Last Thoughts on Scandinavia

Here are a few final thoughts on the wonderful Scandinavia region & its peoples:
* Fairly similar cultures across the four nations - Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark
* They love their bikes - great bike riding paths all across Scandinavian cities.
* An absence of visible public toilets - you have to know where to go.
*Love those Swedish meatballs with brown sauce & loganberries - & you can get them nearly everywhere.
*Really good coffee!
*People are mostly open-minded, welcoming, friendly (when you get to talking), quite hip/cool (those under 45 anyway), nature-loving (watch them flee to their summer houses), & generally laid back.
*Really quite loyal to their country.
*There's not much crime here - the countries generally take good care of their citizens.
*Because of the high tax, alcohol is really expensive (think a min of AUD$15 per glass of wine).
*The natural environment is exquisite!

19th July - O/Night Bus to Copenhagen

After getting back from the fjords, I stopped off at Caffe Engel in Oslo again for a lovely bite to eat before preparing for my overnight bus trip to Copenhagen. It was the first time I'd caught a long distance bus in Europe & over 20 years since I'd been on an overnight bus trip. So, I was expecting not to get too much sleep.
I met a woman called Maria from Copenhagen on the bus & we had quite a few laughs & a good conversation. She filled me in on all the must see sights around Copenhagen, including the landmark 'Little Mermaid'. The trip ended at 6am in the morning & I had to hang out at the central rail station till 9am when the tourist info office was due to open.

Fjords of Western Norway

Decided I wanted to cleanse my lungs after taking in far too much city air for a while now. And so, off to the fjords in Western Norway I go for 3 days of chilling out.
The Norwegians promote this trip concept called 'Norway in a Nutshell' quite heavily. Instead, I did a trip called 'Sognefjord in a Nutshell' with an additional tour that included the Dalsfjord & Gaularfjell mountains. It was bloody expensive (A$530) & not a group tour package either. You could spend whatever time you wanted taking the trip. The cost only provided tickets for the main travel routes, & didn't include accommodation along the way.
The trip started in Oslo with a train trip to Myrdal, a highland country town still covered with quite a bit of snow. Then I took the Flam Railway train with the steepest descent in the world down to Flam. From Flam, an express boat took us through the fjords to Balestrand, where I stopped for the night at a hostel. Balestrand is gorgeous. Quiet, with fresh mountain air & snow-capped mountains surrounding it.
The next day, I caught a bus over the high mountain pass through Fjaerland & Forde to Bygstad. Not many tourists do this route & it was was pristine with spectacular sights. At Bygstad, me & two other couples took a slow fjord boat to Rysjedalsvika, a town that seemed to be at the end of the earth. There we had to wait an hour & a half for an expressboat to Bergen & picked wildberries (raspberries, blueberries & red currants) to pass time & satisfy our hunger.
Finally, after weaving through the many islands on the west coast, we landed in Bergen at 8:40pm.
And the next day, I boarded another train to take me back to Oslo, which took nearly 7 hours but had wonderful scenery.
A lovely couple of days all up!

14-17th July - Out & About in Oslo

After spending quite a bit of money on the Stockholm card, I decided to tighten my money belt while in Norway. Besides, I was exhausted from my Stockholm tourist experience - rushing here & there to see as many attractions as possible to get my moneys worth.
Oslo, while not as pretty as Stockholm, still had a vibrant energy & people were out & about enjoying the sunshine when it appeared. The parks in the area are splendid & many locals bask on the green grass sunning themselves. The parks here are a deep green, quite a few shades darker than in Sydney. And down by the harbour is delightful too, even if it is quite a bit touristy.
I did manage to see a couple of sights that were free for everyone - the Parliament House, National Museum, & the Sculpture Park. I also chipped in a few kroner to view the Nobel Peace Prize Museum which was similar to the one in Stockholm, but with a sole focus on the Peace Proze recipients.
I was feeling like I needed to get out of the city. I couldn't have picked a better country to escape into.

13/14th July - Overnight Train from Stockholm to Oslo

My first overnight train in Europe was booked so that I could save a bit of money on a hotel room. Leaving fairly late in the eve, I'd had a final day wandering around Stockholm before going back to the hotel to pick up my bags.
Sharing a compartment with 4 other women, it was no different from the train rides in China. Being surrounded by strangers, I still felt the need to guard my little backpack containing all my valuables by keeping it between my legs all night.
Sleep just wasn't an option for me. The train was rattling away all eve, the bed rock hard & people walking back & forth all night. I was lucky to have maybe got 2 hours sleep if that.
But I did arrive in Oslo bright & early & ready for new sightseeing opportunities.