When we learned that some friends were planning a grand milestone birthday gala at the Royal Stockholm Opera House, we knew that could not be missed, and was a great opportunity to explore a new part of the world for us. (I had been to Stockholm and Bergen but just for business, and George had not been to Scandinavia at all.) Stockholm, Oslo, and Bergen are charming, historic, cosmopolitan cities. And the fjords of western Norway, as we would discover, are just astonishingly beautiful. You're welcome to peruse our highlights photo album or the whole collection of more extensive albums.
Air Connections and Logistics
To avoid needless backtracking, we started our trip in Stockholm and flew home from Bergen. SAS has the most routes around Scandinavia, with most everything connecting in Copenhagen. LAX to Copenhagen is 11 hours, and then it’s just over an hour to hop over to Stockholm or from Bergen. We also used SAS for the inexpensive short hops from Stockholm to Oslo and Oslo to Ålesund. Stockholm and Oslo are very walkable cities, with an occasional taxi when needed (and taxis from their far-afield airports). For the fjordlands, we picked up a car in Ålesund and made our way down to Bergen through the fjords, which is a great way to see them.
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Stockholm (4 nights)
Our hotel in Stockholm, the Elite Eden Park Hotel, turned out to be a great choice. It’s not right in the center of the city, but it’s in a lovely and quiet neighborhood only 10 minutes walk to the center. For the same money that would just get us a cramped standard room in city center, we got a beautiful and very spacious full suite here, on the top floor, overlooking a lovely park. Highly recommended.
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Day 1 - Arrival in Stockholm
We arrived in the evening and it was probably around 8pm by the time we got settled, but it was still light out for another couple hours, and we had time to wander the Humlegården park and find a nice place for dinner in the neighborhood.
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Day 2 – Stockholm: Gamla Stan, Royal Palace & Guard,
  Our first full day, we took a beautiful stroll along Stockholm’s beautiful avenues, admiring the Swedish take on late 19th / early 20th century architectural styles predominant around the city. As we neared the water, the Kungsträdgården is a beautiful long park promenade with fountains and flowers, leading to Gamla Stan, a small island with some of the oldest parts of the city, as well as the Royal Palace, the Rikstad (Parliament), and historic churches. The changing of the guard at Stockholm royal palace is quite a spectacle, with soldiers marching on foot and on horseback, and with an equestrian drum and bugle corps. We got to visit parts of the Royal Palace, including the Bernadotte apartments, the Throne Room, and the Treasury where the Crown Jewels are kept. We also did a bit of shopping, checking out NK (a vast department store with boutiques in it, Stockholm’s equivalent of Harrod’s). In the evening, we had a cocktail party hosted by our Swedish friends.
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Day 3 – Stockholm: Smørrebrød, Millesgården, Riddarholmen
 
We started our morning in the Hötorgshallen gourmet food hall, at Nybroe, which is all about smørrebrød — Danish rye bread topped with various delicacies like smoked salmon, roe, or shrimp in dill sauce. We were also introduced to akvavit and the Swedish tradition of drinking songs. We spent much of the afternoon enjoying indoor and outdoor art exhibits at Millesgården, a museum which is the former home of Carl Milles, an early 20th century Swedish sculptor. There is a nice café overlooking the sculpture garden which was perfect for “fika”, the Swedish tradition of relaxing with cinnamon rolls and coffee (or maybe wine).
Saturday night we had a delightful dinner at the Verandan restaurant in the Grand Hotel, with views of the harbor, royal palace, and Riksdag (parliament). The Grand Hotel is the sort of classic hotel where you stay if you’re JFK or Lady Gaga, and the restaurant is classic white table cloth Swedish food. We lucked out to get the sommelier as our waiter, who was very enthusiastic and engaging, and we enjoyed talking with him as we chose wines for our dinner. After dinner, he gave us a special treat - we got a private tour of the wine cellar, one of the world’s top cellars. We saw vintage bottles of Petrus, d’Yquem, and a Mouton Rothschild from 1874, the year the hotel opened. It was a totally unexpected treat. After dinner, we wanted to take advantage of Kulturnatt (“Culture Night”), a special annual event when every museum, historic building, and gallery in Stockholm us open for free from 6pm to midnight. We headed for Riddarholmskyrkan, a church dating from the 1200s that is the royal burial place of centuries of kings and queens of Sweden. It’s the Swedish equivalent of Westminster cathedral. It lies on a tiny island adjacent to the palace, and normally it is only open limited times in the summer. We lucked out, getting to visit this place when it was hosted by ghosts of kings and queens, and enlivened by chamber music.
