We are two seniors, considerable travel experience, never been to Norway; No interest in cruising.
Interested in a hotel/location, for a week (maybe plus) that we can stay, tour, eat local and really get a feel for Norway.
All suggestions welcome!
H & M
That is a very difficult question to answer, there are many places that will fit your description. So please tell us a bit more about what you are looking for.
You don't want to stick to one site, there is so much to see in Norway.
Our last trip to Norway, we did a cruise that visited six ports on the North Sea, all the way to the North Cape. Our ship visited some wonderful fjords and we had excursions that took us to scenic places. Geiranger was the most amazing fjord. Other great places are Flam, Alesund and Stavanger. Bergen is very nice.
The Path of the Trolls is a great trip.
The nice thing about being on a cruise ship is that your meals are furnished as well as lodging. Norway is probably the most expensive country in Europe.
In addition to Oslo, look at Bergen, Tromso, Geiranger, Trondheim.
We are two not quite seniors. I had been meaning to publish a trip report, but didn't quite get to it. Below is both a general and a more specific version of what was a great trip.
We just returned from two weeks in Norway, last week of May and first week of June.
Our itinerary included Oslo, Alesund, Storfjord, Trondheim and Bergen.
Just sharing a few highlights and tips for others planning.
WEATHER
Do bring good rain gear. And your long underwear. May is supposed to be the driest month but we had cold (highs were only about 50F) and rain (7 days). We did not get to do as much outdoors as we might have liked. But we found good indoor pastimes as alternatives including small museums, coffee, beer, etc. We did appreciate the long daylight.
DRIVING
Many have asked about ease of driving in Norway. We thought fine. Roads are well maintained. Google maps never let us down. We had our rental car 7 days from Alesund to Trondheim. Took on ferries easily. Didn’t notice if incurred any tolls. I don’t have my receipt from rental car company to know exactly how I was charged for ferries or tolls. But I did also register the car on ferrypay website. Do watch one of the youtube videos about using the ferry in Norway for the details. The only ferry we had or would have wanted a reservation for was through Geiranger Fjord from Hellesylt to Geiranger. I believe some in line for our late afternoon time did not get on. We found our USA credit cards did not work at gas stations unless we could get to a human. They all worked a bit differently. Sometimes the pump outside had a “pay inside” option. Sometimes not, but if we could get to a human in the attached convenience store they could open the pump for us.
HOTELS
Consider it “revenge” travel but we splurged a bit on hotels and were not disappointed. Had very comfortable rooms and helpful and friendly service at all. All were very good locations. Had very good breakfasts included. Christiania Theater Hotel in Oslo. Hotel 1904 in Alesund. Storfjord Hotel in Storfjord, Bergen Bors Hotel in Bergen. In Trondheim we stayed in an AirBnB. That was a good value and we appreciated some room to spread out with a full kitchen and washer/dryer.
ADVANCE STUDY
There are some fun youtube channels with lighthearted Norwegian history and culture episodes. We especially enjoyed Ronald’s “yourway2norway” channel and Anna Goldman’s channel about living as an expat in Norway. Some good books: Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings by Neil Price (based on more recent archaeological study and reinterpretation) and The Last Viking The Life of Roald Amundsen (the polar explorer) by Stephen Bown.
HURTIGRUTEN
We did just an overnight point to point from Trondheim to Bergen. That was enough of cruise life for us.
I wouldn't want to try to set up camp in one location in Norway. There's too much to see there, and not a lot of the top destinations can be handled as day-trips from each other. Last year, at the age of 71, I spent 27 days in Norway; I'm a slow traveler who walks a lot and seeks out art museums; most people would be pretty satisfied with a shorter trip--and Norway is exceedingly expensive. My itinerary was sort of an elongated loop:
On a shortish trip, taking one of the coastal ferries isn't essential, but I'd want to get a good look at one of the scenic fjords by ferry and/or car/bus. Norway is really more about scenery than about cities. The Norway-in-a-Nutshell route is the easiest way to appreciate rural Norway if you don't have much time and don't want to rent a car. It is designed to give short-time visitors a look at some of Norway's most magnificent scenery. You could visit Oslo and Bergen, using the Nutshell route to travel between them. The Nutshell trip isn't particularly tiring; there are 5 transportation legs, but the connections are very easy. It makes for a rather long day, though, and there's really not time to do much sightseeing on foot along the way if you make it a one-day trip. You're mostly looking a gorgeous scenery through the windows of your train, ferry and bus.
There are flights from Bergen to many other European cities, so you don't necessarily have to start and end your trip to Norway in Oslo.
