Sharing some photos taken in a recent Norway self drive holiday. Me and my wife toured in April 2012 for 20+ days. Very last minute planning ( less than a month ) as we had some last minute leave stretches to clear, we visited in the shoulder season of spring. However most of the areas were still snowing! Geiranger experienced freak snow and over the weekends the area turned from green to white. Most of the planned hiking trails were unfortunately not available.
Total cost - slighty north of 18K SGD for both of us. Of which 400+ SGD on toll payment alone.
Outline of areas visited:
- Oslo - picked up rental car at airport
- Rjukan
Heddal Stave Church
Langfoss
Latefoss
- Bergen
Huldefossen
- Geiranger
Alesund
Flydalsjuvet
- Trondheim
Hell
- FV17 stretch / Kystriksveien
Torghatten
Gildeskål
- Bodoe
- Lofoten
Å
Reine
Sakrisoya
Henningsvær
Ramberg
Svinøya
- back to Bodoe - rental car returned
train to Oslo.
Transport :
Rented an AVIS subaru outback station wagon from Oslo up to Lofoten ( mainly because there wasn't much option for auto SUVs ). All weather tyres held up well even on snow covered roads, but can be really slippery on black ice esp braking / turning. We did not chain our wheels. Clocked a total of 3600km drive. Car was returned at Bodoe on last leg and we booked a train ride ( NSB online ) with sleeper cabin back to Olso for the returning leg. Used our old Garmin nuvi 1490T and loaded the norway OSM img. Prior to trip, I used mapsource to find and map out ALL the points to be visited and created a GPX list - the list helped us immensely. We also bought a Michelin Norway map and we found it very useful.
Roads / parking :
Left hand drive. Generally road conditions are much better maintained than Iceland. Most of the fjord passes have some kind of gunrails at the critical corners. However the roads are surprisingly narrow for two vehicles.
Many tunnels and beautiful bridges to cross fjords in certain areas. Many tolls as well - automatic, when the vehicle passes through the charge is added to the rental back end and comes up on the bill of the credit card.
Speed limit is usually 80km/hr on most of the main roads away from cities. I'd imagine the roads to be pretty slow in summer during peak tourist seasons.
Multiple car ferries to cross fjords, esp along FV17. Please check schedule, notoriously infrequent in shoulder seasons, and some in wierdest hrs. Our Bodoe-Moskenes ferry was 130am ..
Bus schedules are infrequent unless summer.
If you are not driving, be expected to be badly restricted by the infrequent transport schedules.
Met quite a number of speed traps, and parking in cities is a pain in the a**. Ridiculously expensive / hr, makes our CBD parking rates look way too budget. In cities like Oslo, we saw some parking garages that offers budget whole day parking for 20-30 SGD. In general after 5pm parking is free, pay attention to the signages on charging hours ( very limited lots ) Payment of ticket can range from credit cards to coins, we met several types of payment machines.
Food
- Much more expensive. Makes iceland and japan food look too cheap
Hot dogs in gas station costs at least 40 Kr. A simple burger and hotdog will clock almost 20 SGD easily.
Bottle of 0.5ml cola ard 3-4 SGD.
In general a meal in a restaurant will cost ard 3-4x upwards that of singapore esp in cities, and I am not even talking about the more upmarket ones.
Best to buy from the grocery stores and cook. we rented cottages and rorbuers along the way and the kitchens were well equipped.
Plastic bottles can be recycled in many automatic machines near groceries, and they pay u per bottle. Do not throw!
We decided to splurge on the last dinner in Norway by trying out the fusion style chinese restaurant - DINNER, Oslo - Many claims the best in Norway, some say in Europe. Peking duck dish needs a day booking prior ( we managed to get by with 4 hr prebooking ). Foie gras with duck salad was perfect. The duck must be one of the fattest I have ever tried.
While tipping is not necessary, a gentle rounding up would be nice if service was great. Credit card payment are not spared from options of tipping, as the final amount before transaction is KEYED IN BY CUSTOMER!
Gas
For a country that produces petrol themselves, the gas tax is horrid, and you will understand why the wealth from gas alone itself averted Norway from the global crisis.
