Exterous' trip to Norway

Exterous · Jun 2, 2024

This was actually last summer but things have been a bit crazy around here so we just finished up with the photos. We originally had a trip booked in 2020 but we all know what happened that year. As a consolation prize we had more time to spend in Norway this time which worked out well because Norway is awesome - its in our Top 5 list of favorite places we've visited. We did one week in the south, basically Oslo to Bergen and back, and then one week in the North - Tromso to Narvik the complicated way (a few ferries). Decent Lufthansa flights there but I was more excited for the flights home for reasons I'll go into towards the end

We landed early in the morning and headed out towards Bergen. We were tired enough we pulled off into a little roadside park and promptly passed out for about an hour long nap before stopping at Bjorneparken (Bear Park) where we wished we had brought our good camera into the park with us

While there a worker asked us "Would you like to feed the foxes?" We thought it might have been a translation issue or, at most, we would toss food to the foxes. Nope. Put the food in your hand and have the fox come up and eat it. Didn't even know that was an option at the park but would recommend

Unfortunately as the roads got...weirder the weather got worse so we didn't get to see much of the Vøringfossen waterfall.

On the way to and in Bergen itself:

And the Norwegians don't mess around when it comes to tunnels. Why yes that is a hastily taken photo of a nicely lit underground roundabout. Many even came equipped with cell and radio signal despite being >10km in distance

BurnItDwn · Jun 2, 2024

You are an excellent time traveler. Thanks for sharing your photos from your adventure!

bbhaag · Jun 2, 2024

Looks like an amazing trip. We are right on the cusp of being able to take trips like this. One more year....

Dr. Detroit · Jun 3, 2024

Beautiful!

I've got a vacation planned to tour the Lofoten islands, lots of driving, lots of ferries. Narvik to Reine and ferry back to Bodo.

Will have to wait a few years as I wouldn't want to try and cram this one into a 2-week vacation, figure I'll need a month to do it right.

Mayne · Jun 3, 2024

Norway is so beautiful

Exterous · Jun 3, 2024

Bergen itself:

With the right hiking decision you can get up close and personal to some large antennas

From there we headed to the Flåm area for what might be one of my favorite AirBnB stays ever. We spent a ton of time on the wrap around porch once the weather got a little better. And there were hiking trails basically right out the front door. Car was fenced in because the goats had free reign of the area

Exterous · Jun 3, 2024

BurnItDwn said:
You are an excellent time traveler. Thanks for sharing your photos from your adventure!

Ha - thanks!

bbhaag said:
Looks like an amazing trip. We are right on the cusp of being able to take trips like this. One more year....

Hope the trip planning goes well!

Dr. Detroit said:
Beautiful!

I've got a vacation planned to tour the Lofoten islands, lots of driving, lots of ferries. Narvik to Reine and ferry back to Bodo.

Will have to wait a few years as I wouldn't want to try and cram this one into a 2-week vacation, figure I'll need a month to do it right.

Northern Norway was awesome. One thing to consider with the ferries: people sometimes get there early - to the point that people with campers will camp at the ferry terminal overnight to catch the morning ferry. We didn't have any issues with the Brenshomen to Botnhamn ferry but we weren't able to get on the 11am Gryllefjord to Andenes ferry despite getting there at ~8:15am. Like not even close to having a chance to get on the ferry. We did make it on the 3pm ferry but about 10 vehicles back or so didn't even make it on that one despite getting into the line around 8:45am. The issue was mostly due to all the large campers that took up a lot of room on the ferry. YMMV of course

Mayne said:
Norway is so beautiful

Its aggressive. Like in a "Yeah ok we get it. Everything everywhere here is beautiful." kind of way.

lxskllr · Jun 3, 2024

I appreciate the precision in hanging the ship bumpers. They maintained height pretty well using tires and chains.

nakedfrog · Jun 3, 2024

Are those stairs designed for drunk people?

lxskllr · Jun 3, 2024

I was looking at that too, and assumed it was a photo irregularity, cause that's an insane set of steps if it's really like that.

Exterous · Jun 3, 2024

nakedfrog said:
Are those stairs designed for drunk people?

lxskllr said:
I was looking at that too, and assumed it was a photo irregularity, cause that's an insane set of steps if it's really like that.

Those stairs really were like that. Shallow tread too so it was a bit interesting to walk up and down them. They might be designed by drunk people but I don't think actual drunk people would be on them for very long before an uncomfortable tumble down them

Exterous · Jun 4, 2024

From Flåm we took a fjord cruise

Before doing some hiking

And then driving back to Olso

Exterous · Jun 4, 2024

Olso architecture

The water front is lined with saunas

This might be the strangest statue garden (Vigeland) we've ever been to. I'm not sure what she's doing but I'm pretty sure she's about to be pooped on

This man appears to be fighting a hoard of babies

lxskllr · Jun 4, 2024

Looks like people are rubbing the baby's head and his pecker :^D

Exterous · Jun 4, 2024

From there it was a quick flight up to Tromso

And one of my favorite stops of the trip - the free dog cafe outside Tromso

While we were enjoying the coffee (petting doggies was free but we wanted to support them at least a little with coffee and a muffin) a worker came by and asked "Do you want to go to the puppy pen?" I didn't know what that was but that was an easy answer. She rounded up 4 of us and proceeded to hand out 6 puppies to us

We stayed a lot longer than expected because I couldn't just move this very good and very tired boy

Exterous · Jun 5, 2024

In Norway even your lawnmower is on skies

Driving from Tromso to the lofot Islands

Exterous · Jun 5, 2024

Everywhere had salmon for breakfast and they don't play around when it comes to the size of their slices.

