I took the second trip promised to a young person in my life. Izz joined me on a trip to Scandinavia, starting in Stockholm and proceeding to Oslo, Bergen, and Stavanger.
Poppin’ around? Look at Scandinavia | Stockholm | Oslo | Bergen | Stavanger | Preikestolen .
As with the trip to Japan, the deal was simple: pick a country, things to do, and we’ll go there. In this case it was two countries in Scandinavia, which as a whole presented a wealth of destinations to choose from; after some research, she picked these cities and activities.
While these were all cities, the desired vibe was to “get lost” in the neighborhoods and maybe some go on some light hikes. She’s an illustrator by training and so her sketchbook accompanied us everywhere, and we often stopped or split up for extended drawing time. The images are quite amazing, but I won’t be sharing them here.
While on the one hand I lived in Europe as a teenager, on the other hand I never truly made it farther north than a family trip to Denmark with a side trip of Oslo by ferry. I take getting around in Europe for granted, but these cities and countries were new to me.
Everyone speaks English but I still found my basic German helpful in deciphering some signs. The culture and history were new to me as well, with huge gaps between “Vikings”, “wars of religion related to the Reformation”, and “modern constitutional monarchy”. The shared history between Sweden, Norway, and Denmark was particularly intriguing.
Transit and Accomodations
This trip included the first flight, first international flight, first train rides, and first ferry for Izz. Additionally, as we stayed primarily at nice hotels in tourism districts, we took a lot of buses and light rail and noted that many people get around on bicycles.
For the trains and some light rail, I relied on Vy, a combined ticketing service for Sweden and Norway. You can buy tickets in the app or online and tap your phone to present the ticket. You can even buy a ticket for someone else and send it to them, but they need to be online – we weren’t able to do that on the go, as to save money, Izz kept her data plan off.
One minor annoyance was that while everywhere relies on tap-to-pay transactions, most municipalities have their own app service for mass transit. What that mean was that in addition to Vy, I had an app for mass transit in Oslo, a different app in Bergen, and yet a different app in Stavanger (Ruter, Skyss, and Kolumbus respectively). In Stockholm and Bergen we just tapped to pay without the apps. Even the ferry service had an app. Each app needs an account and setup, so it’s best to figure that all out ahead of time, instead of at the bus stop.
This brings up another point about travel in Scandinavia: They don’t really use cash. There are some stores that will not take cash. You don’t have to use an app, but you will need a card that supports tap to pay. We weren’t able to exchange currency before the trip because banks don’t stock it, and even so, we spent most of it at either the Bergen fish market or on the train.
Another side effect of this is that depending on your bank, card transactions may or may not work. For example, if your bank allows point of sale transactions while overseas, buying a coffee or some souvenirs in a store works, but buying a train ticket in the app or website won’t – it’s being run not at the point of sale, but on a server or service somewhere else.
The hotels we stayed at were all quite nice. We stayed at Scandinavian chains in Stockholm and Stavanger (Scandic and Thon, respectively), A Radisson Blu in Oslo (for train station proximity) the Best Western Ole Bull in Bergen; the latter was interesting in that it had a kitchenette we could have taken more advantage of.