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Day 4 – Stockholm: Vasa Museum, Gala at the Royal Opera House
 
In 1626, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, in the midst of ambitious military campaigns, commissioned a great warship called the Vasa. It was richly decorated with painted carved wood designs signifying power and glory, and with two decks of cannons, it was one of the most heavily armed warships of its time. When it set out from port on its maiden voyage in 1628, it looked glorious with all its flags flying, until a gentle breeze keeled it over, and it sank in Stockholm harbor having sailed 1400 yards. Turns out the shipbuilders had never built a ship with two decks of cannons before, and it had insufficient ballast, making it fatally top-heavy. It lay in the bay for centuries where the cold brackish water perfectly preserved it in a long-forgotten location. It was rediscovered in 1958, carefully raised up a few years later, and now it is displayed in a remarkable museum with viewing from multiple levels and exhibits about life on board (well, at least on board similar vessels of its period). We spent several hours exploring this fascinating museum, then a light lunch and a bit of shopping before getting ready for our friend’s grand gala birthday party that evening at the Royal Opera House. |
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Oslo (3 nights)
The Hotel Christiania Teater has an excellent central location, across from a park in the center of the city.
The rooms had quality furniture and bathroom products. Our room faced into a central atrium and was very quiet. The staff were friendly and helpful. The breakfast buffet was very good, and included a specific section of gluten-free products (made my celiac husband happy). Even though we booked a deluxe king and were told we were upgraded to a junior suite, the room, while furnished at a high quality, was not very spacious. Though we had a sofa, coffee table, and two chairs, we had little room to open our suitcases and still maneuver our way around the room. Closet and drawer space was scarce, so the sofa and chairs got mostly used as clothes racks. (That being said, I think it's generally hard to find spacious rooms in Norway, and we were overall happy with our stay and would recommend the hotel.)
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Day 5 – Oslo arrival
 
Oslo is a fascinating city, and you can read some of its history in its architecture, with plenty of Art Nouveau and Art Deco from earlier periods of prosperity, complimented by a breakout of very modern architecture reflecting its new oil wealth from the 1980s. It was late afternoon by the time we first got settled, and we took a lovely walk to the Royal Palace and its surrounding park. Oslo was in full spring bloom, and it was beautiful. We walked to dinner to a casual but very popular spot called Den Glade Gris (“the happy pig”), whose specialty is long slow-cooked pork knuckle.
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Day 6 – Oslo: Opera, Munch, cathedral, Akershus Fortress
 
Oslo’s Bjørvika district at the top of the harbor has several impressive modern civic buildings showcasing Norway’s prosperity since discovering North Sea oil. The opera house looks like a white marble and glass glacier sliding into the sea. Nearby is the Munch Museum, exhibiting a large collection of Norway’s most famous painter’s works. We also gawked at the floating saunas, where the daring can punctuate their hot sauna with a plunge into the cold fjord.
Of course we had to go to MUNCH (it’s pronounced “moonk”) to see the iconic painting by Norway’s most famous painter. Edvard Munch was a great impressionist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, bringing his unique Norwegian emotional impressions to canvas. (Or alas, in some cases, on paper. His famous Scream is on paper, making it very light sensitive, so it is shown in a dim room only a few times a day for a half-hour at a time. They have three versions of it - paint, tempera, and woodcut print - which they alternate, so there’s always one version on view at any time.) But honestly, so much of his other work is as good as The Scream, just less iconic.
Oslo Cathedral, built in the 1690s, is the Church of Norway’s primary church for Oslo, used for royal and state events.
Akershus Festning is a medieval fortress and castle that guards Oslo since the 1200s. Today its cannons are no longer functional, but it’s a beautiful place to walk around.
Our hotel was right near the Oslo Rådhus (City Hall), so we walked past it often. Built in the early 20th century, it is mostly Functionalist architecture but with some Art Deco motifs. When we get back to Oslo some day, I’d like to see some of the art in the inside, as well as the grand hall where the Nobel Peace Prize is presented.
Our second night in Oslo, we did a 6-course tasting menu at Statholdergaarden, a Michelin-starred restaurant set in a house from the 1600s, well worth the splurge.
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Day 7 – Oslo: Vigeland Sculpture Park, Resistance and Peace Museums, Gamle Aker neighborhood
 
Tucked into the Akerhus fortress, there is a museum dedicated to the Norwegian Resistance during WWII. We weren’t familiar with this aspect of the war history: pretty early on Hitler saw Norway as strategic and invaded it in a multi-pronged blitz. Norway remained occupied during the war, but an active Resistance operated inside, with support from Britain and (quietly) from Sweden. The museum was fascinating and bone-chilling given some of the parallels to our own time. I was taking avid notes.
