bookings on www.nsb.no and some bus bookings on www.nor-way.no For trains, try and book tickets that are ‘mini pris’ – these are heavily discounted, typically half priced. We also saw people booking tickets in the train itself. We were travelling peak summer time, and yet there were plenty of seats free, so getting a last-minute ticket should not be hard. It will cost you much more though. It would be best to start planning at least 3 months in advance.

The journey itself will always be pleasant. Keep your camera/phones charged always. There’s always a surprise waiting around the corner. This photo was clicked from a moving ferry.

And this one from a bus while crossing a tall bridge 

Along side roads and train tracks you will see plenty of lavender colored lupins. These were planted specifically by the government as these plants prevent soil erosion. The plants have however hijacked the ecosystem and the government is having a tough time controlling them now. They make for a colorful sight while travelling nevertheless.

Another peculiar part of road/rail travel in Norway is the number of tunnels you will pass through in one journey. The longest tunnel that we went through was 7km and felt really long. Fun fact: Norway’s longest is a whopping 24km long tunnel.

Such an efficient public transport system that helps cover long distances with ease, comes with a heavy price though. The biggest chunk of expenditure in Norway was on travel.

Food:

Like in any other European country, food is pretty bland for the Indian taste buds. Food is also very expensive – and I say this coming from Dubai! We purposely booked hotel rooms with buffet breakfasts included – hogged on it like that would be our last meal (don’t forget to try dollops of the Norwegian butter – umm soo good. Very similar to our desi makkhan)

We ate cereal bars that I had carried from back home when needed during the day, and then had a light dinner somewhere cheap. Norwegians, are very outdoorsy people, especially when it’s summer, so outdoor restaurants are jam-packed – you can’t blame them! Many restaurants near the marinas will provide outdoor seating with good sea food and liquor – these restaurants were bustling with activity, especially since it was football season and most of these were streaming the World Cup live.

For those like us, with no special love for the sun (we get a lot of that in Dubai)  and no special interest in football, there was always a MacD or BK around the corner.

Note, even a dinner for two at MacD’s can cost around 30$! There are also plenty of Seven-Eleven stores and the Norwegian equivalent Narvesen where one can buy sandwiches, drinks or ice cream for quick to-go snacks. 

Seven-eleven sells liquor too, so get your favorite beer can and some ‘chakna’ and enjoy in your hotel room 😉 Will recommend the local Hansa beer for it’s light, sweet taste.

For the mid-range local street food is good. Try the waffles or hot dogs

And when you have saved enough from the seven-elevens or sold your kidney, will recommend at least one fancy dinner with some fresh caught salmon!

All the big cities had one Indian restaurant at least, but we never fancy eating in places where the mantra is one gravy - vegetable/meat of your choice. But if you are dying for some daal chawal at least you have that option.

 For drinking water, tap water is potable, so there is no need to spend on bottled water. You will find taps everywhere in the city – some flowing endlessly - no shortage of water here.

Carry two bottles and keep refilling as needed. If you are in the wild and find no tap, just refill from one of those streams and you will be treated to the tastiest water you have ever had.

Safety:

Norway in general seemed very safe. Maybe it’s because of the fact that there is light till late in the day, but people, young girls, visitors seemed to roam around freely as late as midnight. In trains we saw people leave their luggage unattended while they went to the pantry or the restroom.

People:

People don’t seem very friendly but they are very helpful – whether it’s hotel staff or strangers on the street – they will help with directions or suggest based on your questions – all without much of a smile though.  A lady at a 7/11 in Oslo went out of the way to help us understand which trams to take.  A police in Bergen, when we asked about the famous FishMarket, gave us the directions and added “Don’t buy anything from there, it’s unnecessarily very expensive”.  Neither of them smiled.  

Almost everyone we spoke to, understood and spoke English, so language is not a problem. Not all signboards/menus will be in English though. But with a little common sense it’s not too hard to guess. When asking directions however we found, street names were really long and difficult to pronounce so it almost never helped when we asked someone for directions - we never really understood what they said. I would ask them then to spell it out or write it on a paper then. Don’t believe me? These are just some of  those really long street names.