Norway is known for their fancy bathrooms for road trippers. At this one you can control the window transparency

Mayne · Jun 5, 2024

amazing photos. Are you a photographer?

IronWing · Jun 5, 2024

Exterous said:

This one is in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 2001.

Exterous · Jun 6, 2024

Towards the end of the trip we did what ended up being one of my most favorite hikes ever: Ryten. 4.5 miles and almost 2,000ft of elevation gain with fantastic and constantly changing views.

View from the top:

Along the way

The densest cloud I've hiked through. Mostly "I don't know where I'm going but this path heads up so thats probably the right direction"

Other areas around Lofoten:

And finally, for the trip home, we capped off an amazing trip by snagging some of the 'throne' seats on Brussels airlines

There are only 3 of these on the plane and they don't always open these up to non-high status members and sometimes add a surcharge. But they opened up two of them up for free so I was able to assign both my wife and I seats. Even better they have an amazing Belgium beer selection and the flight attendant was really happy to have a knowledgeable Belgium beer fan onboard so he kept me quite well stocked throughout the flight

Overall Norway was amazing and this trip is on our list of favorite trips. We'd absolutely go back

Exterous · Jun 6, 2024

Mayne said:
amazing photos. Are you a photographer?

Thanks! We are albeit as a side business mostly focused on real estate and the occasional wedding. (We don't spend a ton of time composing or editing our travel photos. And choose to limit the lenses we travel with for weight)

IronWing said:
This one is in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 2001.

Hmm...I didn't see any Dark Knights while I was there

Fenixgoon · Jun 6, 2024

Fucking A I am jealous!! I have a few Norwegian colleagues. Clearly I need to schedule a work trip and overlap it with a road trip.

Zeze · Jun 7, 2024

Wowowow.

1. How was the food? What did you eat for 2 weeks? What did you end up loving?
2. What did you do in the evenings?

Zeze · Jun 7, 2024

IronWing said:
This one is in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 2001.

Found it.

Exterous · Jun 7, 2024

Zeze said:
Wowowow.

1. How was the food? What did you eat for 2 weeks? What did you end up loving?
2. What did you do in the evenings?

Food was good. Lots of seafood especially salmon. Some good sushi. Nothing earth shattering but there's also a culture in Norway (at least in the north) where travelers make a lot of their own meals. In part because some places in the north literally only have 1 restaurant for the 'town' (which might only be a handful of buildings). They'd be open from 5pm-9pm and have 1-3 main dishes based on what they caught or happened to get shipped in that day. And in part because food is pretty expensive there. A lot of our lodging came with kitchenettes so we'd get staples that can last a few days without much refrigeration: bread for toast in the morning and sandwiches on the trail/in the car, eggs, fruit, butter that kind of thing.

As an anecdote to explain the remoteness of some of the places up north: The Narvik airport (EVE - which is a fairly notable airport for Norway) is in the middle of nowhere. Seriously. Its 50min from Narvik itself. It has a single hotel, gas station, and restaurant near it. The next restaurant is 15min away by car and the next restaurant after that is 40min away.

Anyway we were surprised to learn that frozen pizza and beer dinners are a big thing in Norway so we had to do that. We were still skeptical it was actually a thing but sure enough as we stood by a freezer at a grocer trying to decide on what pizza we wanted there was a steady stream of Norwegians to grab their favorite pizza. Busiest part of the store. And sure enough all those people were then by the beer section picking up a 6 pack. Unfortunately I selected what I eventually learned was the broil icon on the oven so that first pizza wasn't the best and we had to give it another go for another dinner.

I loved the scenery. Hiking was top notch - and a touch aggressive for this flatlander. When your "Moderate" difficulty hikes include near vertical cliff scaling via rope we have different definitions of "Moderate". But then I can walk for several miles at home and get 50' of elevation gains and everything in Norway (even their museums and zoos) has several hundred feet of elevation changes. But there were great trails and scenery everywhere you looked.

I also loved how there wasn't the obsession with monetizing everything. "Hey while you're in the park here's some food. Go hand it to the foxes over there." "Hey we need to socialize our dog sledding dogs. Come play with them for free. Buy some coffee if you want but its not required. By the way can you hold this puppy for us? Thanks." "Welcome to our museum. Here are the exhibits. You want a boat ride? Included. Horse back riding? Included. Axe throwing? Same. Shoot ye old replica bow and arrow? Ditto. " You know that shit would have been extra in the US (and other countries). And come with separate release forms. They were just handing out axes to kids

Evenings? To be honest outside of Bergen and Olso we didn't do a ton. In part because we were up early to make sure we could get out before the crowds, get on the first ferry etc. I mean - outside of a few places it wasn't crowded but if I can get out early and have the entire trail to myself? Heaven. And in part because we were out hiking a lot and we're not used to their terrain so we were usually pretty tired. Which was good because most of the places in the north likely didn't offer much in the way of other options

Exterous' trip to Norway

Exterous

BurnItDwn

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lxskllr

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Mayne

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Fenixgoon

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Zeze

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