When you go to Oslo, anyone who’s ever visited there before will tell you that you must visit the Vigeland sculpture installation in Frogner Park. And they’re right, it is amazing. Gustav Vigeland was an early 20th century sculptor who spent his life in the commission of the City of Oslo. An extravagant number of his bronze and marble sculptures went into a grand installation in the spacious Frogner Park. His sculptures are almost entirely human figures, always nude, but not at all sexual, rather just ordinary men, women, and children, mostly playful though a few more somber arrangements. And some of them are just big dog piles of human bodies. It’s fascinating and it just makes you smile to explore it.
We always enjoy exploring old churches, quaint neighborhoods, and interesting cemeteries. We found all three in Gamle Aker, one of Oslo’s oldest districts. The Gamle Aker church was built around 1100, a modest Romanesque church of simple beauty. The church has its own small graveyard, but it is adjacent to the sprawling Vår Frelsers cemetery, where many Norwegian luminaries are buried. (You could call it the Père Lachaise of Oslo.) Also just under the church are a couple of old cobblestone streets with wood houses dating from the 1800s, some of the oldest in the city.
Oslo is where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, and there is a museum called the Nobel Peace Center that has some interesting exhibits about the award, its history, and its awardees over the years, as well as showcasing some of their causes. One particularly affecting exhibit was about the “hibakusha”, the survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In addition to these photographic portraits, there were film and print capture of interviews with them about their experience of the bomb and its immediate aftermath. It’s bone-chilling.
In the late afternoon, we wandered Tjuvholmen, a waterfront district in Oslo where old shipyards have been converted into a very modern neighborhood of mixed residential and commercial buildings, with a lovely harbor side promenade, and ending in the swoosh of the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art. We enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Brasserie Hansken, a Michelin-noted restaurant serving traditional Norwegian fare.
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Ålesund (2 nights)
Thon Hotels seem to be a chain of solid nice mid-range hotels in Norway catering to a mix of tourists and business travelers. The Thon Hotel Ålesund is nicely located in a charming part of the town. We booked the "business double" room which gets you not only extra space, but a lovely bay window that looks over the little marina and lighthouse, and was quite a delight. The room was clean and comfortable, and thoughtfully efficient. The breakfast buffet was good, and included a special section of gluten-free products which made my celiac husband happy. (They even had a dedicated toaster.) Underground parking was available for a fee, and included some EV charging stations on the Mer network (one of the major Norwegian charging station networks).
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Day 8 - Ålesund
 
Ålesund is a charming town on Norway’s west coast where we spent a couple of days. It has a small harbor and cute little lighthouse, and a very walkable town of lovely buildings. Most of the town burned in a great fire in 1904, so the town was all rebuilt in the then-latest fashion of Art Deco and Beaux Arts, with a distinctive Nordic touch. After sunny days in Stockholm and Oslo, we got a bit more Norwegian weather in Ålesund with cold and rain. But there’s a Norwegian saying: there’s no bad weather, only bad clothes. So properly dressed, we still had a great time.
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Day 9 - Ålesund
 
The geography of western Norway is so dramatic, not only the fjords, but even the steep and jagged hills on the coast. There are several steep knolls right around Ålesund, including one that rises sharply from the center of town. There’s a stairstep trail that goes up to a viewing platform at the top with great views over Ålesund and nearby islands. All the locals can tell you it’s 418 steps to the top. Of course we had to climb it. Cold rain and wind notwithstanding.
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Geiranger (1 night)
The Union Geiranger is a large modern upper-mid-level hotel with lots of amenities (pool, spa, etc) in an absolutely stunning location. The rooms are spacious, with clean modern furnishings, and a clean modern bathroom with nice products. It's well worth paying the modest premium to get a fjord view, as the view is breathtaking. The dining room also offers nice views. (The whole hotel is oriented to maximize rooms with views.) The dining room is very nice, with very good buffet selection for breakfast and dinner (we took both). They had a dedicated table for gluten-free pastries (nice for my celiac husband), but no GF bread. Plenty of GF selections in general at breakfast, and at dinner the chef came out and gave my husband a tour of the GF options. There seemed to be plenty of parking, and they had several EV charging stations for a fee (on the hotel's own network, so you didn't have to worry about having the right app to pay). The woman at the front desk was very friendly and helpful.
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Day 10 – Ålesund to Geiranger
 
From Ålesund we began our venture into fjord country by driving along Storfjord, sometimes with a view of the fjord and sometimes going inland a bit through the most vivid green countryside with beautiful barns and farmhouses, with snowcapped mountains rising in the distance after a while. With all these fjords and their fingers reaching in so far, ferry boats are an essential part of the highway system.
