Sometimes just planning a trip can take the joy out of a trip. I will share some of our itineraries here so you can get an idea of what you may want to do on your next trip!
Norway & Iceland 2015
House Exchange with side trip where we stayed in hotels
2 adults and 2 kids, ages 8 and 10
June 19th – We leave on the 5:20pm Iceland Air flight for Iceland. We land at 6:30am local time.
June 20th – Blue Lagoon (which was a amazing and highly recommended!) / dinner in a town south of Blue Lagoon called Grindavik at a restaurant called salthusid. Dinner was great! Lovely fish dinner and kid friendly.
June 21st – Reykavick for Icelandic Fish and Chips, fly to Norway. We stayed in a small town called Jevnaker about an hour North of Oslo for our house exchange.
June 22nd – Toured around Jevnaker, did some grocery shopping and made dinner in our lovely house on the lake.
June 23rd – Walk to the café down the street called Cafe Bare kom inn, walk over to the Glassverks to watch glass blowing, dinner out that night at Corner’n Italian restaurant.
June 24th – Head to Honefoss. Kids play on the playground (which they love!) and then after a trip through the Kuban (mall) to get an umbrella, map and journals we head to Brasserie Fengselet (an old prison in the middle of town) for lunch. Then onto the lake in the canoe for some fishing.
June 25th – Day trip to Oslo. We went to the Viking Ship Museum where we saw the same ship that we had seen the replica of at the Denver library. The ship was the Oseberg. It was very cool. From there we went to the Norwegian Museum of Cultural Hisotry. This was a mostly open air museum where there were many buildings from Norway’s past. For dinner we headed to the Mathallen Food Hall (with many options) where we decided on Asian food.
June 26th - Got up fairly early for the long drive to Preikstolen Mountain Lodge (at the base of the Preikstolen hike). Just a warning that this is a fairly long and winding trip. It ended up taking us close to the whole day. We did stop for lunch at a ski museum (Norsk Skieventyr) in Morgedal that had a nice cafe and known as the cradle of skiing. The lodge does have a restaurant, but we got there after it closed so it was a picnic for us that night. The kids loved the hotel because their sleeping space was in a cool loft space.
June 27th – We had breakfast at the hotel and then hiked Preikstolen. The hike is 4,000 meters up and takes about 2 hours. It is a pretty rocky hike but everyone made it with only a couple bumps and bruises. The view from the top is amazing as you sit at the top of the fjord. We had a picnic lunch and then hiked back down. Total trip was around 5 hours. After returning to the hotel and having a snack we drove to Stavanger (pronounced sta vang er). In Stavanger we stayed at the Park Inn by Radisson. We walked to the city center and had sushi for dinner. It was expensive (total meal was around $200) but worth it after our long hike and 1 mile walk to dinner.
June 28th – We had a great breakfast at the hotel and then drove to town and walked around the old town of Stavanger. The buildings there were very cool. We stopped at a little café called Hanekam (very funky little place – and actually #2 on trip advisor). We had some coffees and snacks and checked out the cool bathroom with a drum set for a sink! We left Stavanger and then headed for Bergen. We ended up taking 2 ferries along the way which made the drive pretty fun. We stayed at the Radisson Blu Norge Bergen. After getting settled we ended up having dinner at a little café called Café Opera. The food and place was great and just what we needed.
June 29th - Spent the day in Bergen. We had breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel (again, amazing complimentary buffet with smoked salmon, salami, cheese, eggs, bacon, sautéed mushrooms, fresh bread, fruit, yogurt, etc). We then went over to the KODE museum and went to the kids art museum and some of the regular museum in building 4. Then we walked over to the funicular and took that to the top of the hill. At the top we had a quick snack (I had amazing shrimp on bread) and the kids played at an amazing playground. We walked down the trail and passed by amazing waterfalls on the way back to town. The walk back to town was about 45 min long. We walked around the old town buildings and had the famous Bergen Skillingsboller (Norwegian cinnamon rolls) at a bakery in town. We then headed back to the hotel and the kids went swimming. For dinner that night we went to the Torget I Bergen fish market.
June 30th - Left Bergen and drove to Flam after another great breakfast at the hotel. We got a little turned around leaving Bergen and a little lost in town in Flam so we did not get to town until 1:45 (the same time our Fjord Safari trip was supposed to leave). Luckily they suited us up quickly and we were able to take our trip. We did a 2 hour fjord safari trip and it was great. We were on a small boat with 4 other people and we got to see the fjords up close.
July 1st – Spent the day in Jevnaker (and it was warm and sunny!) and went to the Kristefos-Museet and sculpture garden. We did not go in the museum but we did enjoy the sculptures and the kids played on a great playground with zip lines and “nija warrior like” activities. We then returned to the Glassverks to watch more glassblowing and to have lunch at the bakery. We purchased a glass vase similar to the one we saw being made on our first trip to the glassverks. That night we went to Corner’n restaurant again for a bite of eat since it was so nice and we ate on the patio.
July 2nd – Left Jevnaker, we checked into the Radisson Blu at the airport (just a short walk to the airport). We hung out for a while and then we took the express airport train to Oslo (just 20 minutes). Kids in Norway are able to ride the train for free! We did a very long walk (3.3k) to Crepes Maison Majorstuen (#1 crepe place on trip advisor). The crepes were great and we met a family with a cute little 6 year old that came over and spoke English with us (I guess she likes to practice). After dinner we went to Frognerparken. The park has sculptures by Gustav Vigeland and a great playground that the kids had a blast at. We then hopped the express train to go back to the airport/hotel for the night.
July 3rd – Got up at 5:45am so we could grab one last breakfast buffet before 17 hours of travel. We walked the short path from the hotel to the airport, got our refund for our glass purchases, checked our bags and we were on our way by 8:20am. We made it back to Denver after 2 connections by around 5pm local time. It was a long day but we made each flight on time so no complaints! We had flown on 30K miles each for our return flight – so free means 2 connections!). Overall a great trip and we look forward to going to Norway again!
Highlights: Blue Lagoon, Iceland, Norway, Hiking Pulpit Rock, how it never really got dark, amazing hotel breakfasts, and the wonderful people we met along the way!
Recommendations: Food in Norway can be expensive. If you are staying at a hotel, find one with a compliementary breakfast and eat a late breakfast/brunch so you can skip paying for a lunch. The museums and attractions are very family friendly and are often free for kids or they have a reduced family rate so be on the lookout for that.
Desire to return: High!