By: Samie

Travel Date: June 3rd, 2023

Total Honeymoon Travel Days: 6

Day 3

(First Part of Norway in a Nutshell, Oslo-Bergen)

The rising sun of day 6 of our honeymoon and day 3 in Norway marked the start of the main attraction we booked when we first decided we wanted to honeymoon in Norway: Norway in a Nutshell.

If you’ve never heard of Norway in a Nutshell, I will give you the quick low-down. Norway in a Nutshell is an extremely popular tour that allows you to experience popular destinations and sights, both natural and man-made, across the Norwegian landscape using several different modes of transportation, including famous railways, tour buses, and fjord cruises. There are several tour options so that you can curate the experience for your specific time frame, destinations, and budget. You simply pick and book your tour through the company, and they purchase all the tickets for you! They email them along with the itinerary right to you and save you from booking each individual ticket yourself!

We went with the most popular, year-round tour package, simply called Norway in a Nutshell. This tour included the scenic Bergen Railway, stops through the towns of Voss and Gudvangen, a Fjord Cruise Boat on Nærøyfjord through the Nærøy valley, a stop in the charming fjord village of Flåm, the historic Flåm Railway, and the beautiful singing and dance of the mountain nymphs at the cascading Kjossfossen waterfall.

The start of this amazing adventure was an almost 7 hour (8:25 am to 3:00 pm) train ride on the Bergen Railway from Oslo to Bergen. We could’ve checked out of our Airbnb in Oslo, stay in a Bergen Airbnb, and then check into a new (or possibly the same) Airbnb when we got back. However, to simplify things, we kept our Airbnb in Oslo so that we could keep the bulk of our luggage there and only bring our backpacks on our trip instead of having to lug our suitcases around and have to constantly load and unload it off all the different transportation we would be taking.

We arrived at the Oslo train station by 8:00 for our 8:25 train to Bergen. We were already getting there early, but upon arrival, we discovered our train had been delayed to 8:53, so we grabbed some coffee and breakfast at the Starbucks in the station so that we could have some caffeine and fuel in our system to start the day. We then found our platform and boarded our train to find a comfy spot to enjoy our long train ride. We sat on the left side of the train, and Luke generously let me have the window seat because he knew I would be taking the lion’s share of the photos.

We definitely got to experience a lot over the lengthy journey to Bergen. One of the things that are an inevitable encounter during a big tour such as this one is people interactions. For the first stretch, there was an extremely chatty lady across the aisle from us that wouldn’t stop talking to her seat neighbors about how she had moved to Norway a few years ago. She didn’t shy away from sharing anything and everything she knew and had experienced since moving and even unloaded her personal life. We got to learn all about this guy she was seeing and how her dating life had been going since living in Norway. Fortunately, she didn’t stay on the train the whole time and departed at an earlier station.

A couple rows in front of us was a group of British travelers that were also quite loud and talkative. They enjoyed sharing everything they knew about living in London. Although it was still disruptive and a little bit annoying, their accents were at least a little more fun to listen to than the once American woman. This group also didn’t stay on board the whole time and got off at the stop in Myrdal. We figured they were also doing Norway in a Nutshell, but the opposite way we were doing it, which meant they would be doing the long train ride from Bergen to Oslo tomorrow.

Despite the human interactions being less than ideal, the nature we got to experience along the way was indescribable. It was incredible how diverse and magnificent the landscape was just within the duration of this one train ride. From rolling green hills with quant houses and farms to icy mountain peaks and frozen lakes to rushing rivers and towering forest green trees, it all held its own unique beauty.

Now, we assumed we would have access to Wi-Fi on board because all of our trains up to this point had, but unfortunately we did not. As a reminder, we had not purchased an international phone plan, so we were very dependent on the internet. This made us a little worried about being able to find our Airbnb once we arrived in Bergen because accessing GPS requires internet access. Luckily, we did have a backup plan because we had invested in a Global Calling Card and had printed out a form with all our hosts’ phone numbers in case of emergency.

Fortunately, we hit a stroke of luck at our stop at the Finse Station. While stopped, I noticed there was a hotel, so I quickly pulled up my Wi-Fi settings. Sure enough, we were in close enough range that I was able to connect to the hotel’s guest connection and within the span of our two minute stop, log into my Airbnb account and screenshot as much important information as I could. This included the keypad code, the Wi-Fi network details so that if we could at least get within range our Airbnb we could access the internet if needed, a photo of the door and outside of the building so that we would know it when we found it, and several different map perspectives of our Airbnb in relativity to some different streets in Bergen to better help us navigate where we needed to get to.

This allowed me to relax the rest of the train ride, and I did nap on and off when there wasn’t a change in scenery. Despite the delay in our train departure, we still managed to arrive in Bergen around 3:00.

The Bergen train station spit us out right on the outskirts of Bryggen, the well-known tourist area of Bergen. We enjoyed a scenic 12-15 minute walk over to the harbour and were immediately sucked into the colorful buildings and bustling streets.

If you have never heard of Bryggen, a photograph of this area is likely one of the first things you would come across when looking into Norway. It is a series of Hanseatic heritage commercial buildings lining up the eastern side of the Vågen harbour within Bergen. Since most of the buildings are traditionally made from wood, this area has experiences many fires from the start of the buildings being taken over by the Hanseatic merchants. Only about a quarter of the original buildings remained after several fires and demolitions at the turn of the 19th century. Bryggen today still holds the appearance it would have during the time of the Hanseatic League with its long narrow rows of buildings facing the harbour and separate by narrow wooden passages.

