Norway Fjords/Sweden - Day 15 - Stockholm 1

Today is my last day in Oslo. It's good. Part of me wishes I could have gone home from here today. But three more days in Stockholm! There is nothing much else in Sweden (for now) so better see Stockholm now since its barely a 5 hr train ride from Oslo.

It started easy going today, my kind of day. Breakfast was as usual...getting boring. I went to Normal to get my chips and mini toothpaste. I don't need anything else, oh - and got my little Normal bag as memento. The train is at 11:43 am so left hotel at 11 am. Train was on time but not as fast as I was expecting. We got in 10 mins late to Stockholm. The scenery was okay. Fall colors were a bit on display. I had gotten some spinach pastry and sweet stuff from Narvesan at the Oslo station. Both were really tasty. Funny thing is no one checked my ticket!

Stockholm was busy!! There is a huge mall right in front of the station. And when I took the left turn to get to my hotel (Queens Hotel), that is all an open mall. Saw a food mall on the way. There is just too much shopping stuff. I am walking through all this and thinking its all a waste of time and money! Walked and dragged my luggage for about 1 km to the hotel. They did not have my reservation. Had to call Silvia to get it set which she did. But there should never have been any problem to begin with. Anyway...all set. The room is okay, a single bed room. I find these a bit small but its okay. I'll survive! 

Went out to walk a bit. I did not want to walk towards Gamla Stan as I want to do that on Wednesday. Walked towards Hotorget, but things seem to be wrapping up. There is a lot of shopping going on in this area. 

Walked towards the Central station. Decided to go to the food place to eat something. Got some pasta. It was okay. I could not finish it so had to leave some. Not eating such heavy food again so late in the day. 

Decided to check out the subway station. Activated my 72 hr. train pass. The first time in the subway is always an adventure and Stockholm has many lines. I wanted to take the green one, but ended up on the blue one since it was there right as I was walking. I went up to Solara Centrum and took some pictures and then took the train back. Its good! I think I will be able to make it to Drottingham palace tomorrow.

That's it for my day today. Tomorrow should be fun!

Norway Fjords/Sweden - Day 14 - Oslo 5

Today is museum day. I got ready and had breakfast by 9am. Bought the Oslo card for 1 day online. I want to see at least three museums and use the public transport, so it should work out. 

First stop is City Hall. It opens at 9 am so I should have left earlier but reached there around 9:45 am by taking tram #11. The back side of the city hall is getting renovated, so it kind of looks bad. Anyway, the front entrance is on the other side. It is a wonderful entrance! A fountain and sculptures. I would have missed this! The inside also was amazing. I thought I was the only one there, but there were many tourists inside. There were wall to wall paintings, huge tapestries and wonderful chandeliers. All in all a great visit! And all for free. Spent about 1 hr here.

I need to take the ferry to the museums now. There is a special ferry for that on port "F". It was good, took all of 5 mins to get to the other side. They did check the Oslo pass here. Got off at the Fram museum. 

Fram

I really did not know what the Fram museum was about and I was pleasantly surprised. It was the first person, a Norwegian who set foot on the North Pole. Fram was the name of the ship. The original ship was there along with a lot of the original items. I found it fascinating since I had read the book on the captain who took the trip to Antarctica. This museum was full of information and history dating back to 1890s. There was so much reading to do, but I could not spend so much time here. I still spent over an hour reading, taking photos and admiring all the work these brave men did. It really takes a different kind of human being to be in these kinds of ships in such harsh conditions for so long. 

Next to the Fram museum is the Kon-Tiki museum. Again, no idea what this was. Apparently it was a journey of 6 men from South America to Easter Island on a raft in the 1940s. It took about 100 days for them to get there. Again, adventurous men! There was another raft there, Ra, which was made of papyrus and also used to sail to one of the islands. This was in 1969. Again, too much reading there. I figured I will read about it later on the internet.