- Varied btw 3.05 to 3.50 SGD per litre for 95. Better rates at the fringes of major cities, worst along the FV 17 stretch gets better from Brønnøysund to Bodoe. Within Lofoten better rates in Svolvær and Leknes.
Diesel is marginally cheaper
Most of the pump stations accept our local singaporean credit cards
* the less common "Bunker Oil" stations have slightly more competitive rates but they only accept 4 pinned credit cards.
Prepaid SIM cards
Needs activation before use, with identification verification. We got two Telenor cards at the airport and activation took only minutes before the data plan got up! ( there were some horror stories of activation taking days / weeks )
Connection is generally good in most places.
Credit cards and payment
Not all places accept my 5 pin (UOB) credit card. Apparently the local credit cards have a special ID embued in their cards and even have photos of the user.
As far as I know there are no 4 pin credit cards locally.
So make it a habit to check if it can be used, never dine past the cash that you carry.
So anything worth shopping around ?
Scandinavian stuffs mainly. Wife's retail therapy - the AMFI malls in each of the bigger towns.
They happened to have 50% discounts on Danish Eva Solo, Bodum and we bought quite a number of their carafe's / cups, which would have cost almost 3x the price in Singapore. Remember to ask for the tax rebate when making larger purchases.
Camera stuffs
-Canon 5dMkii, Sigma 12-24mm, 17mm TSE, 24mm, 50mm, 85mm PC ( cross adapted )
-Fuji GSW690iii, velvia 50/provia 100/panf+
-GoPro HD2 as a driving video recording camera and for occass timelapse. I love the sturdy little fella. While I initially had concerns the camera and the mount flying off the vehicle during driving, the sticky tape mount got so stuck to the front of my car I thought I was almost ripping the car paint off when trying to remove it. * Only the extra rear door with the openings that comes with the package will not cause internal fogging in cold weather.
Photos not in any particular order
#1
Heddal stave church (Heddal stavkirke)
Short drive out of Oslo. Largest stave church in Norway built in 13th century, legend has it that it was built by a small group of farmers and a troll. Toilet only opens during summer season! we had to drive ard 10km to a nearby gas station to use the loo.
Total cost - slighty north of 18K SGD for both of us. Of which 400+ SGD on toll payment alone.
Outline of areas visited:
- Oslo - picked up rental car at airport
- Rjukan
Heddal Stave Church
Langfoss
Latefoss
- Bergen
Huldefossen
- Geiranger
Alesund
Flydalsjuvet
- Trondheim
Hell
- FV17 stretch / Kystriksveien
Torghatten
Gildeskål
- Bodoe
- Lofoten
Å
Reine
Sakrisoya
Henningsvær
Ramberg
Svinøya
- back to Bodoe - rental car returned
train to Oslo.
Transport :
Rented an AVIS subaru outback station wagon from Oslo up to Lofoten ( mainly because there wasn't much option for auto SUVs ). All weather tyres held up well even on snow covered roads, but can be really slippery on black ice esp braking / turning. We did not chain our wheels. Clocked a total of 3600km drive. Car was returned at Bodoe on last leg and we booked a train ride ( NSB online ) with sleeper cabin back to Olso for the returning leg. Used our old Garmin nuvi 1490T and loaded the norway OSM img. Prior to trip, I used mapsource to find and map out ALL the points to be visited and created a GPX list - the list helped us immensely. We also bought a Michelin Norway map and we found it very useful.
Roads / parking :
Left hand drive. Generally road conditions are much better maintained than Iceland. Most of the fjord passes have some kind of gunrails at the critical corners. However the roads are surprisingly narrow for two vehicles.
Many tunnels and beautiful bridges to cross fjords in certain areas. Many tolls as well - automatic, when the vehicle passes through the charge is added to the rental back end and comes up on the bill of the credit card.
Speed limit is usually 80km/hr on most of the main roads away from cities. I'd imagine the roads to be pretty slow in summer during peak tourist seasons.
