Back to Europe and balmy Scandinavia

For the final two weeks of our nine month travels we squeezed in one last trip and feeling like a change from the steamy sweaty tropics, decided on somewhere completely different - Norway. Having always sidelined Scandinavia for summer holidays in favour of the warm mediterranean, it felt like now was the time to visit.

We were joined by Jon, Ali's brother, for this trip and met him en route to Oslo. Having made a detailed plan for most of the trip, Jon was massively upstaging us as better prepared for this trip and as we passed through the duty free, he pointed out that the locals were going rather crazy for the booze, suggesting this may be a strong hint about the cost of drink, and everything, in this country.

We checked in to the hostel where our room was costing over three times the usual hotel room budget, just a little worried that we had dropped ourselves into the biggest budget-busting location yet but eager to explore.  Having packed all the warmest clothes we could muster, we now found ourselves sweltering in the unexpected evening heat as we began strolling around Oslo. Apparently it is the hottest start of summer for 100 years! Its a delight to be visiting a European city once again, with cafe-lined boulevards, grassy palace gardens and clearly a prosperous culture. The Norwegians were out everywhere, eating drinking and even sunbathing in the evening sun. 

With just one full day in the city we planned a packed day visiting the National Gallery to see the famous Scream portrait by Norway's Edvard Munch, the Nobel Peace Center (where the only Nobel prize is awarded outside of Sweden) for an exhibition on the current winner, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and Vigeland sculpture park where over 200 large nude sculptures are incredibly popular.

The train journey west across the country to Bergen, the second city, gave us our first glimpses of the incredible beauty of the country as we travelled at high speed across the central mountains and marvelled through the window at the rolling spectacular of mountain, lake and waterfall vistas with complementary verdant trees and white snow shining in the bright sun. Wow! 

Bergen is a small, attractive coastal city and we were very content strolling the streets around the lake and the harbour where old woodhouses make up the historic waterside wharf and visiting a modern art museum. We went swimming at a busy local pool and ate a picnic lunch in the castle gardens where locals were relaxing and sunbathing on a public holiday. For a day we were locals and even stayed in a suburban apartment we found on Airbnb, feeling a bit guilty that the owner had moved herself into a small room upstairs to rent it out to tourists. Nearby we took the Ulriken cable car quickly up into the mountain wilderness where the view across the city, mountains and out to sea were incredible and we briefly sampled the popular local traditions of hiking.