Kon Tiki

The third museum there was the Maritime museum. I would not have visited this if I did not have the Oslo card. There was not much of my interest here. There were some nice paintings though. And a cafe....so I had an egg sandwich ($5). It was about 2 pm now.

Took bus #30 to the Cultural Museum. Had to change the bus to go in the other direction to reach the museum. I was expecting this to be like any other museum, but I was so wrong! 

There were four buildings making a square, each had things in it, historical items (clothes, house stuff, furniture etc.). This itself took one hour, and then there was the open air museum. This was a lot of buildings built outside in real dimensions to show what life was like in Norway. 

There was a lot of walking involved. There was also a stave church. This one had the original interior and some original pillars - about 1100 AD. The exterior was rebuilt. This church was much better than what I saw in Bergen. Walked around more, did not go to the farm side, but saw old Oslo streets. Very nice. It is a nice way to learn your history. There were many tourists there and probably locals too. It is about 4 pm now, and I need a cup of tea, so had one at their cafe.

Last thing on my list was the Ekeberg Garden. Took #30 bus to Solli and changed to #13 tram to get directly to Ekeberg. I thought I would be the only one there, but it was crowded! 

I knew there were sculptures there but not how and where. The museum would be closed by now. I think I heard about Ekeberg when I want to the Munch museum. Edvard Munch lived around this area. I can see why he would be so inspired to paint and draw. The location is high up and one get get a nice view of Oslo.

There was a lot of uphill in this park. I was not prepared for it. I had been on my feet since 10 am, but thank God for good shoes! The sculptures were everywhere. I reached the restaurant in the park, where is the best viewing for Oslo city. Really can see all the key points. Saw the map and realized that the maximum number of sculptures can be seen over 1.5 km walk. Okay then! The trek was  hard in the beginning, all uphill, but there were sculptures dispersed everywhere so it was nice to just go slow and enjoy. The most entertaining and big sculpture (or was it?) the light display in the forest. There were strings and strings of light that were changing colors, and music was playing. It was just magical forest. It was the most crowded place.

Went on to do the whole loop. I really enjoyed so many of the sculptures. These artists have really amazing imagination and the ability to bring it to a physical form. It was totally worth it. I would recommend about 2 hours for this park and come around sunset. I did not see much of a sunset because it was cloudy. It was after 6:30 pm when I was done....and boy I was done. I was just tired of being on my feet all day. 

Took the #19 tram to the central station and made it to my room. Had chips, peanuts, chocolate and will top it off with 2 advils - hehe. I am beat today. But really had a good day.

Norway Fjords/Sweden - Day 13 - Oslo 4

And I am going back to Oslo. Yesterday when I checked the train status, I kind of felt that it might be cancelled, but I wanted to wait until today to confirm. And yes, it is cancelled and they are providing bus to take us to Oslo. 

Got up at 6 am to get ready and was out of the hotel by 6:45 am. The station is not far so no issues there. Met someone at 7:15ish who was guiding passengers towards the buses. There were three buses and they separated the passengers according to their destinations. Very good organization. My driver was a doppelganger of Carlos! Good driver. I sat in the front, thank God. The scenery for about 6 hours was amazing! It was an eight hour drive. We started on time.

Within 2 hours I started seeing snow topped mountains near Oppdal and that is how it was for the next 3 hours or so. It was also snowing in some places. Yeah, the temperature was 0oC.  The scenery was just wonderful. I can see why Donbas is on the list for people to visit. It is beautiful. There were waterfalls on the way, a mountain stream turning calm and fast was going along the road (Hwy E6). We had to make stops in different stations since the train had been cancelled so we had to drop and pick up passengers, but the bus never got completely full. At 12pm the driver stopped for 30 mins to eat lunch, that is when I had mine too. My pita bread had gotten soggy, but it was still okay.

After Lillehamer, the scenery was more like Switzerland, lakes and beautiful hills and the mountain river going along the highway. This went on for 2 hours. So beautiful. I enjoyed the drive, taking photos and listening to my podcasts.

