Norway in December
Christine and I just returned from a 10 day trip to Norway. December obviously isn’t the normal time to go to Norway as a tourist, but I had a week’s worth of meetings for my job scheduled in Oslo. We took advantage of the fact that I’d already be over there and stayed for an extra 4 days to do a little exploration.
We spent most of our time in Oslo. I had meetings during most of the daylight hours, but Christine took advantage of any sunlight (only about 5 hours a day) and explored the city. We were both impressed by the quantity and quality of museums. Our favorite museums were the Munch Museum, which celebrates the work of Norwegian artist Edward Munch and the city hall which is covered with interesting artwork on the interior. Christine also really liked the Folk Heritage Museum (I didn’t go) which had a lot of classic Norwegian buildings, including a really elegant wooden stave church.
Oslo is a great city to walk around. Everything was very accessible via public transit or foot and the city core is compact and vibrant. The shopping areas generally had pedestrian only streets which were full of people day and night. Sadly the exchange rate isn’t very favorable, so we didn’t buy much of anything there (most items were 2-3x the US price). We were there in the middle of winter, but I saw a number of bike commuters (all using studded tires of course) and there were bikes locked up everywhere.
Oslo Palace
View of the Train Station from our Hotel Room
Oslo Sculpture Garden
Oslo Sculpture Garden
Oslo City Hall
Details from the Stave Church at the Heritage Museum (photo by Christine)
Fram Museum, Oslo (photo by Christine)
On Sunday we headed west on the Oslo to Bergen train. Our destination was Flåm , a tiny little town on the fjords and the middle of a tourist route called “Norway in Nutshell”. To get there you take a 4 1/2 hour train ride to Myrdal (a town that is mostly a train interchange) and then take a train called the Flåmsbana that goes through kilometers of hand-dug tunnels and down the face of a mountain to get into the Flåm valley. It drops about 1000 meters along the way and has beautiful views the whole way down. It is pretty incredible that they were able to build it at all, and more amazing that they built it mostly by hand in the 1920s.
Flåm is a pretty busy tourist town in the summer, but at this time of year only one hotel was open and everything shut down by 6pm (restaurants included, so we ate a late lunch). The hotel made up for it by being attached to a microbrewery that made west coast US-style beer (a nice change from the pilsners found elsewhere) and having plenty of that on hand. They also gave us one of the best rooms, with nice views out onto the fjord.
On our second day in Flåm we took a bus over to Gudvangen, and then took the ferry from Gudvangen back to Flåm. The two towns are linked by very dramatic fjords. It was -15C outside, but we still spent a good portion of the trip on the deck of the ferry just enjoying the views (followed by brief intermissions back into the cabin to warm up). The pacific northwest is blessed with great scenery, but nothing that compares to what we saw from the ferry.
I noticed little roads cut into the mountains along these fjords from the ferry and really started to get excited about doing some cycling here one day in the future. I need to look into the logistics, but I think I could take my bike from Oslo to Myrdal on the train, then do a few day route through the fjords, probably linking them up by ferries. Hopefully my next trip there will be in the summer or early fall.
View from the Flamsbana Railroad
The Gudvangen to Flam ferry
View from the ferry
A frozen waterfall
Undredal, Norway
The two of us trying to stay warm in -15C weather on the ferry
Sunset (at 3:45pm) from our hotel room
Flamsbana Railroad
Sunrise (at 10:15) from the train back to Oslo
Wooden railroad bike, used when building the Flamsbana
What a wonderful, succinct overview of your trip! Wonderful pix and illuminating text.
Kalen and I just looked at your photoset. What a spectacular trip! Kalen wants to go with you on your bike tour this Summer or Fall. I want to know the name of the sculptor who created the works in the Oslo sculpture garden. Thanks for the great pictures!
from Clair
Alex,
Andrea went to Norway last year with Jack in her belly as her last trip before parenthood. She took some great photos but yours really are amazing and make the country look truly amazing. Happy new year!
-Drew
Clair — It”d be great if Kalen could join me for some Norwegian cycle touring. I have no ideas yet on logistics, I just know that I want to do it.
The sculptor’’s name is Vigeland, and you can read more about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frogner_Park
Thanks Drew. Happy Holidays to you too, and I hope that the three of you are doing great.