Scandinavia visit

22/01/2020

The adventure that we were excited about the day when we had a thought of visiting this beautiful Nordic Countries is now going to happen.
First we had to take a flight from Oslo to Stavanger.. I remember there was so much rain when we reached Stavanger and I dropped my iphone and broke its screen too lol.. But luckily all photos were backed up..
This trip is also very special because I met three new friends originally on trip advisor when I had shared my post to hike on Trolltunga. We all met in Stavanger that night and didnt feel like meeting them for the first time..very friendly and crazy like me for hiking.. We rented a car in the morning and travel to Odda which took us more than 4 hours.
There have been many people asking about this perticular route on many websites and I was also curious too. Roads are pretty good and twice we had to board on vessel to cross the river. But it did offer us very very scenic route. There were lot of places we stopped and took photos in between. We reached Odda ate 9 PM and stayed at Odda Camping. Just be mindful that taking shower,bendlinen or towels were not included in the price. Also there was a grocerry store next to this and it was very convenient to buy and cook food since there were not that many options for dinner over there.
In the morning we cooked rice and noodles and some sandwiches and packed everything for Pulpit Rock. It was very easy one took us about about 5 hours and spent sometime on the summit. Route was mostly full of average size of rocks and lot of stairs. But once we reached to summit, it offered very stunning view. Few lakes on our way, astonishing view of actual Pulpit Rock and on the edge we dared to take many photos. Surely this one you shouldn't miss and was totally worth.

22/01/2020

13/03/2019

Day 16
After very short but sweet time spent in Bergen we are now heading towards the most sumptuous journey of "Norway in Nutshell tour".
Journey starts from Bergen if you choose from Bergen to Oslo as it runs vice versa.
Train was departed at 8.39 am and we reached at 10.27 PM in Oslo. Initially we felt it is going to be very tiring 14 hours trip but it ended up putting us in another breathtaking scenery and "never wish it to end" journey.
After first train ride we reached Voss. Voss is very beautiful place surrounded by mountains and very peaceful. We had enough time to look around and take some really nice photos.
We boarded on bus then to go to Gudvangen. But travel from Gudvangen to Flam in a boat was highlight of the day. Small vessel took us through the beautiful scenery of fjords and splendid view of ocean.
It was the time for us to take lots and lots of photos. It was very windy so make sure you dress up accordingly.
We arrived Flam at lunch time and here we booked another trip to Stegastein View point which wasn’t part of Norway in nutshell. I believe it costs 334 NOK per person but it offers the best view of valley of Flam and very calm Ocean.
First thing I noticed when I reached Flam was it is considered as number one tourist place according to Trip Advisor and sure it is. So much to see that my senses could not grasp enough such extent of beauty of this place.
We really loved it. Flam tourist centre offers locker room for your luggage so it is peace of mind to roam around. We boarded train to go to Oslo. This scenic train ride will take you to great waterfall and some very high altitude breaking through both sides full of snow.
We had enough space to put our luggage and train itself was more like vintage kind of look which had really nice interior and easy to relish your eyes with outside view. Throughout the whole trip from day 1 we pretty much had not a single mistake of how we planned except the one in Oslo where we reached at Oslo train station but I had booked hotel accommodation nearby airport not knowing the distance was an hour in train. So luckily booking.com was very helpful in giving full credit and give us accommodation nearby.

17/01/2019

Today we reached Bergen at 2.30pm. Had some fun taking some photos before we got off and sadly had to say goodbye to ship Trollfjord. We absolutely enjoyed the most on this ship and our memories of taking photos of Northern light will last forever with this ship. We now were on the land of Bergen, such a small town but has lively, many things to offer and surrounded by mountains and fjords including Sognefjord which is Norway's longest and steepest fjord. For those reasons this city stands out unique and not to forget it has very late night clubbing. Fløibanen railway ride is just beautiful to not miss it and view of the city during ride is magnificent. It goes for 8 minutes climbing by 300 meters to Mt Floyen but once you reach up then you will be just speechless with the view. Also there is a small shop where you can find some food. Have some more time to spend up on Mt Floyen because there is a nice walk that you will enjoy with breathtaking view of course About the actual town itself, you will not need any transportation as you can reach to any direction of this town by walk.

25/07/2018

Hello Everyone who either follows or has liked my page.. I am glad to see this organic growth. I have been brought to some exciting events coming in August by Federica Parise who works along with one of the American Drama group in bergen which has been my favourite city. This promotion has only the intention to let visitor to have an opportunity to attend such play, so I dont spam this beautiful page unless if there is really something useful for tourist. I am attaching few information here.

They perform English theatre all over the world and - during summer - they perform a lot in Scandinavia. They have next performances in Copenhagen, Kristianstad, Stockholm and Bergen.