As we neared Oslo, the highway became 4 lane. The traffic has not been that much. I still don't want to drive here alone. People are very nice here though.

Reached Oslo around 5 pm. Walked to the same Comfort Karl Johan hotel and checked in. It's like coming home! I got a nice room this time, on the 3rd floor.

Today I wanted to see the public library, so walked there. It is right next to the central station. I thought that building was an office building, but it is a 5 story library, with 2 floors in the basement. It is huge! It has stuff for everyone, even tourists like me. On the way back, went to the central station and got a slice of pizza from 7-11 and walked around the mall. I don't need anything. Part of me wants to go to Normal shop, but again, I don't really need anything! Maybe tomorrow I will go and buy a small toothpaste since mine is running out.

Walked back to the hotel and waited till dark, as I want to see what the Opera house looks like at night. Ventured out at 7 pm and took some night shots of all the glass buildings, the library, opera house and Munch. It was a nice walk. The walk towards Karl Johans Gate was not great. There is no night life.

That's it! 

Norway Fjords/Sweden - Day 12 - Trondheim 2

Three days ago I was on Facebook and on the JourneyWoman group someone had posted about going to Norway and asked for advice about the Hurtigruten cruise. I was on it right then!! Anyway, one lady, Brenda (name changed for privacy) replied that she was in Trondheim and could help. I wrote to her that I would be there and would love to get her advice on what to see. She said she could meet. I did not expect that. So we messaged and within two days decided to meet today, Friday, in Trondheim. So....today is the day! I have nothing planned today as I have seen the major places, so now I will see what Brenda has planned and go from there.

But first, breakfast - it was great! Roasted vegetables and potatoes (my first breakfast potatoes in 11 days!!), pancakes, fried eggs...the spread at Thon is just amazing. I would need to stay here 3 days to try all the things they had here. I ate my fill today. Did not do much till 12 pm since Brenda is coming then.

Went downstairs to wait for her in the lobby. She was prompt, recognized me right away. I had not bothered to check anything about her (I should have!) but sometimes surprises are good, and she definitely was a surprise. Let me just start by saying that my day did not go at all as I was thinking...it was sooo much better. 

We talked a bit and then ventured out towards the cathedral. We went inside a church near the square, I had seen it yesterday but did not go in myself. This church was open for charity services, it provided meals and a place for the homeless and poor. Really what I think any religious place should do with pubic money. We sat there for a while. The next stop was the summer palace and then we went for a coffee to the Pilgrims place, which is a rest stop for pilgrims on their walk. It is the pilgrimage walk of St. Olav. The place was very nice, comfortable and had a cafe that sold food and coffee. We both had cake can coffee and talked for about one hour. She is so easy to get along with. She is also a fellow traveler, maybe that helps.

The royal palace

The pilgrimage place

She asked me here what kind of food I eat, and I mentioned to her that I was a vegetarian. She made a call to her husband to make sure they had vegetarian soup for the evening. I did not realize I was going to go to her house for dinner! OMG...I have not met anyone like her before. 

She told me a lot of things about Trondheim and the places we were at that I would never known myself. It really does matter to know someone in that place. 

From there we went to get on the bus (#22) to go to the Tyholt tower, which is actually a radio tower. She paid for my bus ticket, I could not help it because she had the app for it. After 20 mins of waiting the bus came. The funny thing is we were on the wrong direction bus, I think she had not realize that. But for me it was interesting, because I got to see quite a lot of the city. We finally looped back to where we had begun and went in the direction of the tower. On reaching there, I did not know we were going to go up, but we did. There is a revolving restaurant up there! I did not see any of this in any tour guide. Up the tower gave us great views of the city. I would have never seen this place if it wasn't for Brenda. We went round the restaurant to see all views and she called her husband to pick us up, which he did quite quickly.

