When Moira had the opportunity to visit Norwayearlier this month, I have to admit that I was envious. We’d been struggling for a while about where to go on holiday this year, and her train journey from Trondheim to Bodo sounded like a great break. Especially after watching Joanna Lumley’s recent train adventure across Siberia!
So, unashamedly, I stole Moira’s holiday idea and we took a trip to Norway ourselves just as she was returning to the country. Because of timings, though, our trip worked out best if we stayed a little further south, and so we took our train trip between capital Oslo and the trading port of Bergen.
For anyone who is a fan of cruising, this might well be somewhere you’ve been before!
It absolutely took our breath away. Oslo was warm and full of fascinating museums – including the fabulousKon-Tiki museumand interesting Nobel Peace Prize Museum, a sober reminder of the freedoms we can take for granted.
Not being known as a particularly organised person, I was rather proud of the day of our trip to Bergen. It combined a train to Myrdal, another to Flam, a ferry through the breathtaking Naeroyfjord to Gudvangen and a bus on to Bergen. I’d gladly take the credit for putting the day together, but of course all the timetables were co-ordinated with typical Scandinavian efficiency, and not one of them ran more than a minute late!
Beautiful Bergen, with its wooden streets in the old quarter and Edvard Grieg’s gorgeous home nearby, was another highlight. In fact, there were so many that, like Moira, I’m sure we’ll be back in the country before too long.
I think next time we’ll feel the pull to go farther north. For so long, Norway’s own focus was on the north. The Vikings did go south, too, but also spread across the northern half of the globe, settling Iceland, Greenland and even reaching the United States. Their explorers, too, were renowned for their skill in the Arctic – and their fishermen and hunters found their richest pickings up in the polar regions. After hearing so much about it, and these magical islands called the Svalbard archipelago where so many of them lived, worked and explored, we knew we had to go.
Once again, we’ve come back from a holiday with an even longer list of places to go!
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