Hey Guys, Im just back from Oslo and I thought I'd post my impressions of the place. I was there from Thursday afternoon to Sunday Morning, Myself and a buddy flew with SAS from Dublin. You can get into the city a few ways.. Cab, Bus, Train and the Airpot Express Train. I used the Airport express train. The station is under the terminal. The cost of the express train is NOK 170,00 (EUR 21.67) oneway. The train takes about 20ish minutes and drops you in the central station Oslo which is at the bottom of the Main Shopping Street of the city, This street is called Karl Johans Gate.
We stayed in a very central hotel just off the main street. The staff were very helpful, the room was quite small but it was clean. We had booked a twin room and to be fair it was but the beds were so close it actually looked like a double.
I wont go through all the sights we went to see. A few that stood out for me were The Viking Boat Museum and the Fram Museum (Polar Exploration), The Nobel Peace Centre and the Opera House. Unfortuatelly I didnt get out to see the Holmenkollen Ski Museum & Tower. I was looking forward to that but I ran out of time.
One thing to note is - Norway is not cheap. Here is the cost of some of the food & drink we had: We went out for dinner on Thursday evening and we each had a starter, a main and 2 beers. Bill came to EUR130.00. The beers which were there most expensive we came across were EUR10.00 each. The cheapest we found beers at was EUR7.50. A meal in McDonalds (Medium Big Mac Meal) cost EUR13.00. 2 coffees a muffin and a cookie cost EUR16.00.
The people are friendly and were very chatty. They asked the usual stuff about Ireland (is it really all green, guinness and the troubles in the north). Most of the people we spoke too seemed very clued up on the political issues here, the economy and the recession etc.
All in all we had a great time. Lovely city and lovely people but I wont be rushing back to see it again (due to the expence of the place). Anyway, If you have any questions I'll be happy to try and answer them.
Thanks for posting that. In 1976 I spent three weeks walking and climbing in Scandanavia and I remember trying to survive on £3 per day. The cost of living was then roughly three times what it was in the UK.
In the 1980's I worked for a Swedish pharmaceutical company and whenever I flew to Stockholm, they would ask me to bring the max. duty free allowance to replenish their stocks, as booze was so expensive there.
I would love to go back with the family, but I think I'll have to wait for my Premium Bond number to come up first
Actually, we Norwegians make pilgrimages to Sweden to buy food and booze, it's so cheap there!
Anyway, it might sound unpatriotic, but if you're into culture, Stockholm is probably better for you. If you're into outdoor though, as I suppose all people on this forum are, Norway is the place to go!
At the risk of sending this discussion spiraling down to arguing which is best, Sweden or Norway, i'd say go to both countries. Sweden has the real wilderness feel and Norway has the raw mountaineering appeal.
Start in Sweden buy your booze and food then head into Norway to round off the trip. Know quite a few people who have flown to Stockholm hired a car and finished off the holiday with Oslo.
Thanks that's useful information. The last time I was in Sweden, circa 1985, things were roughly the same price as Norway.
I presume there isn't a problem with hiring a car in Sweden and driving over to Norway. I know that you can physically cross the border without problems, but there are normally all sorts of restrictions about taking hire cars into foreign countries.
What the norwegians pilgrimage to Sweden for is mainly just two things, beer and wine. The rest of the prices are remarkably the same.
A newspaper did a test in december last year and set up a shoppinglist for a family for Christmas. They then bought the articles in Nordbysenteret (the biggest and cheapest shoppingcenter at the border) and in Oslo in an ordinary Rema1000 shop (Rema is one of the biggest grocery chains in Norway). It was a surprice that the Rema1000 shop was cheapest, even excluding the price for gas to and from Nordbysenteret. And foodprices have not changed significantly either country.
But if your car breakes down, better repair it in Sweden! If however you want to go hiking in the mountains, it is often half the price on the huts in Norway. So to conclude geekinthesticks, the situation is roughly the same now as in 1985.
Just back from both, via Narvik and the Kungsleden, Sarek etc. Agree, Sweden is quite a bit cheaper. We got the impression that Sweden is a little more welcoming to walkers, too - huts left open, signs up saying welcome etc etc. Swedish huts are cheaper, too - both being of excellent standard, though we camped for most of the trip.
I can't understand why more people from the UK don't visit both countries. My recommendation is that it's best to go north of the arctic circle if you want low numbers of people. When we were further south in Norway in 2007, we couldn't believe how massive the huts were, catering for hundreds, literally. Above the AC, the huts generally take tens or less - many just having 6 - 8 beds, though most sites have two huts.
A very special area - and good weather in early/mid September, too - and more light than in the UK then, though it's probably about even now.