We drove to her apartment. She did not let me do anything while she warmed the soup, set the table etc. Chris, her husband was as nice as her. Amazing couple. I am blessed to meet such wonderful people. We all talked as if we were old friends. Soup was great. They served Norwegian flat bread, which was like our papad, and finally ice cream. All just perfect. We sat for some more time and soon I requested to take their leave, and they dropped me to my hotel. 

I am writing my day, but I my feelings of gratitude and love and friendship may not be easy to write. It has been such a memorable day for me. Just yesterday I was thinking what the heck I am going to do all day Friday, and God said, you just wait! I am going to make it the best day in Norway for you. I enjoyed the day and the company and can easily say it was a perfect day.

I finished it off by going to the Turkey eatery to pack a falafel for tomorrow's train journey. And they were very nice there and packed the sauce and falafel separate so things don't get soggy. Just nice!

What a great day. 

Norway Fjords/Sweden - Day 11 - Trondheim 1

Good morning on the ship. Had to check out by 8 am so got up by 7 and packed up to go. Had to wait until 9:45 am to reach Trondheim. Went to the lounge and lounged around. It is kind of nice to get off the ship. I am not sure I would be able to do 12 days of solo on a cruise. Maybe? I have to give it a try someday.

The walk to my hotel is just about one mile. It was not a bad walk. It is cold here though. I saw the Rockeim museum building on my walk. The view on crossing the bridge was lovely.

The Thon Hotel staff is nice and even though its only about 10 am, they give me a room. Its a one person room but comfortable enough. And there is tea in the room! Awesome. I have not had anything this morning, so tea is welcome. After a hot cup, I am ready to venture out. I made my walk plan. There is really not much to do here. to the hotel and I am not going to any museum for now. So the remaining is the Cathedral and the city.

As I start my walk, I see there are plenty of places to eat in case I want to tomorrow. I walk towards the cathedral and run into food trucks in Stiftsgarden. Stiftsgarden is a huge square with empty space, I guess for events. There is a mall on one side and offices and restaurants/hotels on other sides. Since I have not had breakfast, I thought I would check out the food trucks. I found one that made Danish pancakes. I thought I would try that out. It was 8$ but worth it. I love these pancakes! I am going to make them when I get home. The poor guy's card scanner was not working, but he figured it out. I was his first customer today.

Now...on to the Nidaros cathedral. First I was just planning to walk around, but since its only 12 pm, I decided to visit and be done with it. The outside is quite complex and interesting with a lot of burials around the church. I bought the 12$ ticket and went in. It was a nice church. It is about 900 years old - well, it started small and progressively got larger and larger. I always love the stained glass work and huge organs in these churches. Spent about 45 mins here and then time to move on. 

Crossed the bridge to get to Bakkalandet, an old city area. It was a nice walk towards it. There are many many apartment buildings, not so many standalone houses here. The colors are nice, the gardens are lovely. Despite the cold weather, flowers are still blooming everywhere. Here in Trondheim, fall has arrived, the foliage has definitely changed colors. 

Bakkalandet was a cute area designed in the colorful houses joined together (Bergen style). Many restaurants and small shops. Its a small area - just 3 blocks. The wooden bridge is also here - big ado about nothing. Fine, I will take a picture of the bridge. Going on the bridge though gives a nice view of the buildings on both sides...really pretty. 

I skipped the fortress. The Norway fortress are nothing but a bunch of stones put together as a room. The walk back is also scenic.

And that's it! It's only 2 pm and I have seen it all. On the way back stopped at Rema1000 to get some chocolate, a croissant and some peanuts - really like those jalapeno peanuts. In retrospect I should not have gotten the croissant - the hotel has a light dinner in the evening. Came back to the hotel, ate the croissant and had some peanuts and one piece of chocolate. All this more than 10,000 steps of walking I am doing everyday has done nothing to my weight. 

The most thing I am missing about food is vegetables and fruits. And hot food. Thai food in Bergen was really good because it was all that. Maybe I will get some good food tomorrow.

