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Milenomics² [NoAF] Podcast Episode 73 & 74: A Norway Trip Report
Manage episode 432126927 series 2458194
A Norway Trip Report...on today’s Milenomics² Podcast
01:00 Scope: 2 weeks in Norway. Oslo, Tromso, Lofoten then back to Oslo for a few days.
- Wanted to get away from people.
- Love the coast, and Norway has a LOT of coastline
- Spent most of our time in the arctic Circle (but not considered the arctic)
- Map:
10:12 Outbound: Air France. LAX-CDG Plus a 4hr layover.
- Flight was smooth and the daytime departure was nice
- Got to experience the new LAX Air France lounge. Open 3 weeks ago. New is always better.
- 4hrs in CDG was perfect with kids. Got through immigration, train to the 2F terminal, settled into a lounge, everyone showered and then about 45 minutes later we were off to the gate
- Kids meal was pre-ordered and was great.
- CDG-OSL very basic, service by Amelia (by Air France)
20:10 Getting to Oslo from the airport Fly to vs Vy.
- Trains run every 10-20 minutes. Travel time is less than 30 minutes.
- Flytoget calls itself the 'fastest' airport train. This might be true, but only by a minute or two.
- Vy is a few minutes slower. Faster than driving even.
- Flytoget has Kids free vs VY so the prices start to converge when you take this into consideration
- approx $12 - 24 per person one way.
- Taxi was about $125. We had 4 of these one ways to do so we needed to get good at them.
- Vy app is not as good as the Ruter app for buying tickets with US credit cards. Stick to the Ruter app.
- Ruter and VY app cannot buy flytoget tickets, so Ruter + Flytoget app are the ideal combo.
- Tickets can also easily be bought at the ticket machines.
25:20 Clarion hotel the hub (a strawberry hotel)
- Location is great, just off Oslo central station
- 810(!) rooms. Norway's Largest hotel. Did not feel this big.
- Booked family size room for 16000 points
- With a Strata Premier this is 8000 TYP transferred to Choice.
- Included a pull out sofa which was already set up for us.
- Includes full buffet breakfast with omelette and crepe station.
- Nice, newish hotel. Certainly a great way to spend TYP and appreciate they book family rooms.
- Came back and worked to get connecting rooms. Seemed willing to even give some partial extra credit for the family room vs. 2 regular rooms.
30:58 Oslo:
- World city, really a great feel to the city, full of energy, parks and fantastic amounts of museums.
- 20+ Hours of daylight. People outdoors and a city that is alive.
- Paris and Prague feels. But English is a first or second language in most signs and interaction.
- Summer in Norway is Wildflower season. The landscaping in the cities is beautiful.
- Be Aware of your surroundings at night. There were some sketchy areas we stumbled into. Nothing too rough but still, be aware.
- Food was easy to find and diverse
- Interesting food halls: Oslo Street Food or Barcode Street Food
- Most world cuisine was easy to find and well done.
- Getting around is so easy. There are very few people driving cars. Taxis only really.
- Malls. So many malls. Beautiful they way they preserved the facade of the building and then you walk in and find a 3 story mall.
- NeoTokyo Store was stocked with Japanese toys/foods/snacks.
- Normal Store was a favorite of my two kids for candy/gum/interesting small dollar shopping for them.
- Gets rural quickly, leave city center and you're in the forest.
- Everything I saw ahead of visiting said to get out of Oslo -- I really, really enjoyed Oslo, and wish we spent more time there. SO much to explore.
35:24 Food in Norway
- Solid!
- Nothing like I was expecting
- Even in Tromso easy to find good options: Sushi, Thai, Fish & Chips, kid friendly food everywhere.
- Lofoten: had some meals out, touristy but to be expected.
- Our budget flex was that we had an airbnb in Tromso/Lofoten with a kitchen. Instead you could opt for prepared foods from the grocery.
- Reindeer: not bad. My 9 year old ordered it twice.
- Fruits and veggies are plentiful and easy to find in stores.
- Strawberry, raspberry, blueberry season. Fantastic berries that were easy to find.
- Had one meal that was Norwegian. It was 'ok.'
- Watermelon, passion fruit, grapes, nectarines, mangoes etc.
45:36 Travel to Tromso and Lofoten
- 1 quick 2hr flight on Norwegian
- Fine. Much better than southwest.
- Included 4 checked bags and overhead access.
