Travel, Teach, Live in Europe and Middle East
Tour suggestions from native who is fully knowledgeable about the recent history and culture of Norway.
Find the hidden treasures at your destination that won't be filled with tourists.
From Bergen to Oslo by car.
If you want to travel by car from Bergen to eastern Norway, you can choose to avoid ferries by driving via Aurland in Sogn. Alternatively, you can choose one of the ferry sailings over the Hardangerfjord – a great way to enjoy the fjord landscape and quaint villages of this region.
Take a pit stop at Utne and visit Hardanger Folk Museum and
Utne Hotel from 1722, the oldest still open in Norway.
It is now unsure how long these ferries will be sailing over the Hardangerfjord, as there is great demand for bridges over the fjord.
Try Oslo Bergen over the high plateau Hardangervidda, the roof of Norway.
Few travelers to Norway miss a ride on the Oslo-Bergen train line. Departing twice daily during the summer, the 7-hour journey takes you through forests and small towns until it crosses the northern border of the treeless Hardangervidda plateau.
The Hardangervidda, at 10,000-plus square kilometers, is Europe’s larges mountain plateau.
The Hardangervidda National Park comprises over 3430 square kilometer of scenery.
At one time the Hardangervidda was home to up to 40,000 reindeer, the last wild reindeer in Europe.
Finse station at 1222 meters above sea level is the highest railway station
on the track between Bergen and Oslo. Despite grate dispute and severe difficulties of building this stretch of track, the Bergen railway was completed in 1909.
Conditions for construction at that time meant that a great deal of the work had to be done manually.
The workers who traveled up into the mountains to build the railway became known as “rallare” and thus the mountain track alongside the railway is known as “Rallarvegen” – now a popular route for cyclist.
The Oslo-Bergen train line crosses the northern Hardangervidda and stops at Geilo, a good base for this area. The town offers a tourist office, hotels and adequate supplystores.
Visit Bergen the Market day.
The annual Market day was founded in 1977 to mark the previously unheeded but important relations between the locals and citizens of Bergen. It held on Saturday at the end of May/beginning of June and is truly festive occasion.
If truth be told, the Market day really belongs to “striler” from the islands. They come
in their old-fashioned costumes, bringing with them fish and agriculture goods, putting on fantastic displays of age-old handcrafts and dancing all day to accordion.
Many arrive by boat, faithful to tradition, mooring their functional fishing boats on the innermost banks of the bay. This annual events has served to erase the arrogant social divide historically enforced by the people of Bergen – an important contribution to the
trend towards liberalization witnessed over the past decades. The annual Market day
is all the more popular for this spirit of harmony, as crowds gather outdoors to enjoy the spring weather.