The last part of our road trip to the village of Geiranger was an hour-long ferry that took us down to the end of Geirangerfjord. This fjord is one of two fjords that are so stunning and so characteristic that they are designated by UNESCO as World Heritage natural sites. As our ferry carried us slowly down the fjord, we marveled at the steep glacier-carved walls looming above us on either side, with waterfalls cascading down from snow-capped peaks as high as 5000’ above us. It reminded me of Yosemite, because of the similar glacial geography, the resemblance of the walls around us to El Capitan and Yosemite Falls, and the same sense of awe at moving through a place of such grandeur and majestic beauty.
Our hotel room in Geiranger was at the upper end of the village with a great view of the fjord. The village nestles along the river that plunges to the foot of the fjord, the first of many that feed it. After settling in, we wandered to explore the nearby falls and look around the village a bit.
If you drive up a series of switchbacks, you quickly climb above Geiranger for a commanding view over the fjord. There’s a sculpture installed up there called Flydalsjuvet (the queen’s throne), and we also hiked to a few other rocky outcrops for views. The sense of awe at the natural beauty of this place is unfathomable. Every new angle amazes anew.
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 Balestrand (1 night)
I can't remember the last time I left a hotel thinking I wish I'd had more time to just sit in my room and enjoy it, or to just sit in the hotel's charming public spaces. The Kviknes Hotel has a historic building (a truly grand classic sort of place where royalty may have stayed) and a modern building, which offer different experiences. We chose the historic building and splurged for a "demi suite with fjord view" which was expensive but worth it. The historic building has all that grand classic charm, and the spacious demi suite was furnished in tasteful but comfortable antiques that suit the historic charm, and the fjord view was enjoyed from a large veranda. Rich detail like carved wood and moldings everywhere. The ground floor had a rambling series of public spaces that were equally charming (beautiful rich antiques and paintings) where you could sit and enjoy a cider and the view. There's a large dining room, also with beautiful views, and a nice buffet selection for both breakfast and dinner (including plenty of gluten-free options), selections of local ciders, and amiable staff that aims to please.
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Day 11 – Geiranger to Balestrand via Gaularfjellet
 
We had intended to head out of Geiranger on the mountain road to the south, but a fresh dump of snow closed the road. It was already to be our longest drive day, and we didn’t want a 2-hour detour, so the best way out was to take the ferry back the way we came. It was no hardship at all to see the fjord again, in a morning light this time, and make an hour’s progress cruising instead of driving. The rest of the road trip continued to amaze, perhaps the most beautiful 4-hour drive I’ve ever done. Verdant green framed by majestic peaks, ending in a snow-filled (but fortunately open) mountain pass and a brilliantly engineered cantilevered overlook. At the foot of the pass, we came to one of the fingers of the Sognefjord, and the last part of the drive was all along the water to the very charming village of Balestrand.
The charming church of St Olaf in Balestrand was built in 1897, imitating the style of much older Norwegian churches (though with more windows and light). It was built by the same guy who built the Kviknes hotel, an act of grief and remembrance for his wife who died at only 44. She was English, and always missed her native Anglican Church services, so this is an Anglican Church. And if it seems a bit Disney-reminiscent, that’s because it was the model for some scenes in the Frozen films.
The town of Balestrand was charming just to wander. Last century there was a guy who had been trained in Trondheim in dragon-carving, and he came to live here, so many of the houses have traditional Norwegian dragons on them. (He also carved that ornate wooden furniture in the Kviknes Hotel lobby.)
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 Aurland (1 night)
I wasn't quite sure what to expect as the village is very small and the Vangsgaarden Gjestgiveri offers an assortment of rooms and cabins, which looked like they could be charming or funky. Turns out it was totally charming. Fjord view here means literally right on the fjord, as in we could have dropped a fishing line off our balcony, and the fjord is breathtaking. The room was very comfortable and decent amount of space. We took the "deluxe double room with balcony and sea view", which I believe is the only one of its category at the end of a row of several apartments suited more for families. Our room was perfect for a couple. The breakfast is served in a charming old cottage on the grounds with tables set up in various rooms, and a nice selection, including gluten-free options for my celiac husband. There's also a pub at the hotel which serves a quite decent dinner in a casual pub setting. Plenty of parking. They had a couple of slower EV chargers, first come first serve, or just 5 minutes away there was a large cluster of high-speed EV charging stations from several networks with lots of stations.