Re my post just now, I wouldn't want to give the impression that Norway is not welcoming to foreign walkers - it is, very much so. We just felt, from our recent trips, that Sweden is perhaps even more so. Both are fantastic countries to visit.
Camping wild is a delight here, given the lack of serious wind or even rain that we have experienced in two September trips covering 7 weeks total. Perhaps we were lucky?
Having done most of my Scandinavian trips in winter, one advantage Norway has that's relevant when it comes to ski touring rather than walking, is that they have a ban on skidoos other than for working activites (e.g re-supplying the huts) whereas our experience of Sweden suggests that you can be unlucky and find a certain 'Clarksonesque' petrol-head element taking to the hills and the huts. And skidoo ruts don't make for good skiing.
There are many small huts in Norway too, I much prefer them to the 100+ bed places that serve honeypot areas like the gateways to the Jotunheimen. Small often means unwardened with perhaps 12 to 20 beds, but the smallest I've ever stayed in was a 2-bed hut in the Dovrefjell National Park - it required co-ordination with anyone else staying at the previous hut to ensure your chance... and pray you don't meet anyone travelling in the other direction!
But I agree, Rob, both brilliant countries and I really want to make more 'summer' trips to them too.
A propos ski touring - its worth to know that Norwegians do not use randonee-skis very often. We find it strange to see the foreigners touring with those heavy skis and enormous, stiff plastic boots on mostly flat terrain of our mountain plateaus. We use a kind of wider cross-coutry skis, with steel edge but still light, and a stiffer, sturdier kind of cross-coutry boots. I do not know if they have a name in English. They are much easier to use when walking, as they are narrow and weight a little, but going down the slopes on them is a bit tricky. Still, not so many slopes on the plateaus...
A little note about skidoos in Sweden. There are different marked trails in Sweden some of which are only allowed to be used by x-country skiers (see the key on the mountain map if you have one, Fjällkartan). On the trails where skidoos are allowed they are not allowed to leave the trail and drive where they want and they must show. Yes there are a few problem areas.
Joannad, the skis you talk about are called 'touring skis'. I've done a lot of touring on them in Scotland, Sweden and even Norway. With the right wax they're fantastic, but you have to keep your nerve doing downhill!
Just dug out the old maps from my 1976 trip. I agree that N or the Arctic Circle is the best bit. When we went the only maps of the area around Narvik we could get were the NATO 1:250,000. These weren't very accurate, good job they were never needed in a war.
I particularly remember going on a 2 or 3 day walk which started from one of the small unmanned stations on the railway line to Narvik (we were using Inter Rail, so went everywhere by train). We stayed one night at a hut, which we managed to find despite the map. On the last day we were supposed to follow a valley which ended up at in a town the end a 13 mile long lake. When we emerged from the valley, we were at the wrong end of the lake!
To save money we mostly ate Batchelors dehydrated food, cooked on a hexamine stove. However, we supplemented this by buying things like bread and tubes of Primula from local shops. I recall walking fast along the lake and arriving in the town just before the local supermarket closed. There were some tubes that were cheaper than Primula, so I bought one and grabbed a pint of milk. When we started to eat the cheap Primula turned out to be mustard and I had accidentally picked up the fermented milk, instead of the normal stuff. With the benefit of 35 years hindsight, I can now see the funny side.
Just back from both, via Narvik and the Kungsleden, Sarek etc. Agree, Sweden is quite a bit cheaper. We got the impression that Sweden is a little more welcoming to walkers, too - huts left open, signs up saying welcome etc etc. Swedish huts are cheaper, too - both being of excellent standard, though we camped for most of the trip.
About the open closed huts, i think I have commented on that before. The huts are organized locally in Norway, and each local branch of DNT decides what should be left open and what should be closed. If one travel in one area in Norway it is wrong to conclude that the situation is the same all over tha country. In my are Saltfjellet more than half of the 25 TF-huts are open, in addition to 10 open huts outside DNT.
But even if 85% of the huts in Norway were closed it would still mean that there were more open huts there compared to Sweden. The reason it that there are 9 times as many huts in Norway. If you look at the map http://ut.no/kart you will see the huts in both countries. The trick is to use this map and find out if the huts in question is open (Åpen) or locked (Låst). For those that wish to take a hut-to-hut tour is is not difficult to obtain the key, and one key unlocks 95% of all DNT huts in Norway.
Apart from that I agree that Sweden is a welcoming country, but the touristhuts are not cheap. In my area these are the prices in Norway, and this and this are the prices in Sweden. Even if the currency is different, it does not make 250 SEK less than 100 NOK! I have had more than 20 nights in STF-huts and more than 100 in DNT-huts. On the average the STF huts I hve visited cost twice the price than DNT for the same standard.
