Whether it’s the beautiful mountains, stunning fjords, historic towns or lovely rural scenes Norway has it all

One of the great joys of travel is to observe, learn, experience and enjoy new places, new people and new cultures.  From these experiences we make observations, generalisations, even conclusions about the people and places we visit.  We compare what we see with other travel experiences and with what we’re familiar with back home.  Its human nature, its part of the fun.  So apart from the drop-dead beauty of this place here’s a few of our observations and generalisations about Norway.

First and foremost, we have to talk about the people.  They are some of the nicest, friendliest, helpful, courteous and generous people we’ve met.  We didn’t get one cross look, impatient expression or irritable response the whole time we were there.  They were so nice that a couple of times I wanted to prod them a bit, do something really annoying just to see if they would lose their cool.

From the best we could tell, Norwegians also have a good sense of humour. This is the exit sign above a door at the Viking Museum in the Lofoten Islands

And the Norwegian people are so darn healthy looking.  You go into a crowded shopping centre and mostly you see fit, tanned, handsome people, well dressed, opening doors for each other, politely talking in their melodious sing-song language, looking like they came off a Hollywood set.  And if you talk to any of them you find out they all speak perfect English, they all have a brother who went to Australia and they all own a mini-RV.

Norwegians are healthy looking, fit and tan. Must be the beautiful food they eat.

We wanted to be like Norwegians so Julie cooked up a couple of beautiful pieces of salmon

The local markets sell a variety of local delicacies, including reindeer, whale, cod and moose. Except I think they were mock moose (see below).

But Norwegians are serious sunseekers (as are the other Scandinavians).  When the sun comes out they pull over on the side of the road, come out on their balcony, sit down in a public plaza, wherever they might be, point themselves towards the sun, take off their shirt, even if they’re not wearing their best bra, and let those rays hit their starving body.  I know they only have a couple of months of sun a year, and that sucks, but these guys definitely pray to their sun god.

A public park in Bergen with the sun shining is a perfect time to sit down and soak up that Vitamin D

Let’s talk about driving.  First of all, the fuel prices in Norway are outrageous, the most expensive we’ve seen in the world, even more than Uruguay, which is saying something.  A litre of petrol costs around 16 to 17 Norwegian Kroners per litre which converts to about A$2.75 per litre or about US$7.90 per gallon.  On top of that, they have road tolls on all the roads around the major towns, all captured by camera and charged to you a month or so later.  We had a few instances of going through a camera, realising we were going the wrong way, turning around and going through the camera again.

Hey, Norway is a wealthy successful country which has substantial offshore oil fields. Why do they have to pay so much for the fuel? Discuss.

But Norwegian drivers are so law abiding it makes you mad.  They never go over the speed limit, they slow down for the most ridiculous speed changes, they always yield to you, never honk their horn and never park without buying a parking ticket from the little machines.  In fact, they’re so law abiding that there is no need for police which was apparent because in the whole time we were in Norway we only saw two…and maybe it was the same guy we saw twice.

I looked for a photo of a Norwegian driver doing something wrong but all I could find was this bicycle

The Norwegians have a very strange (and difficult for visitors) way of buying alcohol.  Any beer under 4.7% alcohol can be bought at supermarkets so that’s good.  But any stronger beer, wine or spirits have to be bought at specialist government-owned stores called Vinomonopolet which basically regulates and taxes the sale and consumption of alcohol in the country.  No free market, no competition, no choice.  So if you want to buy wine or spirits you need to find one of these stores, which sometimes are not easy to find, and buy your booze there.  Never work in Australia.

Alcohol is expensive and difficult to buy in Norway but this special beer is called ‘Stick a finger in the soil’. No kidding.

And a final couple of comments about Norway and its fabulous great outdoors.  As we’ve said before, Norway has to be one of the most beautiful countries in the world for its broad-ranging and overall spectacular sites and scenery.  There is no scenic downtime when you are driving around Norway.  To emphasise this point, there are 46 national parks in Norway covering their mountains, fjords, marine environments, islands, the lot.

You wouldn’t know it but there’s a different national park on each side of this road. The problem, if you call it that, is there’s no way to get in there and explore them

But….many of these parks are hard to get to, sometimes almost impossible unless you want to walk into them.  We see them on the map and read about them but many have no roads and no visitor facilities at all.  Their boundaries actually run right up to the side of the road and stop, rather than the road running through them.  We heard from a couple of sources the principal concept of these parks is to preserve the land, not necessarily set them aside for use and enjoyment by people today.  Exceptions do apply and we did manage to visit three spectacular national parks which was great.

Here’s one way to get into the national parks – or just about anywhere in Norway. You can walk in the summer or cross-country ski in the winter

And then there’s the moose.  You see road signs warning you of moose, you see them on souvenir coffee cups, t-shirts and fridge magnets, they seem to be a major part of the marketing and promotional activity of Norway.  And let’s face it, moose are cool.  Except there’s one problem – there aren’t any.  Well…we did see moose droppings on one walk but we never saw any moose from any of our walks or while we were driving (we drove 2,800 miles or 4,500 kilometres in Norway).  To be fair, we didn’t see any real Vikings or trolls either and they also feature heavily in the country’s promotion.  We did see a lot of reindeer, reindeer everywhere up north, but no t-shirts or coffee mugs with reindeer.  Something’s wrong here.

Warning signs for moose and reindeer. Reindeer are everywhere in northern Norway but we’re convinced moose are part of Norway’s ancient mythology

Finally, Norway has a fabulous concept called ‘freedom to roam’ (Finland has a similar concept called ‘every man’s right’).  Freedom to road basically means anyone in Norway can go where they want by vehicle, bicycle, ski or on foot as long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others.  The definition of private property is a little fluid.  For visitors that means we can camp almost anywhere and walkers are free to head off in any direction they like.  I’m not sure it would work back home but apparently it’s a very Scandinavian thing, possibly originating from the semi-nomadic Sami people who still herd their reindeer across borders.

When in Norway you can think of yourself as a reindeer with complete freedom to roam anywhere you want

But anyway you cut it, Norway is spectacular.  Julie and I rated it beyond many more celebrated countries in terms of its beauty, people, ease of travel and sheer enjoyment.  Yes, its expensive but you still get plenty of bang for your buck.  We want to come back as Norwegians.

You’d be pretty happy too if you lived in a place like this.

Good bye Norway, we’ll miss you!