Norway is expensive.Insanely expensive - like: it hurts to convert the cost of a slice of pizza to pounds, and only a masochist would convert the price to New Zealand dollars.We knew this before touching down, but it's still the first thing I feel compelled to say about the country.Apparently it all boils down to having a lot of natural resources and not so many people to divide the riches amongst.The natural resources we flew north for were not oil and gas, but fjords and waterfalls.

Easter came early this year (the earliest Easter since 1913 in fact), but when we booked our four-day Norway jaunt back in November, it sure seemed long enough away that Winter would have retreated (a little).And it had, we were told, until an Arctic blast hit on Thursday.When we landed at Oslo-Torp (Ryan Air adds the Oslo prefix, even though it's 1.5 hours by bus from the airport) the snow was three feet high against the terminal building.And being a Ryan-Air-sort-of-airport, there was no aerobridge, so we had to walk in the snow and ice and wind to the terminal.

Welcome to Norway!

At customs, the guy who stamped our passports asked where we were headed and we said, "Train from Oslo to Voss, then on to Bergen."And he said, "You think so?Because the trains might not be running.""Oh," we said.That gave us something to think about on the bus ride to Oslo.

About a week before leaving, I mentioned to Marisa that it had only really snowed enough to cover the ground once in Edinburgh this winter."Is this enough snow for you?" she asked me as we crawled through the white wilderness of Sandefjord.

When we arrived in Oslo proper, we went to the train station to ask the experts about the likelihood of trains being cancelled the next day and how we might be able to salvage our planned itinerary.The guy at the NSB counter said, "Of course the trains will run," and printed out our tickets without us even asking.And he was right: the trains did run all long weekend, and everything went to plan.

Phew.

After checking in to our hostel, we walked around Oslo in the late afternoon daylight, found the cheapest meal we could for dinner, then traced a similar route to take in the city at night.

A few observations about Oslo.It has a lot of statues.Twice as many as any other city I've ever been to.Heavy metal is mainstream (this may be a nationwide phenomena, but it was most pronounced in Oslo, where you can see an entire family [three generations] wearing black t-shirts screenprinted with images of their favourite death metal bands, and outdoor cafés pump Black Sabbath instead of Rhiannon).Even though it's the capital and has a population of over half a million people, there are a lot of people walking round holding skis (the nearest ski slope is only 20mins by underground).When they renovate buildings, they cover the scaffolding in canvas to protect the work from the elements.This meant Oslo Cathedral was completely covered.Wrapped is probably a better word.Thinking about all the things we've seen that have been undergoing renovation (the Duomo in Milan, Schloss Vaduz, even Edinburgh's own castle…), I'm glad this practice is not more widespread.

All this makes Oslo an interesting sort of city.

But when you only have a weekend flanked by bank holidays, you've got to keep moving, so the next morning (which dawned sunny and still, as if mocking the customs guy) we caught the train to Voss.The journey took six hours, and is billed as one of the best train journeys in the world.I can vouch for that, but as with all train journeys, after about three hours, you're frustrated by the poor photos due to the speed or the train and the state of the windows would rather be at your destination already.

Voss is a smallish town which hosts an extreme sports festival and there are posters for paragliding (and parabungee), kayaking and kite-surfing all over the place… but the window for these sorts of things is probably about three weeks in the height of summer.For us, the biggest attraction was throwing rocks on the frozen edges of the lake.That sounds like I'm being dismissive.It was REALLY fun.And a heck of a lot cheaper than parabungeeing (for the same price you could buy everyone in Taupo a Grapefruit FruJu).

We stayed the night in a cabin at the camp ground which was on the lakefront and run by a New Zealander, who offered to give us Super 14 score updates.Our abode had a wee heater, but as the Kiwi manager admitted, the cabins were built for summer holiday makers and the walls were only 2cm thick.It was minus ten degrees the night before we arrived, and I don't want to know what it was on Saturday night - all I know was it was too cold for my sleeping bag, but not for Meze's ultrabag.

Sunday started like the previous day: on the train.We backtracked 40mins to Myrdal, then transferred onto the Flåmbana line, which is the world's steepest railway (I think the guard said it was one metre to every eighteen at its steepest point).The 50 minute journey involved a lot of time in tunnels, but the times in the daylight were spectacular.The line caters for tourists these days, as the insane price can attest, but this also meant the whole train stopped for five minutes so we could all get out and take photos of a waterfall which was not frozen (!).

We arrived in Flåm, spent an hour half-heartedly looking at souvenirs and sandwiches, then it was time for the ferry to Gudvangen.The point of the ferry is not to get to Gudvangen, but to travel along the world's second largest fjord.The end of the Sognefjord is shaped like and upside down Y, with Flåm at the tip of the Eastern branch, and Gudvangen at the tip of the Western.

The ferry took about two hours.It was overcast but mild for the first half of the journey (though the breeze got a bit much if you stuck to the railings for too long) and visibility was excellent.Because of the recent weather, the fjord wasn't as green as on the postcards and websites, but it was still amazing.At the halfway point, the weather closed in and it started snowing, which in one respect was cool (ignore the pun) but meant photos from then on just didn't do the place justice.

By the time we arrived in Gudvangen it was fully snowing and we all hurried from the ferry onto two buses which took us back to Voss (where our day started seven hours earlier).The drive back to Voss in a mild snowstorm was pretty stunning too.

In Voss, we waited half an hour for the train to Bergen.When it arrived, the guards said the train was fully booked (we only had open tickets with no seats reserved on that train).We asked if we could just stand, and he said, "If you want."Wait another hour or stand on the train for an hour - the decision was simple.We were joined in the passage between carriages three and four by another Kiwi (who was in Norway for 4 days like us, lives in Edinburgh like us; went to Vic like us; and works in a bank like me… I didn't like him) and a Norwegian petroleum science student returning home to Bergen after a weekend skiing.

We got to Bergen after sunset and my kiwi doppelganger walked us to our hostel (he was staying at the one over the road).It was nine o'clock by the time we were ready to hit the town and splash out on a sit down meal, but we were told by the girl at our hostel's reception that most places would be closed, being Easter Sunday and all.She was wrong (what is it with Norwegians and advice?) - we found several places open around the fishmarket, though none with an entirely authentic Norwegian menu.Again, its best not to think about how much the meal cost, for all of our sakes.

Monday dawned sunny, but after checking out of our hostel we could already see the clouds rising over the hills so made a beeline for the cable car up to Fløyen.The cable car is about twice as high (and fast) as the Wellington one, and the view was four times as amazing.The cool thing about the cable car was that the locals all used it (the queue to go up was down the street when we got off), bringing up their toboggans, shovels and skis to make the most of the thick coating of snow and kilometres of tracks winding around the hill.

After lunch we explored Bergen from ground level, and by three o'clock we were worn out, caught the bus to the airport (only half an hour!).Nine hours later (flight to London; flight to Edinburgh; waiting) we were home.

So that was Norway.Back to work for another six weeks (sigh) then Paris in early May.