After our return from Copenhagen both Miranda and I have turned critical eyes toward our surroundings here in Stockholm. We noticed that we had been ignoring many of Stockholm's less glamorous parts, but even now we still believe that Stockholm should come out on top. We hope that our review of Oslo and Bergen is objective and fair, but for those of you that don't want to dig through all the details, Stockholm wins again.
Let's start with Norway in general. The countryside is beautiful. Start with the green rolling hills along the Mississippi, add in endless miles of coastline, and then start climbing up the foothills into an amazing mountain range. The land is rocky and isn't good for much, but it makes for some incredible scenery.
Then we'll head over to Bergen. As previously stated, we took the train from Oslo to Bergen. It departed around 11:10 at night and arrived at 7:00 the following morning. I think they could have made the trip faster, but arriving at 7:00 was plenty early. Each seat came with a brand new fleece blanket, an eye mask and ear plugs, all of which were greatly appreciated. We did our best to sleep, but it was just our luck that our seats were against the back wall, meaning we couldn't recline. We tossed and turned all night, and the one good thing about that is that we had a lot of opportunities to check out the view. Other than the miles of tunnels, which alone were incredible, we were always rewarded with an amazing view. And thanks to the northern latitude, we had decent light for the entire trip.
Bergen used to be Norway's biggest and most important city as it was the trading center off to the west. The Norwegian farmers and fisherman would bring their goods to the port where English traders would come to exchange more refined items like tea, beer, and manufactured products. We couldn't tell a difference, but rumor has it that the Norwegians on the west coast are quite talkative and are great at bargaining while Norwegians from the south and the east tend to be fairly quiet and reserved. Bergen had some of the craziest narrow and crooked roads we've ever seen, and we just couldn't get enough of the tiny houses. The mountains looked like exaggerated bluffs, and after looking around for just a few minutes it was no surprise that the Norwegian settlers ended up in Decorah, Iowa. We spent the day visiting everything that was reachable on foot, far more than we should have tried to see. The city was quite cool and by six at night we were exhausted...only five hours to burn until our train departed for Oslo! Our pictures of Bergen can show the highlights better than I can describe, so head on over to Picassa and check them out.
Unfortunately there were a few downsides to Bergen, which we later found out extended to Norway in general.
First, the prices. Norway makes Sweden seem cheap. Two good hamburgers and one Coke without refills at a sit-down restaurant by the piers? Try $75. You'd think as a math major I could have done the math before placing the order...and sadly, those were the cheap options. As an additional slap in the face that restaurant wasn't even airing the European Cup, which was the first thing we asked the waiter and the only reason we even took a seat!
Second, Norwegian business accepts credit cards, but a lot of places don't accept international cards. We even got turned away at McDonald's while trying to track down a cheap meal!
Third, Bergen was ridiculously touristy. We're not talking about free souls wandering around in their tennis shoes with a backpack and a camera. We're talking about groups of 50 people stepping off a bus, lighting a cigarette, then following the tour guide holding a sign up in the air. Two or three buses would have been fine, but I swear there were at least 25 of these groups clogging up central Bergen. Back to number two. Why wouldn't a touristy town like this accept international credit cards?
Fourth, drugs. I've seen a few small drug exchanges at bus stops in downtown Minneapolis but have never seen anything like what we saw in Bergen. We had wandered into a big park in a ritzy area of town. The apartments lining the park were by far the nicest of anything we had seen in town, and most of the people passing through the park seemed fairly well off. But there were also two groups just sitting in the sunshine, openly selling drugs. I sat there, watched one man walk up to four guys on the hilltop, pull a large bag full of white powder out of his coat, shake hands and walk away. In the next five minutes 20 people ranging from their late teens to kids in their 20s showed up in backpacks, chatted for 30 seconds, counted out their bills, exchanged and stashed goods, shook hands, and went their way. Miranda and I went to sit in another area of the same park and as I was about to sit down I noticed cigarette butts that I didn't want to sit on. I looked for a clear spot and noticed multiple syringes pushed into the dirt. We didn't stick around long after that. I guess drugs are actually a pretty big problem in Norway. Most Swedes have told me that few Swedes have ever even come into contact with marijuana until they head to America to study, but as soon as you cross into Norway you're faced with some pretty rough stuff.
We filled the rest of our night in Bergen at a sports bar and enjoyed watching the Netherlands dominate the soccer match. After digging our goods out of a storage locker at the train station we hopped a 10:50 train back to Oslo, this time with reclining seats. I tried to stay awake to see some of the mountains on the way out of town, but after about an hour I closed my eyes and didn't open them again until we rolled into Oslo at 6:30 in the morning. We were bummed to leave Bergen without taking a fjord tour, but you need more than 18 hours in town to pull that off.
We took our time getting everything pieced together off the train and completed the two-mile hike across town to our hotel (yellow castle-like building in the photos), hoping to leave our bags there until we could check in. Turns out the room was ready, so we checked in at 7:30, cleaned up, took short nap, then went downstairs to enjoy the continental breakfast. After a small lunch of cold cuts from a grocery store in Bergen the day before, the over-sized breakfast buffet was more than welcome, even if we shouldn't have been allowed to enjoy it until the following morning. Miranda even thought it was the best part of the trip!
We hiked through the city center and checked out a random free museum. As you'll see from our photos, central Oslo is amazing. As you move from the center to the water, the Aker Brygge area, you pass by a bunch of new architecture. Apparently it was an old shipyard that was replaced with new buildings, and in my mind it was done very well. I had often defended Stockholm saying Stockholm doesn't need to add new architecture, but after seeing that part of Oslo I'm starting to wonder.
Once again, you can see most of what we did from our photos, but here are a few major highlights. The first was the ski jump up on the mountain over town. Wow. Vigeland's Park, the sculpture garden. Never seen anything like it. I could spend a lot of Saturdays just laying around in that park. Lastly, the Sweden vs. Spain match shown on the big screen. We showed up five minutes early to get a seat (the place was half empty for the Germany vs. Croatia game two nights before), only to find a packed park with 500 people waiting to get in. Luckily we found a spot on the hill where we could still see the game.
Low-lights, Sweden losing to Spain in the 90+2 minutes of injury time. Seriously! Completely checking out at a grocery store only to have our international credit cards denied. They had to switch lanes while I ran down two blocks to a 7/11 to withdraw some cash. Once again, more drugs. The window where druggies went to get clean needles and condoms wasn't a big deal. The woman with the signs of meth all over her face just a block away was. There were also a few "interesting" groups keeping the police busy outside the train station. Lastly, we took a tram ride through a non-touristy area of Oslo, only to see a pretty dirty area similar to what we had seen in Copenhagen.
Obviously Oslo and Stockholm are different. The lake and sea around Stockholm and the mountains around Oslo just can't be compared. Otherwise, Oslo has more extremes than Stockholm. Vigeland Park and Aker Brygge are areas that would really add to what Stockholm already has going for it. But if those come with dirty streets, run down buildings, graffiti and drug problems just outside the city center, it's just not worth it.
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