After a 18 hrs traveling journey we arrived on the outskirts of Oslo off the plane as the sun is going down at 11pm. This would be the most darkness we would get the entire trip. Looking out the window at quaint farms with uniformly free rolling grasses I touch that feeling I have when I first travel out of country. Feeling transported via a metal box to a completely different environment immediately which feels otherworldly even if it’s an EU country. Everyone is speaking different languages, the scenery is such a change from “golden” California and I am in a problem solver state almost constantly when it comes to getting to where I want to go. In this article, I’ll talk about what I learned about traveling in Norway over 18 days visiting Oslo, Bergen and the Lofoten Islands from Svolvær to Å.
On our honeymoon trip to Norway, Sadie and I spent eight days in the a Lofoten Islands. Along the way we climbed in the rain, hiked mountains, hung out on white sandy beaches and sailed in a fjord. However the main thing we did was a six day bicycle tour from Svolvær down to the end of the road in Å (90mi 5.5k).
We went to Håøya aka Goat Island for a hiking and farm-to-table experience. All we knew about this going in was a recommendation from a friend that said there were free roaming goats and a good bakery on an island outside of Oslo. That was enough!
On our trip to the 300 days of rain, fishing village of a city that is Bergen we decided to take a trek out to an alpine hut. I chose the longest hut from trailhead in the area (Nansenbu) which also turned out to be the most easily accessible by train. The trip was 9 mi and 4200 ft from the train station in Voss to the hut. It featured an unexpected plethora of snow fields, a foot soaking amount of steep muddy trail and a picturesque alpine hut all to ourselves.
