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Itinerary help

Hi All,

I'm in the early stages of planning a two week trip to Norway for the first two weeks of August 2020, split into two main sections: 1. Bergen/fjords and 2) Lofoten Islands.
So I’ve thrown together a very rough itinerary, which takes into account a possible 8/8 trail running race i may end up doing near Stranda and the fact we plan a stop over in Iceland on the way over. Does this seem reasonable?

I’d rent a car for both areas:
7/29 - evening red eye flight to Iceland
7/30 - 8/2 Iceland 3 nights
8/2 - fly to Bergen
8/2 - 8/10 driving loop touring Bergen/major fjords areas to north (plus do 8/8 trail race in Stranda)
8/10 - fly from Bergen to Harstad direct (Norwegian Air seems to have good direct flights to and from on Mondays/Fridays...)
8/10 - 8/14 Lofoten area
8/14 - fly back to Bergen direct
8/14 - evening red eye flight from Bergen home
8/14 return to Seattle in evening

Next big questions would be:
1. Is 4-5 days in Lofoten area enough time? How would you divide up that part of trip (stay in which towns?). Does flying into Harstad, renting a car, then flying out of there back to Bergen make sense? Seems convenient seeing i can fly round trip to there from Bergen and then back to Seattle from Bergen thus minimizing other connecting flights (if doing a fjords driving loop starting and ending in Bergen is a resonable idea...).
2. How to spend 7-8 days touring Bergen/fjords area as a loop back to Bergen? What towns to sleep in? What major sights to focus on? Can a couple towns be used as home bases so we don't have to move from town to town/hotel to hotel each night or does the geography of the area kinda require us to keep moving and not stay multiple nights in one town/city?

Thanks for any help!

Posted by
3084 posts

In general possible but 1 day for driving back from Stranda to Bergen is rushed. Maybe choose Trondheim for continueing flight to Harstad or take Hurtigruten port-to-port from Trondheim to Svolvaer. Really beautiful.

Q1: Enough time for what? Seeing Lofoten or also Vesteralen and Senja? Lofoten has no real towns, just villages - Svolvaer

Q2: A car round trip would bring you the most experience. Are you familiar with the official Scenic Routes of Norway? Staying in one place makes not very much sense.

Posted by
7052 posts

Note that Norwegian is cutting routes in order to try some profitability so if they are flying Bergen-Narvik in August (or if the company will exist at all) next year is good question. Another option is to fly to Lofoten, Widerøe offers flights with one stop in Bodø.