My husband and I are planning a trip to the Ice Hotel in Kiruna, Sweden (late Feb) and then a Hurtigruten ship up the coast of Norway from Bergen to hopefully see the Northern Lights. We have allowed time in between and looking for recommendations for activities and places to visit for winter experiences.
Posted by
Virginia, USA
5508 posts
What is your flight routing between Kiruna and Bergen? I suspect that you may need to fly back to Stockholm from Kiruna? Also, what kind of winter experiences? Most of the ski resorts will offer a variety of activities (cross country, downhill, dogsledding, snowmobiling, sauna, disco, etc.).
Posted by
OP
Golden, CO, USA
5 posts
We will fly back to Stockholm from Kiruna, then take the train to Oslo and probably the Norway in a Nutshell trip with overnight in Flam. We are still working on all of the connections. We are looking to doing a couple of activities such as the dog sledding, snowmobiling trip, possibly a Reindeer sleigh ride. The hotel offers all of these activities at a very steep price, so looking for native options probably out of Kiruna or other town. We are also looking for opportunities to view the Northern Lights. I know this is hit or miss but would like to maximize the opportunity.
Thanks
Posted by
Virginia, USA
5508 posts
Your best bet might be to contact the Kiruna tourist office. These activities do tend to be expensive, but they may be able to suggest some other providers. I haven't been to Kiruna so can't make any personal recommendations. I did see this website which seems to have a lot of activities
http://www.kirunaguidetur.com/english/index.html. You might also just try some searches on the web using Swedish terms. For dog sledding, search for "hundspann" and for snowmobile, try searching for "Snöskoter". If you ice skate, one interesting option from Stockholm is Hellasgården which is a park with a lake about 15 minutes by bus from Slussen. In the winter, once it freezes they plow a skating track. You can rent those long-distance skates with the long blades there. The surface is a bit bumpy, but it is quite a large track. On the weekends there are lots of people ... you"ll even see people skating with baby buggies or pulling their little kids on little plastic sleighs. They also have this little swimming area cut into the ice where crazy people jump in the ice cold water. There is also a sauna there ("bastu" in Swedish). I've done the skating but not the jumping in the water. Check with the tourist office though because the skating does depend on the thickness of the ice. A couple youtube videos from Hellasgården http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIv6NlshMrc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcODjVrJYKU