In typically “non-rev” fashion, we were on our way to Jackson Hole, WY. and missed the connecting flight to Salt Lake City on Delta Airlines and instead decided to go to Norway, via Delta to Amsterdam and then KLM to Bergen, Norway, because it was “kind of on the way”. We had always wanted to go to Norway and this was our chance.
Bergen is the gateway to the fiords of Norway and a very cute, low key, but a very expensive city. In fact, everything is Norway is expensive, but worth the trip. Norway is very different, a very cool breathe of fresh air.
Bergen is a great town to walk around and and the food (especially the fish soup) and drink are very good. It is very easy to take a 2-hour, 4-hour, or 8-hour trip to see the fiords of Norway with the longest trips going to world’s famous Trolls Tongue Point, a major lookout over the mountains and fiords. We took a shorter trip and well worth it.
Just a note it was not easy trying to spend cash in Norway, in that you are virtually mandated to pay everything with a credit card, and the credit card is virtually never American Express. Even paying for a bathroom(about $1.00) needs to be paid by credit card. It was extremely strange to find that bars also would not take cash, when did you ever hear that?
From Bergen to Oslo, there is a famous 8-hour scenic train tour that departs 3 times a day. This train tour was picturesque and wonderful.
There is a very interesting story concerning this train. On the day we were to depart, we were very disappointed to find out that all the trains were sold out for the entire day. After asking a number of questions, we found out that the train we wanted to take was only sold out between two city stops, 12-minutes apart.
To accomplish taking the train, we actually bought two sets of tickets for each half of the train ride and sat in a beautiful bar car for the 12-minutes that we actually did not have seats.
The bar car was so pleasant, we remained in the bar car for an entire hour before going to our new seats.
Our day in Oslo was equally wonderful but that will be for another article!