We were in complete awe walking through the historic streets and passageways. All the old wood creaked in an enlivening way under our feet with each step we took. The stunning building facades couldn’t help but catch the eye. A few of the buildings were under construction, but they kept up the facade for tourists and visitors by draping a cover over the entire front of the building to match what the building would actually look like.

While exploring Bryggen itself, we also made our way into many shops and got to do some souvenir shopping. We had purchased a little troll wearing a sweater with the Icelandic flag while in Iceland because trolls are a large part of the culture in the Scandinavian countries. While shopping, we found a mini troll that was identical to the one we got in Iceland except wearing a sweater with the Norwegian flag on it, so of course we had to get it to make an adorable matching set. We were also able to find a jar of cloudberry jame, which was another one of our must-try food items that we were unsuccessful in finding at any of the grocery stores in Oslo, a very cozy and trendy blue Norway hoodie for me, a Bergen magnet, and a beautiful local print as one of our family gifts.

After our successful shopping and adventuring through the unique and multiple story buildings, we were hungry and ready to start making our way to our Airbnb and stop for dinner along the way. We were hoping we could find a place to connect to the internet to put our Airbnb address into Maps, but we were unsuccessful. None of the restaurants or shops had Wi-Fi accessible to the public.

During our mission, we came across a cute but popular hotdog stand called Trekroneren. Just like in Iceland, hotdogs are a huge culinary item to the locals in Norway, so of course we had to try one here as well. We ordered one lamb dog with fried onions and one cheese dog with ketchup, white hotdog sauce, and fried onions. We shared half of each hot dog and both agreed we liked the cheese dog better, but it was also the first time either of us had tried lamb, and it was still a pretty good first experience with it!

While we stepped off to the side to enjoy our meal, some kind of a parade made its way down the streets and right past us. It was a parade comprised of all men and boys. Some were carrying flags, some were just marching/walking with the group, some were carrying swords, some were carrying rifles, and some were playing different marching drums. We still have no idea what this little parade was for or who the group was, but we enjoyed it nonetheless!

Since we were unsuccessful in connecting to internet, we pulled up the screenshots I had taken on the train and began meandering in the general direction of our Airbnb. Despite not being completely confident we would be able to find our way, we felt very at easy and enjoyed our lovely walk. We began to see more areas of Bergen besides just the busy and tourist-centered streets and shops of Bryggen. We began to make our way into the more local area, and we fell in love. This is the area we would’ve wanted to spend more time if we had it. We passed boutiques and shops that looked much more locally fostered. It was still a very busy area, but it was definitely a different vibe and group of people. We also passed a live street concert in progress and bopped and danced along as we walked by even though they were singing in Norwegian, so weren’t able to catch most of what they were saying.

The walk, while wonderful, was more extensive than we had anticipated. Our backpacks were pretty heavy with all our clothes and toiletries we had brought with for the entirety of this two-day trip, so our energy was draining quickly. Our journey just so happened to take us through an absolutely gorgeous and calm park, so we decided to take a little break on one of the park’s benches and relax and soak everything in like the rest of the park-goers. What began as a break quickly turned into something we could’ve done for hours and been content. We watched the birds soaring overhead. We breathed in the perfume of the blossoming tulips. We watched fellow park friends lay out in the grass or their blankets as their friendly conversation floated through the air. There was even a lovely statue that we foolishly mistook for Albert Einstein, only to realize that made absolutely no sense, and made the connection that it was actually Edvard Grieg, a world-renowned Norwegian composer and pianist from Bergen (which made much more sense).

Although we were greatly enjoying our time in the park, we knew we needed to continue on our way and get to our Airbnb before it started to get dark, so once we were feeling more refreshed, we continued on our way. The rest of our walk took us up one heck of a hill that required a majority of the energy we had just regained and down quite the flight of stairs. Fortunately, we were able to locate our Airbnb, which happened to have a bright red front door, pretty easily. The only hurdle we faced was some initial difficulty trying to use the keypad to get in, despite having the correct code.

Once triumphantly inside, we quickly offloaded our backpacks, and I was able to use the bathroom. Something we found interesting about our Airbnb (which might not actually be that interesting at all, but we definitely thought so) was that the shower completely shared the bathroom with the toilet and sink. There was no separation, no curtain or door or anything. If we had wanted to, we could have sat on the toilet and showered at the same time!

While we didn’t do that, we did sit and relax once again for a few minutes before getting ready to venture out one last time for the evening. There was a Bunpris right up the street from us, so we walked over to pick up some snacks and drinks for the night. After discovering Pepsi Max was another extremely popular item in Scandinavia, we decided we had to follow in the locals footsteps. We each grabbed a Pepsi Max Mango and also grabbed some chocolate treats to snack on. One was some local milk chocolate, and the other was a Creamy Snickers, which is something I hadn’t seen before and was interested in trying.

After returning to our Airbnb, we settled in for the night. We pulled on our cozy pajamas and relaxed with some Great British Bake-Off with Norwegian subtitles. It was fun to see what Norwegian words we were able to catch, especially when the commercials came on and were completely in Norwegian. It was an extremely full day, most of which being spent on a train, but we still managed to have the energy to stay up until about 11:30. Then we were finally ready to call it a night so that we could get some good rest before an even more eventful second stretch of our Norway in a Nutshell adventure. It’s a good one, so stay tuned!