Norway’s largest city as well as its capital, Oslo is an easy place to get around, with an efficient network of trains, buses, metro, streetcars, and ferries throughout the metropolitan area. The city also has excellent transportation links for travel to destinations throughout Norway and beyond. Getting There Oslo Airport Gardermoen Oslo’s main international airport […]
Easter in Norway means many things: time with family, a meal of lamb and potatoes, and a trip to a mountain cabin for some of late-season cross-country skiing accompanied by a Norwegian favorite, Kvikk Lunsj, a chocolate-covered wafer that’s become a traditional snack during hiking and skiing excursions. But the most surprising Norwegian Easter tradition […]
With one of the world’s longest coastlines, tens of thousands of islands, and mountains that cover two-thirds of the country’s surface, it’s no surprise that Norway is a place where nature takes center stage. In addition to an abundance of gorgeous scenery, the country offers excellent chances to see a wide range of wildlife, from […]
The Middle Ages were a time of intermittent warfare in Scandinavia, with recurring power struggles and ever-shifting borders. Yet in the late 14th century, a remarkable woman, Queen Margrete I, managed to unite the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in what became known as the Kalmar Union. The decades leading up to this […]
On Norway’s southeastern coast, in the county of Aust-Agder, lies the lovely town of Risør, known for its well-preserved white wooden buildings and sheltered location by the Skagerrak sea. An important harbor as early as the 1500s, Risør developed into a center for timber export and shipbuilding during the 17th century. The town was officially […]
“Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could happen. Behold the church of St. Cuthbert, splattered with the blood of the priests of God, despoiled of all its ornaments.” So wrote Alcuin, a Northumbrian scholar […]
Guidebook writer David Nikel takes us through his adopted hometown of Trondheim, where history and modernity walk happily hand in hand.
In 1818, a Frenchman named Jean Baptiste Bernadotte ascended the Swedish throne as Karl XIV Johan. The new king was a career soldier whose life took an unexpected turn due to a combination of the Napoleonic Wars, the decline of Swedish power in the Baltic region, and the premature death of a Danish prince.
For anyone with even the slightest interest in polar exploration, Oslo’s Fram Museum is not to be missed. Built around the polar expedition ship Fram, it tells the story of Norway’s expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
If the Sognefjord is the King of the Fjords, then the Hardangerfjord is the Queen. At 179 kilometers (111 miles) long, it’s Norway’s second-longest fjord and is easily accessible from Bergen and other places along the southwest coast. The main fjord carves inland from the Atlantic Ocean about 80 km (50 mi) south of Bergen before splitting […]
Sometimes called the King of the Fjords, the Sognefjord is Norway’s longest and deepest fjord, stretching 204 kilometers (127 miles) and reaching depths of up to 1,308 meters (4,291 feet). It’s the second-longest fjord in the world, surpassed only by Scoresby Sund in Greenland.
A thousand years after Scandinavian raiders went a-Viking throughout Europe, their story continues to fascinate. The Viking legacy remains in the thousands of runestones scattered throughout Scandinavia, as well as in archaeological sites and museums where you can learn about how they lived, fought, and sailed the seas even beyond the boundaries of the known world.
There must be something in the water in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark that helps authors write good mysteries, because Scandinavian crime writing has taken the world by storm. If you’re dreaming about an upcoming trip to Scandinavia—or reliving memories of a past visit—check out these authors. Stieg Larsson: Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the […]
Among Norway’s most striking historical buildings from the Middle Ages are its wooden stave churches. Erected at a time when other parts of Europe were raising great cathedrals in stone, they are, in the words of UNESCO, “one of the most elaborate and technologically advanced types of wooden construction that existed in North-Western Europe during the Middle Ages.” […]
One of the easiest and most comfortable ways to travel between Copenhagen and Oslo is to go by overnight cruise-ferry. DFDS Seaways operates two ships, the Pearl and the Crown, that depart at 4:30 p.m. daily from each city, arriving in the other at approximately 9:45 the following morning.
Syttende Mai (May 17) is Norway’s national holiday, the day the Norwegian Constitution was signed at Eidsvoll in 1814, declaring Norway to be an independent nation after more than 400 years under Danish rule. However, a brief war between Norway and Sweden in the following months led to a loose union between the two countries, with Sweden the dominant partner. Full Norwegian independence did not come until the dissolution of the union in 1905, but it is still May 17 that is celebrated as the country’s official national day.
The railway between Norway’s two main cities, Oslo and Bergen, is one of the world’s most scenic train rides, passing through green agricultural valleys and across the country’s “roof,” the barren yet beautiful Hardangervidda plateau.
Remnants of Scandinavia’s Viking past are scattered throughout the countryside of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Among the most intriguing are the stones covered in Viking runes that give a glimpse of the culture and society of the era.
The Scandinavian countries are all constitutional monarchies with a king or queen whose role as head of state is mostly symbolic. In addition to serving in ceremonial capacities at home, the monarch – along with other members of the royal family – represents the country internationally, while actual political decisionmaking is in the hands of an elected legislature (which in all three Scandinavian countries is unicameral) and a government headed by a prime minister.
Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943) may just be Norway’s most important artist you’ve never heard of. There are very few works by this talented sculptor outside his native country, the result of an arrangement Vigeland made with the Oslo City Council in 1921. Vigeland agreed to bequeath all his works to the city in exchange for the lifetime use of a studio and apartment specially built for him at Frogner. For the last two decades of his life, Vigeland lived and worked in this space; after his death, it became the Vigeland Museum, now one of Oslo’s top attractions along with the adjacent sculpture park.
The number seven seems to be a magic number when it comes to hills. Rome was famously built on seven hills, and many other cities have made similar claims, including San Francisco, Seattle, Melbourne, Barcelona, and Istanbul, to name just a few. In Bergen, Norway, the residents dream even bigger: The city boasts not seven hills but seven mountains surrounding the city center.
In a small town on the Sognefjord, expert cheesemakers are continuing a tradition that’s believed to date back more than a thousand years. The village of Vik, population 3,100, is home to the world’s only dairy producing Gamalost – literally “old cheese.”
One of Norway’s iconic train experiences, the Flåm Railway covers a distance of just 20.2 kilometers (12.5 miles) but changes 863.meters (2833 feet) in altitude, making for a dramatic ride. One of the steepest normal-gauge railways in the world, the route runs between the small highland station of Myrdal on the Oslo-Bergen line and the village of Flåm on the shores of the Aurlandsfjord, an arm of the world’s longest fjord, the Sognefjord.
If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to stand at the top of a ski jump, a visit to Holmenkollen is your chance to find out. Located at the top of a hill on the western outskirts of Oslo, the ski jump is the most modern in the world.
