TWO WEEKS IN NORWAY: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and a Few Ferries Too

Norway. View of the mountains from the train between Oslo and Bergen.

As our train climbed over the mountains between Oslo and Bergen, we looked out the window and  marveled at the expanse of snow that stretched as far as the eye could see. When we stopped at the station, passengers got on holding cross-country skis in their arms. While sea level gardens in Oslo and Bergen were already blooming with tulips and irises, here it was still winter.

Tulips in the city park in Bergen.

At the beginning of May, Art and I spent two weeks in Norway, a country we had never visited before. Art had a scientific meeting in Bergen, so the trip was planned around that, arriving first in Oslo, where we spent a few days getting over jet lag (9 hours from our home in California), then to the meeting in Bergen, and afterward, five days exploring Norway’s west coast. The trip began on a plane from Los Angeles to Oslo (via Copenhagen.) From there we got from one place to another by train, ferry, and driving ourselves in a rented car. (We also took a few local buses and taxis.)

View of Oslo from inside the Opera House. We went to the opera Cenerentola (Cinderella) by Rossini.

In Oslo our hotel was in the center of the city and we could easily walk to most museums, the opera house, the harbor, and restaurants. But to visit the island of Bygdoy we needed to take a local bus. A friend helped us obtain a bus card (available at local shops), but during our trip—on a busy Saturday afternoon on the same day as a marathon race—the conductor never came to collect the fares so we ended up riding for free! 

Stave church at the Folk Museum and our guide, wearing traditional dress. The stave church, built entirely of wood, goes back to the 13th century.

Our destination was the Folk Museum, a living history park with museums, reconstructed farm buildings from elsewhere in Norway, and most famously, a historic stave church, moved there from a village in the mountains in 1880.

View from the train window as we passed through a river valley.

The following day we checked out of our hotel and boarded the train for Bergen. 

View from the train window at the top of the pass.

During the seven-hour trip we watched the landscape speed by outside the window—first past suburbs, then farmland, river valleys, small villages, and gradually up to snow covered mountain passes, then back down to more river valleys, fjords, and finally to Bergen on Norway’s west coast. It was an exhilarating trip.

Our hotel, the red building at the left, was part of a row of historic buildings lining the wharf in Bergen.

In the Middle Ages, Bergen was Scandinavia’s biggest city, due to its role as a trading center, largely as a distributor of fish from Norway’s coast. While the trading culture of the past is gone today, its heritage is preserved in Bryggen, the part of the city along the wharf which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

Our ship, part of the Hurtigruten line, at the dock in Bergen.

After four days in Bergen, we set off for the city of Alesund to the north, taking an overnight ferry on which we had booked a cabin. As we sailed out of the harbor we watched the sun set at 10pm from the lounge on the top deck, only to wake up a few hours later in our cabin to find that the sun had risen again. 

View of the coastline from the ship.

As we cruised northward, we saw snow-capped mountains rising above a rocky coast, small farms and villages, and the occasional lighthouse. 

A brief stop at a village along the way to Alesund.

While most of the other passengers on the Hurtigruten ship were going all the way to the top of Norway, past the Arctic Circle, on an organized tour, we got off at the first stop, Alesund.

View of Alesund from the city park.

In 1904, most of Alesund was destroyed by a catastrophic fire. With help from other European countries, it was rebuilt, providing the opportunity for new architecture in the Art Nouveau style. Almost every building features some kind of ornament. Again, most of the museums and parks in Alesund were within easy walking distance from our hotel in the center of town.

Beginning of the path to the overlook of the cliff nesting sites on Runde.

Our final excursion was to the island of Runde, famous for its bird nesting cliffs. It is about a two-and-a-half hour drive from Alesund. We rented a car at the Alesund airport and set off for Runde, relying on our GPS to get us there. In Norway, most roads follow the shoreline of the fjords, islands and peninsulas that make up the Norwegian coast, connecting from one to the other usually by bridges or tunnels but sometimes by ferry. 

View from the car ferry between Hareid and Sulesund on Highway 61.

After leaving the main highway connecting Alesund and Bergen, we followed smaller roads along waterways, through coastal farmland (overshadowed by snow covered granite peaks), over bridges and through more tunnels, until finally arriving at a tall one-lane bridge that joins Runde island to the mainland. Luckily, there is not much traffic. 

Bridge connecting Runde to the mainland.

If you see an approaching car when you get to the top of the bridge, you wait at the layby until the car passes, before proceeding down the other side.

View from our hotel room in Fosnavag.

After spending the afternoon on Runde (see my post of May 20) we drove to the nearby town of Fosnavag to our hotel for the night. The next morning, we returned to Runde—going over the same narrow bridge again—for more bird watching, before returning to Alesund and getting ready for our early morning flight back to the United States.

Sunrise at 4:36am on our way to the Alesund airport.

Our two weeks in Norway were filled with fascinating visits to museums and other tourist sites, but the process of getting there--whether by plane, train, automobile or ferry--was half the fun. 

On the train from Oslo to Bergen.