A very scenic bus trip including 2 ferry trips took us from Stavanger to Bergen. Chatting on the bus to a couple of Norwegian ladies travelling to Bergen for a funeral, culminated in them walking us to our hostel, Piano Apartments so that we didn't get lost.Accommodation in Bergen is some of the most expensive we have ever experienced. We had a tiny room with uncertain hot water and one power point but it was centrally located allowing us to be able to walk every...

Achingly beautiful pictures of Norway all seem to include a person standing on the edge of Pulpit Rock (Preikestolen) gazing to the fjord below.We'd read up on it but it seemed it was going to be too challenging for us and it was located much further South than we intended to go. Then fate took a turn. A facebook post showed that an Australian friend we made in our 2011 travels in Europe had moved to Stavanger, the city closest to Pulpit Rock. Through facebook me...

Four days of Arctic Wilderness Exploration. Three days of zodiac adventures, island landings and explorations. This is real Arctic wilderness. While expensive to visit, it is still accessible. We saw varying wildlife and bird life but unfortunately no polar bears. The ice was melting much faster this year we were told and the bears were not visible.We did see Arctic Fox, Walrus, Seal, Reindeer,Eider Ducks and many varieties of seabirds. .We did see seemingly barr...

 Oh, Tromso has so many funny facts!  Funny Fact 1; All the footpaths in the CBD are heated from beneath. It is so expensive in labour to shovel snow and anyway they just don't have a population large enough to supply labourers, so heating the footpaths means the snow melts regularly so the paths and roads can be traversed even in the dead of winter.  Funny fact 2:There is a comprehensive road system UNDER the roads complete with roundabouts and road si...

The Lofoten Islands have a traditional fishing village just called A. It does have one of those funny bits over the A so that the pronunciation is more like "oh".It is the southern most village in the island group and this letter is the LAST in the Norwegian alphabet - a quirky gem of Norway. Another quirky gem we learned while touring the Lofoten islands is that there is a rather famous golf course they claim to be the "the coolest golf course in the world" wh...