My husband and I have been to Norway once before, back in 2015. This time when it came up on our radar, it was for just my daughter and myself. We planned this back in January and had high hopes of going north and seeing much more, but that did not happen. My mother passed just a few weeks before we planned this, so I was not in the mental state to plan a longer, more involved trip. So we did the best with the time we had and the energy that I had for planning. We also were somewhat constricted as we had e-credits with Delta that had to be used by September 1, so we were a bit rushed for time.
Anyway, we decided to forego a rental car and the north and just take the easy way out and book through Fjord Tours and do Norway in a Nutshell with Lysefjord added in.
We flew on Delta from SEA on August 21, arriving into Oslo the afternoon of the 22nd. At the airport we purchased r/t tickets on Flytoget and went to track 3 to catch the train into Oslo itself. It was then a short walk to our hotel, Thon Hotel Astoria. By this time it was late afternoon and we were hungry and tired. Upon their recommendation we headed to Fiskeriet Youngstorget which was just a few blocks away. We both had the fish soup, which was excellent! After that we were exhausted, so headed back to the hotel and were in bed for the night by 5pm.
The next morning we headed to the bus station with tickets in hand. The driver could not get our tickets to sscan, but let us on anyway and we were on our way to Kristiansand. Upon arrival, the rain was just absolutely dumping. We are from Seattle, so are used to it, but this was just a torrential downpour that would not stop. We quickly walked over to the train station to continue on to Stavanger. That short walk completely drenched us and our suitcases, which have always held up great to the rain, but not this day.
We arrived and found our way to our apartment for the next few days, which was right next to the Valberget Tower. First order of business was to lay everything out to dry. The apartment had a washer/dryer, so we used Google translate to figure out the options to just use the dryer.
We wandered the town a bit and got the lay of the land, and then headed to dinner at Fisketorget, right down on the harbor. They had fish soup, which was very good, cocktails and then we shared a strawberry rhubarb compote with pistachio.
After dinner we continued to wander and shop. All the locals were wearing nice poncho jackets, not like a poncho we think of here at home. We had no intention of buying another jacket, but these seemed so usable that we both ended up buying one. I also found a beautiful sweater that I could not resist. After this we were off to the grocery store for breakfast items and I was thrilled to find my favorite Icelandic Skyr!
The next morning we met up at the tourist information building and were off for a kayaking trip on the Lysefjord. The drive there was beautiful and we were able to stop for a photo op. There were only 5 of us, so a nice small group. We arrived at the outfitter, Nordic Paddling, and got suited up and walked down to the water. We spent a full 3 hours on the water kayaking. Our guide was excellent and our group was a lot of fun. We went into Smuggler's Cove and saw so many sea stars. They are very different then here at home as they are tiny, only about 3" diameter whereas ours are quite large at around 7" most often, and larger. We did doge 3 big boats in the fjord and a few private boats. The water got quite choppy the last hour and we were rowing into the wind, so had to work hard.
Once back in Stavanger we were hungry for lunch so went back to the place we had dinner the night before, Fisketorget. We sat outside this time and had the catch of the day which was a white fish in the cod family, with vegetables. Very good!