Multiple car ferries to cross fjords, esp along FV17. Please check schedule, notoriously infrequent in shoulder seasons, and some in wierdest hrs. Our Bodoe-Moskenes ferry was 130am ..
Bus schedules are infrequent unless summer.
If you are not driving, be expected to be badly restricted by the infrequent transport schedules.
Met quite a number of speed traps, and parking in cities is a pain in the a**. Ridiculously expensive / hr, makes our CBD parking rates look way too budget. In cities like Oslo, we saw some parking garages that offers budget whole day parking for 20-30 SGD. In general after 5pm parking is free, pay attention to the signages on charging hours ( very limited lots ) Payment of ticket can range from credit cards to coins, we met several types of payment machines.
Food
- Much more expensive. Makes iceland and japan food look too cheap
Hot dogs in gas station costs at least 40 Kr. A simple burger and hotdog will clock almost 20 SGD easily.
Bottle of 0.5ml cola ard 3-4 SGD.
In general a meal in a restaurant will cost ard 3-4x upwards that of singapore esp in cities, and I am not even talking about the more upmarket ones.
Best to buy from the grocery stores and cook. we rented cottages and rorbuers along the way and the kitchens were well equipped.
Plastic bottles can be recycled in many automatic machines near groceries, and they pay u per bottle. Do not throw!
We decided to splurge on the last dinner in Norway by trying out the fusion style chinese restaurant - DINNER, Oslo - Many claims the best in Norway, some say in Europe. Peking duck dish needs a day booking prior ( we managed to get by with 4 hr prebooking ). Foie gras with duck salad was perfect. The duck must be one of the fattest I have ever tried.
While tipping is not necessary, a gentle rounding up would be nice if service was great. Credit card payment are not spared from options of tipping, as the final amount before transaction is KEYED IN BY CUSTOMER!
Gas
For a country that produces petrol themselves, the gas tax is horrid, and you will understand why the wealth from gas alone itself averted Norway from the global crisis.
- Varied btw 3.05 to 3.50 SGD per litre for 95. Better rates at the fringes of major cities, worst along the FV 17 stretch gets better from Brønnøysund to Bodoe. Within Lofoten better rates in Svolvær and Leknes.
Diesel is marginally cheaper
Most of the pump stations accept our local singaporean credit cards
* the less common "Bunker Oil" stations have slightly more competitive rates but they only accept 4 pinned credit cards.
Prepaid SIM cards
Needs activation before use, with identification verification. We got two Telenor cards at the airport and activation took only minutes before the data plan got up! ( there were some horror stories of activation taking days / weeks )
Connection is generally good in most places.
Credit cards and payment
Not all places accept my 5 pin (UOB) credit card. Apparently the local credit cards have a special ID embued in their cards and even have photos of the user.
As far as I know there are no 4 pin credit cards locally.
So make it a habit to check if it can be used, never dine past the cash that you carry.
So anything worth shopping around ?
Scandinavian stuffs mainly. Wife's retail therapy - the AMFI malls in each of the bigger towns.
They happened to have 50% discounts on Danish Eva Solo, Bodum and we bought quite a number of their carafe's / cups, which would have cost almost 3x the price in Singapore. Remember to ask for the tax rebate when making larger purchases.
Camera stuffs
-Canon 5dMkii, Sigma 12-24mm, 17mm TSE, 24mm, 50mm, 85mm PC ( cross adapted )
-Fuji GSW690iii, velvia 50/provia 100/panf+
-GoPro HD2 as a driving video recording camera and for occass timelapse. I love the sturdy little fella. While I initially had concerns the camera and the mount flying off the vehicle during driving, the sticky tape mount got so stuck to the front of my car I thought I was almost ripping the car paint off when trying to remove it. * Only the extra rear door with the openings that comes with the package will not cause internal fogging in cold weather.
Photos not in any particular order
#1
Heddal stave church (Heddal stavkirke)
Short drive out of Oslo. Largest stave church in Norway built in 13th century, legend has it that it was built by a small group of farmers and a troll. Toilet only opens during summer season! we had to drive ard 10km to a nearby gas station to use the loo.
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