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Day 12 – Balestrand to Aurland via Borgund Stave Church and Lærdal
 
Upon departing Balestrand, we boarded a ferry, proceeded along the north shore of Sognefjord for a distance, entered a lengthy tunnel that immediately opened onto another ferry, which transported us across the fjord, where we entered another lengthy tunnel. When we finally emerged, we found ourselves in the Lærdal valley, a breathtakingly beautiful and remarkably remote location surrounded by steep mountains on all sides. Prior to the construction of tunnels, access was limited to unreliable mountain passes. In that remote valley, we discovered something truly remarkable:
the Borgund Stave Church, one of the best preserved and few remaining stave churches - wood construction dating from around the year 1200. The church is black because they used pine tar to help seal and preserve the wood. It has dragons as well as crosses because the people were Norse before they were Christian.
After the 900-year old stave church in the isolated valley, we took the modern way out: the longest road tunnel in the world. The Lærdal tunnel is 15 miles long, connecting the Lærdal Valley and coming out right at Aurlandsfjord, our next stop. Another gorgeous fjord. Aurland is a tiny village where we stayed in a cute guesthouse right on the water.
Impressive as the 15-mile long tunnel is, we’d have taken the more scenic mountain pass if we could. Alas, it’s only open a few months in summer, and wasn’t open yet. After we settled in Aurland, we were able to drive up the mountain road a ways to the breathtaking Stegastein viewpoint over the whole Aurlandsfjord.
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 Ullensvang (1 night)
The Hotel Ullensvang is a large historic-but-rebuilt hotel with lots of amenities and a beautiful setting right on the Sørfjord (one of the fingers of Hardangerfjord). The room was clean, comfortable, and modern. We stepped up for the "deluxe twin room with sea view", and had a balcony with a spectacular fjord view. The dining room was very nice, with excellent selections on a buffet for both breakfast and dinner, showcasing local food. There were also plenty of gluten-free options for my celiac husband. And of course good selection of local ciders. The property was vast, featuring several pools (both indoor and outdoor) and a large spa area, and it is interesting just to wander the hotel and its grounds. There was plenty of parking, and the hotel had a covered parking area with its own EV charging stations for a fee (operated by the hotel, so you don't have to worry about having the right app or network).
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Day 13 – Aurland to Ullensvang via Flåmsbana Railway, Undredal, and Nærøyfjord
 
The Flåmsbana is a 12.5 mile spur rail line that climbs from the Aurlandsfjord (sea level) to Myrdal at 2800’ where it connects to the main Oslo-Bergen line. It is fantastically scenic, as well as a train engineering wonder, climbing as much as 5.5% grade, and making a bunch of switchbacks (not so easy for trains!). It is well worth the very enjoyable 2-hour round trip just for the experience.
The hamlet of Undredal on the Aurlandsfjord is home to 60 full-time residents and 350 goats. Prior to 1988, when new tunnels enabled a road to be built, access was only by boat. Its church was built in 1147, and is one of only 28 surviving stave churches. The tiny church, with room for 40 congregants, has a relatively more modern exterior, but the original stave construction is evident inside, as well as fascinating details from various centuries.
The hamlet of Bakka is even smaller than Undredal, and it only got a tunnel and a road in 2000. We wanted to visit just to get a look at Nærøyfjord, one of the two fjords officially listed as UNESCO World Heritage natural sites (the other is Geirangerfjord). Its remoteness is part of its beauty. Even with a paved road, it’s still out of the way.
The Norwegian road engineering is astounding. In our drive from Aurland to Ullensvang, we were able to take the scenic mountain road to Ulvik (fortunately that one was open), but we still had to get across the Hardangerfjord. Prior to 2013, that would have been a ferry, but now there’s the Hardanger suspension bridge, crossing a 1.3km span at 180 feet above the water, with 660 foot towers (just a bit less than the Golden Gate in all dimensions). Of course since steep mountains frame the fjord, you need tunnels just to get to either end of the bridge. Some of the tunnels are miles long, and a few intersect with underground traffic circles!
Our fourth and final night of fjord-hopping we stayed in Ullensvang on the Sørfjord, the innermost branch of the Hardangerfjord. It is framed by Europe’s largest mountain plateau on the east, and the Folgefonna glacier on its west. We had a lovely glacier view from our hotel room.
