[Travel Advice] Norway Activities

Random Observation/Comment #284: If there’s nothing to do, go eat something. If it’s too expensive to eat, go get drunk. If it’s too expensive to get drunk, go take a nap.

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For context on the socialism and pricing piece of Norway, please first read the previous post.

Things Norway does well:

  • Infrastructure and cleanliness
  • Men seem more attractive than women (from our sample at least).
  • Fjords (whatever they are) are pretty.
  • Statues. Boy do they like their naked statues.
  • Public transport. As for the last post, people are trusted to pay and the buses and trams come fairly regularly. The downtown bit is also fairly walkable
  • Driving. I’ve really had no issues driving around downtown although you need to get lucky with parking

Things Norway Can Improve

  • General gray bleakness. I think we had the only green car in the entire country.
  • Tourist attractions. I just don’t feel like a lot of tourists come by except to museums and that naked sculpture park. This could be just because we’re here on off season
  • Drinking. Beers are around $20 at a bar so most people seem to wean their beers and focus more on conversation. Good on ya!
  • Parking rules. We have no idea where we can park overnight. That just might be us though.
  • Vegetarianism. I guess you’ll be eating fries and whatever that American sauce is.

Lessons learned

  • Buy your alcohol before exiting duty free. It is surprisingly cheaper than local prices. Seriously.
  • Norway is very credit card friendly. I’d only take out 500kr max for misc museums and such if you already have your credit card for meals.
  • Try not to stick to a normal sleep schedule. It’s so dark all the time in the winter that it makes you want to take a nap at 4pm. This will also lead to shorter sleeps at night (and I’m really good at sleeping)
  • If weather permits, walk around. Very walkable city or basically hop on hop off buses to anywhere

Our itinerary:

  • Day 1: Drove from airport to airbnb, dropped off things to have a $6 coffee and went to the Viking ship museum, ate at nighthawk diner, took a much needed nap, bought groceries and cooked for the night
  • Day 2: Drove south towards Sweden on E6 and stopped by fredrikstad old town for some photos, drove into Sweden stromstad to eat a much cheaper dinner and buy a lot of liquor at the eurocash by the main exit (gas is also much cheaper)
  • Day 3: Drove around to take more photos an hour out of town, searched for photo, went to Vigelend park to look at weird naked sculptures, went to Mathallen for stangeriet pulled chicken sandwich. Took a nap and walked around Oslo. Dinner at Fyret with a nice catfish burger.
  • Day 4: Took a bus to town to see the Nobel peace prize museum, a few cathedrals, the fort, and in time for the futbol match between molde and odd. Terrible terrible place to eat for $200 at Eilefs Landhandleri.
  • Day 5: Norwegian Folk museum (open air museum) which is awesome, gruner lokka waterfall, drank a beer and best food in Norway at grunerlokka brygghus (highly recommended!)
  • Day 6: Drove back to airport to return car and flew out

Overall, I’m not very impressed by Norway, but that might be because we’re here in the winter where there are no tourists in the streets and it’s always bleak and gray. On day 3 and 5, we had a glimpse of sun and everything looked so much more amazing.  Perhaps if we had a full day of this and saw the Northern Lights as well, this whole thing would be much more memorable. I will definitely not miss the prices.  Maybe we’ll just go to Iceland or Sweden instead.

~See Lemons Love Norway