Norway in a nutshell

Stole that title line from the name of the company that organized our tour, but it sums up this blog quite well too.

We arrived on Tuesday evening, after flying through Tallin, Estonia. Transfer from the airport to downtown where our hotel is was amazingly efficient. Easiest airport transfer ever - never even had to show a passport.

Checked into our hotel and went out for a quick, albeit expensive, dinner. This whole country is expensive, so I'll stop mentioning it.

Next morning, we took the train across the country. The train goes over two mountain ranges. Beautiful lakes and snow covered mountains along the way. Then we got onto a boat and took a 2 hour cruise along one of the fjords. Stunningly gorgeous scenery (sorry, still not able to post pictures, but I will as soon as I can). It was a cloudy, and at times rainy day, bu the scenery was still beautiful.

Went through Voss, which I recognized as having been on the Amazing Race - I recognized it as soon as our bus driver mentioned that one of the delicacies here is boiled sheep's head. I remembered they had to eat that. We didn't try it.

Arrived in Bergen, which is on the west coast of Norway, early evening. Went out for a wonderful seafood dinner. Of course, Bergen is right on the ocean, so fish is a must. We were seated right in the front window, just beside the "King's table". The king wasn't there, but some Russian diplomat was.

Next morning, we got up, explored Bergen, which is a really cute hillside town on the coast. Took a funiculaire up to the top of the mountain overlooking the town. Had the famous fish soup for lunch, which was really good... but fish soup, in a paper takeout bowl, for $15... did I mention this place is expensive.

Then we took the train back to Oslo, and retired after a long day.

Today is our last full day of vacation, and we have a gorgeous sunny day in Oslo. Went to see the Viking museum, a scupture park - a real scupture park, not like the one for misfit sculptures in Moscow, and the Munch museum. Then we checked Frommer's and it turns out these were 3 of the top 5 museums to visit in Oslo anyway. Had a great lunch and now I finally found this internet café. We plan to go out for a nice dinner tonight to mark the last night of our adventure. All in all, it's been great, and tomorrow begins the long journey home.

Take care everyone. Looking forward to seeing you.

Marc.