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Bergen (3 nights)
Another Thon Hotel. The Thon Hotel Rosenkrantz Bergen is in a great location in the historic part of town, on a quiet street one block off of the busy Bryggen waterfront. We sprang for a superior double room, which gave a goodly amount of space and a corner window with peeks at the city and water between other buildings. The room also included some thoughtful efficiencies like coat hooks (surprising how many other hotels don't have these) and a clever pull-out ironing board. The breakfast buffet was good, and included a special section for gluten-free products and even a dedicated gluten-free toaster.  |
Day 14 – Ullensvang to Bergen via Steindalsfossen
 
From Ullensvang, we recrossed the Hardanger bridge and took the 1.5 lane road that runs along the north side of Hardangerfjord. At a very picturesque spot just outside Norheimsund, we came to Steindalsfossen, a gusher of a waterfall with a short trail where you can walk behind the falls. (Insert Disney Jungle Cruise joke about seeing the back side of water.)
We ended our journey with a few days in Bergen. Norway’s second-largest city (300K population) is charming and very walkable, with a many historical sights, a UNESCO World Heritage wharf area (the Bryggen) dating from the Hanseatic League days, a modern art museum complex, great restaurants, and a vibrant cultural events calendar during the summer.
As soon as we got settled in Bergen, the first thing we did was take the funicular up to the top of Mt Fløyen for an overview of the city.
Atop Mount Fløyen, in addition to great views, one may find the cashmere goats who live up there. They’re pretty congenial, and are happy to be petted or even take a selfie.
Afterward, we wandered the Bryggen a bit before meeting an old colleague for dinner.
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Day 15 – Bergen: Fantoft stave church, Gamlehaugen royal residence, Troldhaugen (Grieg’s house), Damstad country manor, Kode, Festplassen
 
We still had our car, so we saw a few things on the outskirts of Bergen one day. We started with the Fantoft Stave Church. This is actually a reconstruction of a relocated stave church. The story starts in a small town of Fortun at the very end of Sognefjord, where a stave church was built around 1150. In 1879, a newer church was built, and the old stave church was threatened with demolition. A benefactor stepped in and offered to relocate the church to property he owned in Fantoft near Bergen. The church was thus saved, but in 1992 it was destroyed by arson. This current reconstruction was then made, using the same materials and techniques as were known to be used in the original.
Nearby Gamlehaugen is a castle and residence of the royal family when in Bergen. The current manor house was built in 1900 by the first Norwegian prime minister (a wealthy shipping magnate), and in 1925 was purchased for the King of Norway. It has extensive grounds which are used as a public park. The inside is only open in the summer, but we enjoyed looking around the grounds.
Edvard Grieg is probably the most famous Norwegian composer. Even if you don’t know his name, you may recognize some of his works. He had a home outside of Bergen which is now a museum to his life and works.
Our friend Leif’s grandmother lived in a stately home outside Bergen called Damsgård, where she’s said to have entertained the king. He warned us that it was being renovated, but we thought we’d swing by anyway. The work is further under way now, but it was fun to take a look and imagine what this place was like. (Sondheim music popped into my head, picturing this as Desiree’s home from A Little Night Music.)
Given that Bergen has 247 days of rain per year, we were grateful to have three sunny ones. We enjoyed just wandering the city’s beautiful public spaces and seeing everyone out and enjoying their city. The tulips were still looking dashing.
We did take a few minutes out of the sunshine to survey Bergen’s art museum, which has its own nice collection of Edvard Munch, as well as other great Norwegian artists like Nikolai Astrup. Munch is so distinctively moody.
In the evening, we took the funicular back up Mt Fløyen to dine at the restaurant there, which is quite decent, and of course has beautiful views. We had the notion to stay and watch the lights come up on the city, which we did, although we realized later that we’d have to stay up there until after 11pm to really see city lights. But the funicular goes pretty late.
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Day 16 – Bergen: fortress, churches, Bryggen
 
Bergenhus Festning is a fortress complex dating from the 1200s, when Bergen was the capital of the kingdom of Norway. The Rosenkrantz Tower is now a museum that does a nice job showing what life was like at the fortress over various centuries, as it transitioned from royal castle to the governor’s house when Norway was conquered by Denmark.
St Mary’s Church is the oldest building in Bergen, built in the 1100s. It’s been rebuilt after fires a couple of times, but even those reconstructions are 8 centuries old. In the times of the Hanseatic League, this became the “German church”, and it was richly decorated by the wealthy merchants who attended. The artwork inside is fascinating.
The most iconic part of the city is the Bryggen, a collection of A-framed buildings along the waterfront that date from when the Hanseatic league established a merchant post in Bergen to control the dried cod trade. It’s a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. Some of the buildings are restored / rebuilt, but a half-dozen of them date from early 1700s (when the whole area was rebuilt after a 1702 fire). We took an interesting tour that explained life as a Hanseatic merchant here.