As part of their annual Castle Tour, MACBETH by William Shakespeare will be performed, more info about each show are attached.
Please visit more information on www.adg-europe.com.
and https://en.visitbergen.com/whats-on/macbeth-p4344163.
Next even is on 20th August this year in Bergen.

29/06/2018

24/06/2018

Here I have received a link from one of this page's follower and with his given permission I would like to take this opportunity to show very beautiful Stockholm in winter..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjhdoNEf3Qg&feature=youtu.be

This page is specially for those people who may think of Central or Southern Europe only offers the best cities to visit. But should consider Scandinavia is totally unique and offers numerous natural landscapes and will leave your memories like you were in Heaven. Each of the Scandinavian countries have unique things to offer. Finland offers the view of thousands of lakes, best national park which is Oulanka Park and of course Aurora Borealis, so the Norway offers incredible fjords and best hiking options. Where as in Sweden specially Stockholm is more like city Venice and you will have the best experience of canal tours around the city..In Denmark you will enjoy the old living towns and shopping street Stroget in Copenhagen..Perticulary I did not see any Indian hahah in Finland and in Norway so highly recommend for them..

07/04/2018

Day 5:
Today We got off the cruise and explored Trondheim.. very beautiful city having famous Nidaros Cathedral which is world's northernmost cathedral. Photography inside cathedral is not allowed but it is very amazing piece of architecture. We boarded cruise and reached to Kristiansund. Here since I had done bit of research in advance.. something we did here which was very crazy.. We let the ship go without boarding on and had no idea how would we be able to catch it up on its next stop Molde.. that was very adventurous since were stranger in a city.. All we wanted to do is to drive on Atlantic Ocean Road known to be the world's most beautiful drive and voted as Engineering feat of the century in 2005. We though had to pay hefty cab price to travel about 80 kms. But it was really worth.. cab person was Magnus Gustad and he became our tourist guide as well. It was just outstainding experience...

07/04/2018

some beautiful pics taken of NordKapp and hammerfest

31/05/2016

Scenic Trollfjord...

31/05/2016

Day 4:
Today we sailed distance between Bodo-Rorvik and crossed the Arctic circle at 66°33’N. It is known as "Rite of Passage".
Ambience became more alive with the celebration out on deck. At the same time it brought all sweet emotions about when we entered into arctic circle in Finland on as Finland will remain my all time favorite country. We also then sailed through Seven Sisters mountain range. All mountains were between 900 to 1100 metres high and beautifully lined up as you will see in uploaded photos.

31/05/2016

Day 3:
Exploring further, Hurtigruten took us through Trollfjord which was quite uncertain to visit due to weather forecast. But luckily, we made it to see extremely beautiful steep-sided mountains with its narrow entrance. The name is derived from troll, which stands on many local myths. Large vessel with its similar name Trollfjord sailed us through maximum 800 metres widened space along with maximum 1100 steep-sided mountains. View was very scenic and incredible hard to grab all looks of it. It still had last year's snow on it. We then sailed to Bodo which was our next stop. All photos are in surrounding of Trollfjord.

03/05/2016

Some incredible pics of Northern Lights...

03/05/2016

To continue, we had selected all possible excursions on our way to Bergen. But on our way while having dinner, suddenly announcement of "Northern Lights appeared" happened. I and my wife besides everyone hustled up to the dock and fortunately my camera was already set on my tripod as I had missed an opportunity on previous day. Let me tell you honestly, it is not easy at all to prepare your camera and tripod outside in heavy arctic winds. Northern lights were lasted for 5 mins and left us with the most astonishing memories ever we would wish to have. It was truly amazing to see a part of sky having lights keep dancing. So, our next excursion was the highlight of this beautiful journey. From Honningsvag, we continued our journey to Tromso(the gateway to the arctic) and reached at around midnight to see a "Midnight concert at the Arctic Cathedral". It was the first and the most beautiful concert ever I have attended, surrounded by flickering candle lights inside the elegant church. We were witnessed of the most beautiful Norwegian folk songs as well as some classical and sacred selections. Note: "You are not allowed to capture photos or record anything". It was very peaceful and truly amazing to hear and see one of their impeccable melancholic performance. I absolutely recommend to attend this.

19/02/2016

We began our journey in Norway which concluded to be the most astonishing and made us to believe the HEAVEN was right there..
On our first day which was the 1st of October, we boarded on Hurtigruten which took us on the most scenic journey from Kirkenes to all the coastal parts through Bergen..Lot of people do two way journey starting from Bergen - Kirkenes - Bergen which takes 12 days to complete.

First place to visit on our way was "Nordkapp" which is the top most part on the mainland of Europe besides the Hammerfest.

