Overview; We are a family of 4, two adults and two girls ages 11 and 14. This was my girls first trip to Europe. We spent a total of one month. We spent 10 nights in Norway, 12 nights in Scotland and 7 nights in Ireland in July and August, 2018.
This is my Norway trip report. It was our first visit here. We used Brekke Travel to help us plan this portion of our trip.
Packing; I packed 6 bottles of wine in a separate checked bag to bring with us as I was unsure if I would find wine I liked in Norway and to save some money. This worked great! We checked 4 bags and brought one carry on, on the plane, so we did not have to pay any baggage fees. I had bought wine sleeves and nothing broke. We enjoyed having wine in our hotel before dinner out. When the wine was all gone at the end of our time in Norway, I left the luggage behind as it was a second hand one I would not use again.
I was really glad I stuck a pair of shorts in my luggage as it was 85degrees in Oslo when we landed. That may not be that hot to some, but we are Alaskans. We tried to pack light and planned on having our laundry done several times. Love, love our packing cubes! We all had them.
Itinerary; 2 nights Oslo, 2 nights Flam, 1 night Balestrand, 2 nights Bergen, 2 nights Skudneshavn, 1 night Bergen.
Weather; Sunny skies the whole time. A tad too hot for us in Oslo, but it got better as we moved to the fjord area.
Food; In my perfect planning world, I envisioned us taking advantage of the breakfasts offered at all the places we stayed. Eat a large breakfast, a small snack or nothing for lunch, then an early dinner. Works for me! This was to help keep costs down. What really happened? My kids are not big breakfast eaters and my husband is a three squares a day guy. So, we got lunch several times from the COOP and made sandwiches and if we did have a lunch out, then we tried to eat cheaply for dinner. Still, a family of four eating out in Norway, so expensive! (I did know this beforehand). I even knew that there would be no “foodie” experiences for me, but planned that on another leg of the trip. Usually food is an important component of an enjoyable trip for me. I had to let that go in Norway.
We flew Iceland Air to Oslo from Anchorage, AK. This was our first time flying them and it was fine. We really liked only having one stop to Europe! The Iceland Airport is a bit overwhelmed with people and I would imagine they may have to do some improvements in the coming years.
Day 1; We landed and took the Flytoget train to the city center. Then we picked up our 24 hr Oslo pass. We walked about 4 blocks to our hotel, Thon Hotel Panorama. We had a family room with a cute balcony with a nice view of the city and opera house. The breakfast buffet was great. However, the lift was tiny, but we were glad to have it! The hotel had no AC, but we opened all the windows and patio door, and asked for a fan and we were fine. We would stay here again.
I was hoping we would have time to visit the Vigland Sculpture Park on our arrival day, but it didn’t happen. Our oldest did not feel well and we were too tired. So we grabbed burgers and called it a night.
Day 2; We all woke feeling refreshed and thank goodness, my daughter felt better. We took the ferry to the Bygdoy peninsula and did all the museums. The Viking, Flam, Folk and Kon-Tiki. They were all good, but I think my favorite was the Folk as it was mostly outside and the others were sooo hot inside! I was dripping sweat the whole day!
That evening, we took the tram to Frogner park to see the sculptures. We had fun trying to find the Angry Child sculpture! Glad we did this, but we were dragging. Jet lag was hitting harder than I expected.