Visa:

Norway is part of the Schengen countries so you can apply for a Schengen visa and travel to Norway and rest of Scandinavia on the Schengen visa. The VFS center we submitted our application to, ensured every single required document was submitted – from hotel and travel bookings to bank statements and employee letters. VFS has a list of all the documents required, so make sure you check the website for the latest requirements. Once submitted, we received our visa in a weeks’ time.

Currency:

To confuse things a bit, Norway is part of Schengen but is not part of EU. So euros do not work. (Side note: Sweden and Denmark are part of EU, yet they too only accept their local currencies. Of Scandinavia, only Finland accepts euros) The Norwegian Kroner is their local currency in Norway. But every place accepts international credit cards too which we found most easy and convenient.

Phone cards:

Getting a prepaid phone sim card was not very easy as it needed some registration with verification - too much of a hassle, we thought. Wi-fi was available in trains, in hotels, cafes and restaurants. Since whatsapp calling worked very well, we used it to connect with our family back home. For directions, before leaving the hotel we would download the directions from google and follow it while we walked the streets. It reminded us of our time in the US in 2000. 

Planning:

During summer, you get 18-20 hours of the day, so a lot can be done in one day. The long day however can be exhausting for the summer traveler. After touring the entire city, it’s still 8pm and bright outside, so though your body feels tired, your mind makes it believe more can be done in that day. Make sure you plan the trip so that you get enough sleep at night. Norway is also not the easiest to do with little kids. Because travelling distances are long, it can be tiring for little ones, especially if they are not used to long travel. 

We booked our entire trip on our own. As mentioned before we booked tickets for travel online. We booked the hotels using www.booking.com.  During our week long trip we covered 3 main cities - Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger. 

Oslo, the capital of Norway is a lively, vibrant city. 

There are plenty of museums that may be of interest to the art/history lover. But  you don't have to visit a museum to enjoy art. Art is everywhere - from the 200 sculptures in Vigeland Park 

to graffiti and paintings on walls.

Bergen, which lies to the west is a beautiful Unesco World Heritage city - famous for it's colorful wharf.

It also has numerous hiking options - one of the most popular being Mount Floyen. Either hike up or take the funicular to the top, 

and experience magnificent views of the city below.  

From Oslo, you head westwards towards Bergen. The Oslo to Bergen route can be done direct or as tour called Norway-in-a-nutshell (NiN). It is one of the most popular tourist routes, and understandably so. It is a day journey that includes a train ride from Oslo to Myrdal, then Myrdal to Flam on the Flam railway, Flam to Gudvangen on the fjord ferry (so there is no need to do a separate fjord cruise again), Gudvangen to Voss by bus and then Voss to Bergen by train – sounds like a lot to cover, but because of the way it is arranged, it’s the perfect and quick way to experience Norway, as the name suggests - in a nutshell. And the journey itself is never boring - who would get tired of something like this.

Or this?

The NiN journey can be booked online from www.norwaynutshell.com but we did some desi giri – we copied their entire itinerary and did all the bookings on our own. The online itinerary is ready-with train, ferry and bus schedule. All we had to do is go to the respective websites and make the bookings on our own. It gave us a 50% saving and we could change part of the itinerary so as to spend more time in some of the places. Like e.g. in Myrdal we decided to do a small trail (more of a cycle track) 

If you do not have enough time, patience or desi khoon in your veins give up and go with the ready-made route . Either ways, do the NiN.  Some more pictures from the journey

(while walking around Myrdal)

(while on the fjord ferry)

Stavanger was added to the itinerary only because we wanted to do the famous Pulpit Rock (Perkeistolen) hike. This is a 8km hike with moderate difficulty - it had some steep uphill climbs 

and then some plain terrain where you can catch your breath before you climb further again.

But then when you finally see the Pulpit Rock, that 300m direct drop, 

you have a sense of fulfillment along with a tiny bit of nervousness as you walk further to finally sit with your feet dangling on the edge of the rock or play it safe and lie down to have a peak below.

To sum it all up, Norway makes for an excellent vacation for the adventurous nature lover. If your idea of a vacation is lying by the beach sipping a cocktail, this one's not for you. 

Get a good pair of hiking shoes, a good camera (phone or SLR doesn't matter) , a backpack and set off. Norway will not disappoint!