Leigh and I arrived in Norway to a rainy afternoon so grabbed some takeaway pizza from a delicious and popular joint around the corner and had an early night.
We spent today exploring the city centre of Oslo and covered many kms. We started off the day with a trip to a local bakery to try the Norwegian version of a cinnamon bun. Have to say, we both thought the Icelandic version was better.
We climbed to the roof of the Opera house, explored the Akershus Fortress, checked out the outside of the Royal Palace and Parliament building, had a squiz inside the Cathedral and walked down the beautiful main street of Oslo. We had a delicious lunch looking out over the harbour and then relaxed in the Deichman library while we waited to get back into our room.
Our hotel was in an area that had been evacuated due to the risk of a crane falling. We were finally allowed back into our room in the late afternoon and were pretty exhausted after a huge day of walking.
Tuesday, 27th October 2026
Today was abit of a rainy day here in Oslo so we decided to do some indoor activities, starting with Viking planet - a digital museum on Viking history in Norway. Next up was the Historical Museum where we saw exhibits on Norways Stone age, Medieval Norway and Viking age artifacts.
After lunch and a break in the rain, we caught the tram out to Vigeland Sculpture Park which contains over 200 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. We then did some tram-hopping, checking out the local Oslo "burbs" and taking some pictures of cool little streets.
Tomorrow is a travel day for us, we are heading up to the Lofoten Islands.
Thursday, 29th October 2026
We arrived in Ballstad yesterday after two stressful (for me anyway) flights, the last being on a very small propeller plane and a very bumpy landing in 60 km/h winds. Fun times!
Our accommodation for the next few days makes up for that though, such a beatiful location.
We had planned to drive down to Å today, the bottom town of the Lofoten archipelago, but a yellow weather warning of 68km/h winds and rain made us change our plans and we decided to visit the Lofotr Viking Musem instead. They have a great reconstruction of the largest Longhouse found from the Viking age, on the actual farm that the original longhouse was discovered. Neither of us thought to take a photo of it (Lani, we need our official photographer back). But here is a photo of me, channeling my inner Viking. Those helmets are heavy FYI!
We found a nice place to have lunch out of the miserable weather and then drove back to our Rorbuer to settle in and watch a movie and have a girl dinner! Tomorrow the weather is forecast to be much nicer so hopefully we can do our road trip down south.
Friday, 30th October 2026
The weather cooperated today so we were able to head off on the E10 to explore the southern part of the Lofoten islands. We drove to the very end first, to a town called Å. We had a wander around and found the cutest little bakery where we of course continued our obsession with cinnamon rolls - was delicious!
We continued along this gorgeous stretch of coastline stopping in at little fishing villages including Moskenes, Reine, Hamnoy, and Flakstad.
We unwittingly saved the best for last when we wandered around the oldest preserved fishing village in Norway called Nusfjord. We had a beautiful lunch at the little cafe and thoroughly explored the village finding so many beautiful and peaceful spots to sit and reflect. Leigh wants to live here. What a beautiful part of the world!
Sunday, 1st November 2026
Yesterday we left Ballstad and headed to Henningsvaer, another little fishing village in the Lofoten region. It was a rainy and windy day so we did not do much sight seeing along the way, but by the afternoon the weather had cleared up a little so we went out to explore our new neighbourhood for the next 3 days.
Today went for a drive to some of the islands around this area of Lofoten, the island of Gimsøya and the town of Svolvaer.