A way from Kirkeness to Nordkapp and then to the Hammerfest is incredibly beautiful..this area is isolated where even GPS sometimes does not work...thus you may see helicopter flying here all the time as people get lost...it only remains open till the first snow in September...but must must visit with guided tour..

This tour departs at early morning at 4.57 am and took us in bus to the Nordkapp and then to the Hammerfest. From Hammerfest We had boarded on the cruise again. In Hammerfest there is a museum of old Hurtigruten cruise which is very good to visit.

13/11/2015

Our journey to Norway had started in the morning at 7.30 am from Ivalo. There is only one transport option to cross the border to Norway is through Pasvikturist bus. You can reach them via [email protected]. They charge about 600 AUD$ upto 4 peaple from Ivalo(Finland) to Kirkenes(Norway). So it is only bit cheaper if you are 4 people. I found this very expensive for two of us and after many search and asking on various(Tripadvisor, Virtualtourist) websites, I finally got Ivalotrek the same people who took us to "Hunting northern lights" tour. They charged 480$ aud which was bit of relief for us. It is called "Visit the Arctic Sea" and Jouni who did amazing job, drove us to the russian border, Kirkenes sightseeing and dropped us to the port where the Hurtigruten boat was departing.
We really loved the hospitality of Finnish people. There is one hour time difference between Norway and Finland and we had good enough time in Kirkenes to roam around and see the city. We learned that many Russian over the years have settled in Kirkenes. Many of them have married the women from there. Also we saw first time few refugees on street from middle east countries. As per my observation, city does not offer any major tourist attraction but if you have a night to spend then there are pretty catchy locations to see the northern lights, but winter could offer more.

17/10/2015

Our trip in Finland was about to over on 1st of October spending 6 days from south to the northern part of Finland. We really loved the way Finland people are and their hospitality. We knew very less about this country from the beginning. We were only curious about Norway but Finland really did surprise us.
Best tips to visit Finland..
1) Visit this country either in Autumn or Winter..

2) Drive through south to the North, covering the route
Helsinki -Tampere -Oulu - Rovaniemi - Oulanka Park - Kakslauttanen(If to stay in glass igloo only) - Ivalo....This was our route..we enjoyed it..

3) Indian and some other restaurants you should try on this route.
- Helsinki (Samrat)
- Oulu (Indian Cuisine)
- Rovaniemi (Pancho Villa - you will find the best vegetarian burger)
- Oulanka Park (Most of the accommodations do provide kitchen option so you can cook as there is no vegetarian food available in this area..we tried Motel Willis in Ruka and it had kitchen and grocerry shop next to it..but if you can eat meat then you can try reindeer meat which they say light and has less cholesterol and delicious too.)
- Glass Igloo in Kakslauttanen do provide food options.
- Ivalo (Anjan Pizza and a burger shop right in front of it)
- Northern Lights with Ivalotrek is highly recommended.
- Make sure you have laptop and terabyte hdd because you will surely click thousands of photographs if you drive in Finland...
- You will find many options for breakfast buffet on your way..

17/10/2015

Next stop after Kakslauttanen was Ivalo..It is the last biggest city in the North direction. This town offers some best spots nearby to see Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. http://www.aurora-service.org/aurora-forecast/ is the best website. Here you can see the forecast of where it is happening and how strong it is. You can find the best tour option on http://www.ivalotrek.com/. Mr. Jouni will take you to the best spot Inari village and he will also give you tips of camera settings to catch Northern Lights. There is a lot to read about Northern Lights and when you see it, you will be amazed with this beautiful sky lights. But there are many more countries other than Finland where you can see it...Unfortunately we had only one night to spend and due to cloudy weather we could not see the Northern Lights on that day. We Knew the fact that we were still having more opportunities to see it when we go further to the North in Norway, we were just waiting for that moment.