At 5 pm decided to go out to the mall for a walk. I though the square would be busy, but its not. It is a bit colder now and sort of drizzling. The mall was well....a mall. I don't need anything so for me it was just walking around. Prices are too high for everything, although they do have some cool stuff here for kitchen and some of those greeting cards were good. 

Came back by 6 pm and around 6:30 went for the dinner. It was amazing! They had wonderful roasted vegetables, spinach soup, omelets, fruits, salads, pasta salad, breads....wow!! What a spread. And they had wine for drink! The chef was so nice she made me a vegetarian omelet - so tasty! I really wish I had not eaten that croissant. 

That is it. That is my day today. Tomorrow, not much to do as it will be more cold and somewhat rainy out there. That's okay. I am ready to go back to Oslo.

Norway Fjords/Sweden - Day 10 - Hurtigruten Cruise

During the cruise today there were two stops, I did not do the first one (Urke) as it was rainy, the second one was Alesund which I visited.

The night was a little disturbed but not too much. There was a call about seeing northern lights around 10 pm and I had changed to my pajamas, but I wore my jacket over it and went out, but did not see anything. Some people did see some though. 

Today is a rainy day. Thank God I have some little windows to peep out of my cabin or it will be hard to get any bearing. I think deck 1 is without windows. I am deck 2. I still feel like Jack on Titanic. But with wifi and drinking water - LOL.

The bathroom and the room itself are quite comfortable. There is ample hot water and soap etc. Cabin is designed well for two people. I ate my left over pizza bun and an oatmeal bar for breakfast. Had some mildly warm tea (made from the hot water from the tap - hehe).

Outside is raining, but the scenery is something else. If the clouds were not there, it would have been fantastic. Many islands on the way, small villages on the main land and islands. We were now going through the Hjorundfjord to get to Urke and then we will come back to Alesund. The scenery was just amazing! High mountains, lots of waterfalls, snow topped mountains, and some houses on these islands main land. I think some of these houses are not occupied, but a lot of them at electric power lines. I could see roads and some cars moving along. At one point we some some small whales jumping around....wow! It was hard to capture them on camera, but fun to watch.

Today I think I can really say that I have felt that I have seen the nature of Norway that I had pictured in my head. Although it turned out to be even more beautiful! 

The stop at Urke was at 12:00 pm for two hours but I did not get off to tour. It was raining and I did not have good shoes. I don't think its that exciting to see a small village. Came to my cabin and took a nap. Then ate my fried rice I had gotten packed. It was actually quite good even cold. Went to sit up on the 7th floor, then roamed on the 5th floor. Now we were going through the fjord again to get to Alesund. We got to admire the scenery again and I took more photos. At 4:30 there was a short presentation on Norway and the program for tomorrow. They had a really funny video on Norway! 

Had a cup of coffee and croissant ...had to. I was feeling cold and a bit hungry. Both were okay.

At 6 pm we stopped at Alesund. I was going to take a walk here since it was not raining anymore. Actually it was drizzling a bit but stopped after 10 mins or so. The cruise staff scanned our cards and gave us a map to walk around. It is a small nice town. It's amazing that it is so developed. There are looks of Bergen and modern buildings too. I walked about 15 mins to the city and came back. It was a nice walk. Not too much going on but nice buildings.  There was public transportation, and here also I saw some middle east immigrants, and of course a Thai and Chinese restaurant! It was cold though and since the ground was wet, my shoes and socks were getting a bit wet. I was definitely not ready for winter touring. I really need to buy some waterproof shoes.

Came back by 6:45 pm. We were to stop here till 8 pm as there was also an excursion going on. I spent too much time on X and Threads and YouTube today. I downloaded some podcasts also for my train journey from Trondheim to Oslo. 

At 8:15 pm the crew showed a documentary on northern lights. It gave a nice background and explanation of how they are formed and of course how and where to see them. God willing someday I will see them. I think this time it may not happen. It is a bit early for it and also cloudy.