- Incoming plane had everyone deplane and then boarded us and took off all in less than 35 minutes
- Pretty views from the plane on the right side as we approached Tromso.
Tromso rental car: Hertz
- Months out cars were expensive. One way rentals to Lofoten were nearly $2000.
- Originally booked an Alamo rate about $700 for a week. Anything less than 7 days was over $1200.
- Was told this would be an automated kiosk. That's likely old info. All rental companies at the airport had full manned areas.
- Rented a VW ID.4 ev. Got a VW ID.4 $524 for a week.
- Tolls, ferries and parking meant a $300 pre-authorization. Ended up using about $80 in tolls with 1000 miles driven.
- Tolls are once per hour, regardless of how many you go through. Most tolls were under $2.
- Returned it late and nearly empty. I didn't want to bother charging it. Was quoted about $25 plus the cost of electricity if I returned it under “around 70%”. I decided to leave it as empty as possible and skip a charging stop on the return since I'm paying for the convenience.
Tours: get your guide+ capital one shopping
- Commodity tours are a great use of capital one. Click through and don't buy, a few days later a good offer comes to email.
- Clicked through a common tour operator and didn't end up paying for the tour.
- Used some chase UR
- Received a 38.5% cash back offer from Capital One shopping
- Which….just worked! Took two tours down from 100 or so per person to 63 or so per person
51:29 Tromso: where to stay?
- The city is….well, a city. Has a few strawberry hotels and a Radisson Blu
- Parking is about $4/hr in the main tourists area. I don't know if any hotel has parking.
- You could certainly get around on public transit (hard with kids) even to far flung parts of the area.
- But being away from the city is quick and easy. 15 minutes puts you in an incredibly rural beautiful environment.
- If I had it to do over I'd stay on the island of Kvaløya near Esterboten or Sommory. You're close to Tromso but with incredible views:
- The best grocery store seemed to be the Eurospar on E862
- No other store matched it for fresh fruits and veggies.
- Grocery prices are reasonable, stores are stocked with plenty of great fresh options and even some ethnic staples.
- Beer and Wine are expensive and wine is only sold at Vinmonopolat stores.
56:52 Low-ish season in Tromso / Lofoten
- Busy time is apparently northern lights and early spring for winter sports
- I thought summer in Tromso was fantastic
- Negatives, whale season is not summer. Did see some porpoise.
- Tours were 10-25% full. Small enough that you got to know the group.
- Slow pace in Northern Norway. Very Slow.
- 9-10 max
1:00:11 Tromso to Lofoten islands.
- This was the ultimate “what's the best way to get there” test
- Flying might have worked. Except cars were extremely pricey at Svolvaer, and the closet airport had a tiny runway. There are no direct flights from Tromso to Svolvaer. At some level it meant a full day of travel either by car or air. So we road tripped it.
- There are high speed Ferries that don't take cars, and drop you in Harstad (still not where we wanted to be).
- There are options that involve busses. But again with mobility issues (little kids) I wanted a car.
- Option 1: over land. 6hrs or so. About 500km. no views, and locals say not worth doing.
- Option 2: two ferries plus about 300km of driving. 8hrs.
- Option 3: Hurtigruten. Maybe 14 hrs but nearly direct. Not every day. Must prebook. Weird hours.
- If you're going to book this book it on the Norwegian language site (and maybe with a VPN) for the lowest pricing.
- Needed to decide which to do, booked nothing ahead of time.
- Originally decided on the south, direct drive. Was swayed by locals to take the ferries. Big mistake.
- Senja was a really beautiful place.
- Pivoted and made it work, thanks to my wife's quick Google searching and reassuring calming down.
- Just drive straight. Roads are easy and we did the return in just about 6hrs with a short break in the middle.
- I think a more standard trip is flying to Lofoten from either Oslo, Bergen or Bodo. Adding in Lofoten pushed the complexity up. I'm very glad we went to Lofoten I loved it, impossible to describe.
- My Final Route looked like this:
1:18:34 Ferries. Interesting for People, Terrible for Cars
- Cars line up early, fit very few cars.
- Tour Busses get to cut the line.
- Arrived about 50 minutes early and was #12 in line. For the second ferry in Gryllfjord I was an hour+ early and #65-70 in line (!)
- Scan license place and auto charge.
- People without a car are free
- EV pays half price
- Seems like a service to connect islands with last mile service, not as a method of reliable car transport
- Not worth doing. Long waits, no way to pre-book and no guarantee you can get on these ferries.