29/09/2015

Currenty We are in Kakslauttanen which is about 30 kms away from the main town Ivalo.. Kakslauttanen offers beautiful scenery with its glass igloo accommodation.. It is worth to stay here specially in late September till June you can see the northern lights while you're in a bed. Before this place, we visited Oulu, Rovaniemi and Oulanka Park. In Oulu we had dinner at Indian Cuisine and the owner of this restaurant was very helpful and informative about the life in Finland. He mentioned that their life is pretty much based on no profit no loss. It means that everyone's daily expenses are based on their income. These customs are very different than rest of the world. So if a person earns 50,000 Euro then he may have to pay 1200 Euro a week for day-care and person with average income may pay a lot less. He also mentioned that a millionaire was caught recently and he paid 54,000 Euro speeding fine while he was driving 103 kms in 80 km zone. Therefore, difference between rich and poor is almost nil. Next stop was Rovaniemi where Arktikum museum was very interesting. It showcases the life of people in Lapland where the weather conditions are very harsh. It highlighted the most important thing which every human being needs to consider that, Lapland like other countries in the top most Northern Hemisphere faces global warming effect first and it is extreme. It also shows the history of Sami people and indigenous people who are still not considered a part politically and in other ways. We drove next to Oulanka National Park. In GPS we had to put Kuusamo. This park is extremely beautiful and you feel like you are in heaven. It offers 80 kms of hike involving vivid landscapes with green lush, lakes and rivers. You can do canoeing, kayaking, hiking and the most famous river rafting in Finland. We did 12 kms of hike which is called Peini karhunkierros and it started from Juuma and ends at the same place. The hike includes four bridges and surroundings are extremely beautiful. From Helsinki to Kakslauttanen, we drove in total of 1300 kms along more than a thousand of lakes...Finland has total of 187,888 lakes and they are not just the normal lakes but they offer very beautiful landscapes and at each metre it tempted me to stop and take photographs which I could have done it if I was to stay here for at least a month... Our next stop is Ivalo where we are returning our car and tomorrow night we have booked tour to see northern lights,

27/09/2015

Updating you guys for the past three days:
Start with Stockholm to Helsinki Cruise
It was a wonderful experience visiting numerous exotic archipelagos and tine islets with red cute huts.. Best thing on this cruise for many passengers was tax free booze. Therefore many alcoholic were on board but they stayed very cool and we enjoyed the scenic route from the top most deck..Grabbing balcony at deck no:8 in the early morning was the best idea to see sunrise.. It also offers many tax free items such as Lacoste shoes were around AUD60 which I normally see over 100 in Sydney.. It took 16 hours on board..and enjoyed it throughout...

26/09/2015

Summary of 3 days in Sweden: I experienced the Sweden is very much tourist friendly country where everyone is ready to help you on the streets and that makes your trip really easier...

Also I highly recommend Old town lodge for the accommodation as you will receive free walking guided tour and all major places are nearby which includes Royal palace, City Palace, Nobel Museum, port from where ferry to Drottningholm palace departs and Gamla Stan. Also it is very cheap to stay here and you get very good customer service all the time...

25/09/2015

Nordiska, Vasa, Skansen and rosendal gardens

25/09/2015

Third day in Stockholm: On this day we had a challenge covering two major places. 1) Ericsson Globe Skyview and 2) Drottningholm palace before 2:30 as we had a cruise to Helsinki in the afternoon. To visit Skyview we had to catch a subway from Gamla Stan to Globen station and 5 mins walk from there. This was a gigantic ball besides arena building and it showcases lot many top events and sport events such as ice hockey, soccer and many more. After this we headed up to central station to catch a ferry for Drottningholm palace. Here, the King officially resides though they have no political power but they believe it is a symbol of royalty. We did not have time to go in so we returned on the same ferry. Ferry from central station port to Drottninghollm palace leaves on every second hour and starts at 10 am. It takes about an hour one-way.

25/09/2015

Second day in Stockholm: Today we started with visiting Royal Palace and its Treasury collection. Treasury collection was beautiful. Some swords and crowns from 15th century were on display. Royal palace is extremely worth to visit for its interior royal architecture. Then we headed up to Vasa museum(Vasa-museet) where a massive ship from 17th century is preserved. They do provide guided tour which is included in your ticket and it is free for Stockholm pass holders. Next to the Vasa museum there is Nordiska Museet(Museum) which is also worth to visit. It was not included in our pass but they did allow visitors to see after 5 PM for free. On the same day we visited Skansen, Rosendals garden and Teracom building from where you can see the whole Stockholm giving you a similar feeling of Sydney Tower. Teracom costed us 55 SEK pp. This day was very tiring as most of the time we spent exploring via walk. Rosendals gardens particularly were very beautiful..but I advise to catch public transport.

23/09/2015

Royal Canal and Old Town...

23/09/2015

First day started with Stockholm city. The city is very beautiful and full of historical buildings, museum and castles. Therefore, the town has major issues with traffic congestion due to preserving lot many old buildings.. We are staying in Gamla Stan which is known as the old town in Stockholm. It reminds me old Ahmedabad because of its narrow streets but only pedestrians can be seen here and .All the streets are paved with square size of stones which are more slippery in the rain and hard to roll the luggage for the visitors...All in all, it offers Royal palace, Nobel Museum, City Hall and cheap accommodation in walking distance....We only could manage Royal Canal Tour which people say here the Stockholm gives very similar feeling of Venice due to all many suburbs are linked through a canal..My advice to the visitor is to must buy a Stockholm Pass which offers lot may attractions and tours...