Tomorrow I will undertake a very exciting 2.5 week holiday, I'm off to travel around Norway partly on my own and partly with my Dad and I am beyond excited! This holiday is a little random I must say, as a keen traveller I have many detailed lists of places I want to go and Norway isn't exactly top of the pile. So why am I going there for so long I hear you ask? Well in all honesty I'm not sure why. This year my holiday allowance at work shot up from 28 days to 39.5 days so first thing I decided to do was make the most of the Easter bank holidays and book myself a big trip. The next step was to decide where on earth I wanted to go. Perhaps my recent trip to Iceland had something to do with it but I've been sort of obsessed with Scandinavia recently and the fact that Northern Norway is in the 'Arctic circle' sounded pretty darn cool. I've been to Oslo before and whilst I did enjoy my couple of days there it was far from a favourite city of mine. However, after a little research into the Scandinavian countries and discovering just how big and beautiful Norway is I decided to take the plunge and book some flights. Also I might as well add I really want to see the Northern Lights and in March you have to go very north so in that respect going to Norway made perfect sense. I spoke to my uncle and cousin who had been on a short trip around the country, they gave me excellent advice for places to visit and combined with my love of maps and planning trips I eventually came up with my perfect route.
So here goes:
Stavanger - Bergen - Flam - Dombas - Alesund - Trondheim - Bodo - Lofoten - Narvik - Tromso - Alta - Nordkapp - Kirkenes - Oslo
The trip is going to be action packed and fast moving, I'm in most places for 1 night and will be doing an awful lot of travelling via boat, bus, train and plane. Dad will meet me in Lofoten and after getting the bus to Narvik and Tromso we will rent a car and drive across the wild north. In Oslo I want to go on a mini Edvard Munch pilgrimage and check out the 3 Scream paintings I have yet to see. I want to go northern light chasing, check out the snow hotels, take pictures of the beautiful countryside, eat lots of delicious food including reindeer and explore all those little fishermen towns that look to picturesque. It's going to be cold and expensive but the lack of tourists will make up for it. To me Norway is a winter destination hence the reason I am going now and not in the summer, yes a lot of the tourist activites will be shut but bird watching and hiking isn't really my thing. I'm happy to explore museums and discover what Sami culture is all about plus the cold weather means I'll be on the hunt for the perfect hot chocolate in the nicest little cafe. I can't wait!