In the late afternoon, we just wandered a few different neighborhoods of the city, including the little Nordnes peninsula.
Our last night, we had an excellent dinner at the neighborhood gem Marg & Bein (“bone and marrow”), highly recommended.
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Day 17 - Head Home
The timing of heading home from Bergen to the US is generally favorable. We had a 10am flight out of Bergen, a short hop to Copenhagen, a couple hours layover there (taking lunch in the airport lounge), and then a 2pm flight home. The flight to LAX is 11 hours, but with the time difference, we got home at 4pm, which was kind of perfect, enough time to unpack and start some laundry before falling into bed at the appropriate time to avoid much jetlag.
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Reflections and Recommendations
This itinerary was perfect for us, given the time we had. We could easily have spent more time in Stockholm and Oslo, though we had a decent amount. If we’d have had a few more days to spend, I would have liked to have started our fjord coast tour further north in Trondheim instead of Ålesund, getting to drive the famous Atlantic Coast Highway, but we got a really good fjord experience. There are pros and cons to exploring the fjords by cruise ship vs by car, as we did, but I think we were very happy with the car. The ships get into parts of the fjords you just can’t see by car, but we got a good taste of the best of that by taking the Geirangerfjord car ferry. On the other hand, some of those roads are just spectacular experiences themselves, some of the most amazing and enjoyable road trips I’ve done. We skipped through the fjords with four “one-nighters” in different villages, but it wasn’t actually a bad pace, with just a few hours driving each day and still time to look around when we arrived. At any of those villages, one could spend multiple nights if you wanted to do some serious hiking, boat day tours, or cider tasting tours. (For example, if you really wanted to see the Trolltunga, a spectacular rock that juts out high above a glacial lake, that requires a 10-hour round trip hike, so you’d need two nights in someplace like Ullensvang.)
Notes On Timing
The timing of our trip, at the end of April / beginning of May, was dictated by the birthday gala that was the impetus for our trip, but it turned out to be a decent time to go. The weather was definitely brisk, generally in the 40s, though some 50s, and a bit of 30s in the frostiest fjords. Maybe we were lucky, but it was mostly sunny, with only a couple of our 16 days being significantly rainy. All of that was fine with the right clothes. The days were already long, with the sun always up before we ever wanted to be, and not setting until 10pm-ish. Flowers and trees were in lovely spring bloom. Some museums and attractions, and even some hotels and restaurants (particularly in the fjordland) are only open in the summer season, which seems to have a “soft open” around May 1, and is in full swing by June 1. We were on the early edge, and there were some things that we couldn’t see because they weren’t open yet, but we were able to do most of what we wanted. On the upside, we very much beat any crowds. Some of the fjord villages swell to bursting when cruise ships start dumping thousands of passengers onto them. We had no trouble with long lines, crowds, or things being booked out, as may happen more in mid-summer.
Notes On Currency
Neither Sweden nor Norway belong to the euro. They both still have their own currencies, both called kroner. The Swedish kroner and Norwegian kroner are different, but both were worth right about a dime when we traveled, making conversion very easy, just slide the decimal point over one. Both countries take credit cards virtually everywhere, tapping to charge. This is the first trip where we never even bothered to get any local currency, and we never missed it.
Notes On Language
English is thoroughly pervasive in Sweden and Norway. I don't think we encountered a single person who didn't speak some English, and most of them spoke it fluently and probably better than many Americans.
Notes On Gluten-Free Food
Sweden and Norway are extremely easy to travel in for the gluten-intolerant. Without exception, every hotel we stayed in had a gluten-free section in their breakfast buffet, with generally nice selections. One or two even offered dedicated gluten-free toasters. The level of understanding about allergies and issues of cross-contamination is very high everywhere we found. We got so spoiled, we stopped even looking for specific gluten-free recommendations, when we realized we could drop in on any random pizza or hamburger place in Norway, and 95% of the time, they would have a gluten-free bun or pizza crust, and could explain to you the steps they were willing to take to avoid cross-contamination. Gluten-free beers are common, and of course cider is a big thing in Scandinavia too. Basically celiac paradise.