1:20:44 Lofoten:
- Need to get beyond Svolvaer for the best of the islands.
- Svolvaer is any other fishing village.
- Past Svolvaer is unlike anywhere I've ever been.
- Islands as far as the eye can see, some of the best driving I've ever done
- Harrowing roads in some places where you need to pass a bus or truck and there isn't enough room
- Peace and quiet. Weather was unusually warm.
- Anyone can take a good picture in Lofoten.
- Surprising numbers of beaches and swimmable areas.
Tours:
- Oslo: brunch on the fjord, nice but nothing overly impressive about the brunch.
- Fram Museum (Fantastic, captivated my two kids for 90+ minutes)
- Tromso: fjord boat tour, arctic fishing. Incredible with the weather we had.
- Husky cafe tour and training
- Floating sauna and swim
- Lofoten: silent trollfjord tour, beaches
- Henningsvær, Lofoten: Extremely touristy.
1:33:20 Return to Oslo and Return home.
- By now we're pros getting to/from Oslo Airport
- Back to the hotel for connecting rooms....that were not ready for us
- Let it go a day, fixed it the next day.
- 3 days in Olso: Shopping, city exploration, parks and playgrounds for the kids.
- Could have spent more time and seen even more museums.
- Return home on Air France, overnight in Paris. It all just worked.
1:45:15 Overall impressions
- Such a laid back country. Almost too laid back (ferry story).
- Food was not an issue at all. A huge misconception is that the food here is not accessible.
- Cigarette smoking is everywhere unfortunately.
- Alcohol laws are not in line with the rest of Europe and can be pricey.
- Sunday is a big deal. Almost all stores close. Joker groceries are open Sunday.
- Tourist towns like Tromso are….touristy but people also live there. Fun to visit the malls and see their daily lives.
- Talking to people led us to some of the best surprises of the trip. Nice to be in a country where we could communicate easily.
- Midnight sun was more of a feature than a bug. We packed our days often going 8am to 10pm
- Driving 1000+miles was a mix of very easy and white knuckling. Speed limits make no sense. Lots of Amalfi style 1.5 lane roads in Senja and the Lofoten Islands.
126 حلقات
Manage episode 432126927 series 2458194
A Norway Trip Report...on today’s Milenomics² Podcast
01:00 Scope: 2 weeks in Norway. Oslo, Tromso, Lofoten then back to Oslo for a few days.
- Wanted to get away from people.
- Love the coast, and Norway has a LOT of coastline
- Spent most of our time in the arctic Circle (but not considered the arctic)
- Map:
10:12 Outbound: Air France. LAX-CDG Plus a 4hr layover.
- Flight was smooth and the daytime departure was nice
- Got to experience the new LAX Air France lounge. Open 3 weeks ago. New is always better.
- 4hrs in CDG was perfect with kids. Got through immigration, train to the 2F terminal, settled into a lounge, everyone showered and then about 45 minutes later we were off to the gate
- Kids meal was pre-ordered and was great.
- CDG-OSL very basic, service by Amelia (by Air France)
20:10 Getting to Oslo from the airport Fly to vs Vy.
- Trains run every 10-20 minutes. Travel time is less than 30 minutes.
- Flytoget calls itself the 'fastest' airport train. This might be true, but only by a minute or two.
- Vy is a few minutes slower. Faster than driving even.
- Flytoget has Kids free vs VY so the prices start to converge when you take this into consideration
- approx $12 - 24 per person one way.
- Taxi was about $125. We had 4 of these one ways to do so we needed to get good at them.
- Vy app is not as good as the Ruter app for buying tickets with US credit cards. Stick to the Ruter app.
- Ruter and VY app cannot buy flytoget tickets, so Ruter + Flytoget app are the ideal combo.
- Tickets can also easily be bought at the ticket machines.
25:20 Clarion hotel the hub (a strawberry hotel)
- Location is great, just off Oslo central station
- 810(!) rooms. Norway's Largest hotel. Did not feel this big.
- Booked family size room for 16000 points
- With a Strata Premier this is 8000 TYP transferred to Choice.
- Included a pull out sofa which was already set up for us.
- Includes full buffet breakfast with omelette and crepe station.
- Nice, newish hotel. Certainly a great way to spend TYP and appreciate they book family rooms.