Not much else to do so I am back in my cabin.

This Hurtigruten cruise is interesting. It is a small ship so it can go through fjords, but it can hold I think about 400 passengers. It is a transport ship also, so it stops at many ports for just 5-10 mins to drop off or pick up goods. It is very comfortable. Staff are all nice. It is expensive though. At this time there are about 300 passengers on board and most of them are above 50 years of age. It seems more like an adults only cruise. Really the major age group is 60-80. Any one who I talk to said, if not now then when? True. And that this is their dream cruise vacation and of course to see Norway. Well, I am glad I got to do it now at my young age of less than 60. There is still more to see in Norway, but I think I have done more here than most people generally do. 

Norway Fjords/Sweden - Day 9 - Bergen 4

It is time to pack up and check out day. Got ready and had breakfast (same old stuff) and checked out by 9:15 am. Had to store my luggage till evening. The hotel gave me a key for a room on 2nd floor (breakfast room) and I went up there. Mine was the only luggage - hehe.

My boat tour to Mostraumen was at 10 am. They boarded at 9:40ish. Of course I got the window seat. A Spanish family came to sit on my table. The seating was a table with 3 chairs on either side like a booth. Very comfortable. I did not even realize there was an outside area until later. Anyway, the boat departed on time and all scenery from start to finish was beautiful. After about 20-25 mins, the city was left behind and the hills got more wild. There were very few houses - again I am amazed how Norwegians live in so much isolation. The scenery got even better, now the fjords were appearing, high mountains on both sides of the boat and some narrow passageways to get through. I am sure it looks fabulous from the air. On the ground its beautiful but aerially will be best. Saw some waterfalls also. Reached the end of the one way journey and turned around. Except for a few spots where the captain slowed down, coming back was much faster. 

We were back around 1:30 pm. I still had until 4 pm to walk around. Went to the tourist shops again. Saw the Christmas shop. Quite cute, but America has bigger and better ones. One of these days I will have to visit some European country during Christmas. Walked around till 2 pm. Found a Thai place to eat lunch. Their lunch portions were small - just enough, but price was still higher. But what to do in a touristy place. Got them to make a fried rice lunch dish for me to take for tomorrow, as I don't have meals on the boat.

Came back to the hotel and sat until 4 pm. Collected my luggage and walked to the ship. It was about 1 km walk which went by quite fast since the I was enjoying the buildings. 

I checked in at the Hurtigruten terminal and got my cabin (218). We were asked to wait in the lounge where they had some coffee and pastries (always sweet stuff, never any namkeen!). After about 25 mins, we were told to come to conference room for a safety talk. That lasted about 15 mins and then we could board. It was 5 pm, but we could not check in to our rooms until 6 pm. So got on the ship and waited. Then my key did not work, so had to get that changed; my little windows were shut, so got them opened. Now I am good! 

Now with my stuff all in, I can go and explore the ship. It's not a huge ship, quite small actually. Three restaurants and a buffet place and one or two conference rooms. They do have a hot tub, sauna and fitness room. Its a nice ship. But the food items are seriously all non veg. I was thinking of taking this cruise for 11 days, go all up to Tromso and down to Trondheim to come back to Oslo. I could have done it. Of course, my cost would have doubled and also the time. Well...another time. I will see one day of the Norway coastline. 

There was an information session at 7:30 pm. Quite informative, but more for people with 11 days trip. I will be off this ship on Thursday morning. Tomorrow I can go for two coastal trips on my own. 

Then it was time for the ship to leave the dock. Oh...time to say bye to Bergen. It was a nice city. I think I like it better than Oslo. The lights are on now and its pretty sight. I sit down and eat some nuts when this old couple is debating whether to sit on my table. I asked them to join me. They are a 75-72 year old couple from Netherlands. Very nice. Talked to them for 20 mins and then left. I am done for the day. 

It's been a nice day. Looking forward to tomorrow.