Notes On Cost
For two of us, excluding international airfare and souvenirs/purchases, we spent a total of $12,500 for our 16-night vacation in Sweden and Norway, including lodging, food, rental car for 10 days and taxis for the others, local transport (including two air connections within Scandinavia), which is about $780/day for the two of us. That broke down to:- $4,760 for hotels (average $300/night) typically upgraded rooms to get more space,
- $3,936 for food (average $240/day), including a number of high-end dinners at around $300 and one Michelin-star dinner at $600 (but also one amazing fully hosted dinner, so that evened out); lunches typically $30-50; breakfasts always included with hotel
- $2,370 for local transportation ($1160 for 10-day one-way car rental, $525 for taxis, $490 for 2 domestic-ish flights, $280 for airport rides to/from home, $220 for ferries, $185 for parking),
- $700 for entry fees (museums, etc),
- $175 for laundry
Notes On Driving in Norway
A word about the Norwegian roads. They were all well paved, well maintained, and well marked. Width? That’s another matter. Occasionally, we drove on “national roads” that had a proper stripe down the middle and meant that the two-lane road was wide enough for two-way traffic going 80kph (50mph) (the top Norwegian speed limit anywhere). Note this is by no means as wide as an American two-lane highway would be, but I was comfortable doing 50mph. Most of the time we got roads with no middle stripe, which were of variable width. Sometimes those were wide enough for two cars to pass very carefully. When we met opposing traffic (thankfully infrequent), I would slow down, get as far right as I dared, and pull my breath in sharply as if the suction might make our car slightly thinner as the other car passed. Then there were the roads that were clearly not wide enough for two cars to pass, except for occasional wider spots, so the road looked a bit like a snake that had consumed a leisurely 7-course dinner of mice. Roads to places like Bakka and Undredal, and many others we drove were those last kind. Kept me on edge, but totally worth it. We drove through an unending panorama of some of the most awesome scenery anywhere.
Norwegians are quite conservative in their speed limits, with 80kph (50mph) being the top speed we saw posted, even on a multilane limited access highway in Bergen. And for the most part, the Norwegians actually observe the speed limits. But because the limits are conservative, they generally like to drive right at the posted limit, and may get occasionally testy if you’re driving slower than the limit.
In the fjordland, there are some bridges and even more ferries, and they are generally well-organized. With the exception of the long-haul Geirangerfjord ferry, advanced tickets are not needed. We never saw any tollbooths anywhere. They have a license-plate scanning national registration system, where they just automatically scan the cars crossing the bridges and ferries, and the toll gets sent as a monthly bill to the car owner. In the case of rental cars, the rental agency has it wired in, so it will just get added to your car rental bill at the end. This even happened once for a parking lot too.
Notes On EVs in Norway
Norway is the world’s most EV-forward nation. They are aggressively pushing it, and in 2024, over 90% of new car sales were EVs. When I saw the car rental offerings, there were EV choices as well as non-EV choices in every category, and they were comparably priced (as opposed to here in the US, where you pay a premium to rent an EV). We chose to rent an EV, and were mostly happy with the experience, though it did present some challenges. We ended up with a Nissan Ariya, which was wonderful, very comparable to my own Hyundai Ioniq 5, and with all the bells including 360-cameras and a sunroof, and a 500km (300 mile) range, which we never came close to running low. Our longest day was 260km, and most were less, so we never needed to charge mid-day. Some of our hotels had their own charging stations, where we could charge overnight, and that was the most convenient. In other cases, charging stations were not too far away. The problem was not finding charging stations, but it was getting them to work. For whatever reason, no charging stations were set up to simply let you pay by tapping a credit card. Every charging station network has its own app (just like the days when Chevron, Mobil, and Shell all had their own credit cards and didn’t take Visa). I hadn’t planned ahead for that, so I often found myself trying to download a new app on the spot, and get myself registered. Some of them I couldn’t even register. After setting an initial password, they’d want to send me a text message with a code, and sometimes that text message never came. Other times, I’d get registered, but something would go wrong further in the process. At one point, I finally discovered one network that worked for me, and then I just sought out that network wherever I went. (Oddly, in that network’s app, it would always report that my attempt at charging had failed, however it would actually activate the machine, and I ended up getting free charges.) That being said, I would still recommend renting an EV, if you just learn from my hard lessons. It is so nice to drive through those beautiful pristine environments and know that you’re not polluting them. One lesson: only after I got home, I learned that there is an app called Elton that tries to provide a “one-stop shop” for EV charging in Norway. You can set up the Elton app and use it across many of the major EV charging networks. So I would urge downloading that app, register, and get it all set up before you leave home (not like me, trying to do it on the spot). I would also recommend as a back-up getting apps from some of the major networks, and registering on those too. (The networks I saw most often were Mer, Ionity, and Eviny, as well as Tesla.) Note that unlike in America, the Europeans forced Tesla to use the same charging plug that everyone else does, so all of the stations including Tesla are the same CCS plug, and non-Teslas can charge at Tesla stations (and vice versa). Despite my troubles, I was overall glad I rented the EV. I think if you get your apps set up before you leave home, you’ll have an even better experience.
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