- Came back and worked to get connecting rooms. Seemed willing to even give some partial extra credit for the family room vs. 2 regular rooms.
30:58 Oslo:
- World city, really a great feel to the city, full of energy, parks and fantastic amounts of museums.
- 20+ Hours of daylight. People outdoors and a city that is alive.
- Paris and Prague feels. But English is a first or second language in most signs and interaction.
- Summer in Norway is Wildflower season. The landscaping in the cities is beautiful.
- Be Aware of your surroundings at night. There were some sketchy areas we stumbled into. Nothing too rough but still, be aware.
- Food was easy to find and diverse
- Interesting food halls: Oslo Street Food or Barcode Street Food
- Most world cuisine was easy to find and well done.
- Getting around is so easy. There are very few people driving cars. Taxis only really.
- Malls. So many malls. Beautiful they way they preserved the facade of the building and then you walk in and find a 3 story mall.
- NeoTokyo Store was stocked with Japanese toys/foods/snacks.
- Normal Store was a favorite of my two kids for candy/gum/interesting small dollar shopping for them.
- Gets rural quickly, leave city center and you're in the forest.
- Everything I saw ahead of visiting said to get out of Oslo -- I really, really enjoyed Oslo, and wish we spent more time there. SO much to explore.
35:24 Food in Norway
- Solid!
- Nothing like I was expecting
- Even in Tromso easy to find good options: Sushi, Thai, Fish & Chips, kid friendly food everywhere.
- Lofoten: had some meals out, touristy but to be expected.
- Our budget flex was that we had an airbnb in Tromso/Lofoten with a kitchen. Instead you could opt for prepared foods from the grocery.
- Reindeer: not bad. My 9 year old ordered it twice.
- Fruits and veggies are plentiful and easy to find in stores.
- Strawberry, raspberry, blueberry season. Fantastic berries that were easy to find.
- Had one meal that was Norwegian. It was 'ok.'
- Watermelon, passion fruit, grapes, nectarines, mangoes etc.
45:36 Travel to Tromso and Lofoten
- 1 quick 2hr flight on Norwegian
- Fine. Much better than southwest.
- Included 4 checked bags and overhead access.
- Incoming plane had everyone deplane and then boarded us and took off all in less than 35 minutes
- Pretty views from the plane on the right side as we approached Tromso.
Tromso rental car: Hertz
- Months out cars were expensive. One way rentals to Lofoten were nearly $2000.
- Originally booked an Alamo rate about $700 for a week. Anything less than 7 days was over $1200.
- Was told this would be an automated kiosk. That's likely old info. All rental companies at the airport had full manned areas.
- Rented a VW ID.4 ev. Got a VW ID.4 $524 for a week.
- Tolls, ferries and parking meant a $300 pre-authorization. Ended up using about $80 in tolls with 1000 miles driven.
- Tolls are once per hour, regardless of how many you go through. Most tolls were under $2.
- Returned it late and nearly empty. I didn't want to bother charging it. Was quoted about $25 plus the cost of electricity if I returned it under “around 70%”. I decided to leave it as empty as possible and skip a charging stop on the return since I'm paying for the convenience.
Tours: get your guide+ capital one shopping
- Commodity tours are a great use of capital one. Click through and don't buy, a few days later a good offer comes to email.
- Clicked through a common tour operator and didn't end up paying for the tour.
- Used some chase UR
- Received a 38.5% cash back offer from Capital One shopping
- Which….just worked! Took two tours down from 100 or so per person to 63 or so per person
51:29 Tromso: where to stay?
- The city is….well, a city. Has a few strawberry hotels and a Radisson Blu
- Parking is about $4/hr in the main tourists area. I don't know if any hotel has parking.
- You could certainly get around on public transit (hard with kids) even to far flung parts of the area.
- But being away from the city is quick and easy. 15 minutes puts you in an incredibly rural beautiful environment.
- If I had it to do over I'd stay on the island of Kvaløya near Esterboten or Sommory. You're close to Tromso but with incredible views:
- The best grocery store seemed to be the Eurospar on E862
- No other store matched it for fresh fruits and veggies.
- Grocery prices are reasonable, stores are stocked with plenty of great fresh options and even some ethnic staples.
- Beer and Wine are expensive and wine is only sold at Vinmonopolat stores.
56:52 Low-ish season in Tromso / Lofoten
- Busy time is apparently northern lights and early spring for winter sports
- I thought summer in Tromso was fantastic
- Negatives, whale season is not summer. Did see some porpoise.
- Tours were 10-25% full. Small enough that you got to know the group.
- Slow pace in Northern Norway. Very Slow.
- 9-10 max
1:00:11 Tromso to Lofoten islands.
- This was the ultimate “what's the best way to get there” test
- Flying might have worked. Except cars were extremely pricey at Svolvaer, and the closet airport had a tiny runway. There are no direct flights from Tromso to Svolvaer. At some level it meant a full day of travel either by car or air. So we road tripped it.
- There are high speed Ferries that don't take cars, and drop you in Harstad (still not where we wanted to be).
- There are options that involve busses. But again with mobility issues (little kids) I wanted a car.
- Option 1: over land. 6hrs or so. About 500km. no views, and locals say not worth doing.
- Option 2: two ferries plus about 300km of driving. 8hrs.
- Option 3: Hurtigruten. Maybe 14 hrs but nearly direct. Not every day. Must prebook. Weird hours.
- If you're going to book this book it on the Norwegian language site (and maybe with a VPN) for the lowest pricing.
- Needed to decide which to do, booked nothing ahead of time.
- Originally decided on the south, direct drive. Was swayed by locals to take the ferries. Big mistake.
- Senja was a really beautiful place.
- Pivoted and made it work, thanks to my wife's quick Google searching and reassuring calming down.
- Just drive straight. Roads are easy and we did the return in just about 6hrs with a short break in the middle.
- I think a more standard trip is flying to Lofoten from either Oslo, Bergen or Bodo. Adding in Lofoten pushed the complexity up. I'm very glad we went to Lofoten I loved it, impossible to describe.
- My Final Route looked like this:
1:18:34 Ferries. Interesting for People, Terrible for Cars
- Cars line up early, fit very few cars.
- Tour Busses get to cut the line.
- Arrived about 50 minutes early and was #12 in line. For the second ferry in Gryllfjord I was an hour+ early and #65-70 in line (!)
- Scan license place and auto charge.
- People without a car are free
- EV pays half price
- Seems like a service to connect islands with last mile service, not as a method of reliable car transport
- Not worth doing. Long waits, no way to pre-book and no guarantee you can get on these ferries.
1:20:44 Lofoten:
- Need to get beyond Svolvaer for the best of the islands.
- Svolvaer is any other fishing village.
- Past Svolvaer is unlike anywhere I've ever been.
- Islands as far as the eye can see, some of the best driving I've ever done
- Harrowing roads in some places where you need to pass a bus or truck and there isn't enough room
- Peace and quiet. Weather was unusually warm.
- Anyone can take a good picture in Lofoten.
- Surprising numbers of beaches and swimmable areas.
Tours:
- Oslo: brunch on the fjord, nice but nothing overly impressive about the brunch.
- Fram Museum (Fantastic, captivated my two kids for 90+ minutes)
- Tromso: fjord boat tour, arctic fishing. Incredible with the weather we had.
- Husky cafe tour and training
- Floating sauna and swim
- Lofoten: silent trollfjord tour, beaches
- Henningsvær, Lofoten: Extremely touristy.
1:33:20 Return to Oslo and Return home.
- By now we're pros getting to/from Oslo Airport
- Back to the hotel for connecting rooms....that were not ready for us
- Let it go a day, fixed it the next day.
- 3 days in Olso: Shopping, city exploration, parks and playgrounds for the kids.
- Could have spent more time and seen even more museums.
- Return home on Air France, overnight in Paris. It all just worked.
1:45:15 Overall impressions
- Such a laid back country. Almost too laid back (ferry story).
- Food was not an issue at all. A huge misconception is that the food here is not accessible.
- Cigarette smoking is everywhere unfortunately.
- Alcohol laws are not in line with the rest of Europe and can be pricey.
- Sunday is a big deal. Almost all stores close. Joker groceries are open Sunday.
- Tourist towns like Tromso are….touristy but people also live there. Fun to visit the malls and see their daily lives.
- Talking to people led us to some of the best surprises of the trip. Nice to be in a country where we could communicate easily.
- Midnight sun was more of a feature than a bug. We packed our days often going 8am to 10pm
- Driving 1000+miles was a mix of very easy and white knuckling. Speed limits make no sense. Lots of Amalfi style 1.5 lane roads in Senja and the Lofoten Islands.
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