If you’ve kept up with the previous posts, you’ll recall that we got into Bodø at about 2:30am. Fortunately, mum had planned ahead and got us a hotel room for that night as well. Brilliant. We proceeded to spend two full days in Bodø and that would prove to be more than enough.
It is a pretty small town whose population doubles during the fishing season. The main reason we were stopping here was 48 hours on the boat to Trondheim would have been too much.
We headed from Tromsø to Bodø on board the Hurtigruten vessel MS Vesterålen, departing at 1:30am. A 1983 ‘traditional’ ship (marketing words for oldest in the fleet), it comes in at just over 100 metres long, over 6000 tonnes and can hit top speeds of 30 km/hr – wowing the possible 510 people allowed on board. Despite the negative tone I’ve started this post with, the boat trip was enjoyable. The leg that we were on found us winding our way through many of Norway’s fjords, some only 100m wide.
The cabins were acceptable, somewhat small, but still with enough space for a bunk bed, small table, toilet and shower – really, it was everything you’d expect from a bed on a boat. We were on one of the lower levels with an outside cabin, so our porthole looked out just above water level. They did offer inside cabins without a window (no thanks) as well as the supremo suites for the high rollers.
From the bottom of Norway to the top. We jumped on an internal Norwegian Air flight (with the promise of free in-flight WiFi that was BROKEN) for two hours and found ourselves in snow covered Tromsø. We were now inside the Arctic Circle for the first time in my life, and it was cold.
We jumped on the rather affordable airport flybussen, dropping us off just around the corner from our hotel – though those two blocks required some serious effort as we trudged with our luggage through the fresh snow. Due to the lateness of sorting out our accommodation, we had to split our lodgings for our time in Tromsø, with the first night being at the Smart Hotel and the other nights elsewhere. The Smart Hotel is extremely affordable and offers complimentary WiFi as well as a spacious 10m²… It also may have been the only option…
Hi, so after two years since the last post, a revamp of theme and a couple of undocumented holidays in between, I have decided to start blogging again with this trip to Norway as a way of keeping people informed; first stop, Oslo. I am accompanied by Em (who stars in many of the other posts), my parents (Vicki and Stuart) and my gran (Gran).
The entire trip started off poorly for me, after deciding to leave my keys at my parents house (I mean, who needs their house keys in a different country…) I realised that the key for the lock on my bag, which I had already locked, was also with those keys, whoops. Thankfully the customs officer at Oslo Airport didn’t mind cutting it off for me. Aside from this little slip-up, leaving my sunglasses in the car at home and wearing shorts and thongs getting off the plane, we all arrived safely in Oslo.. happily greeted by the 0 degree weather, snow and cloudy skies. One day we’ll come to Europe in the summer and it’ll be great.
Most anticipated destination for the trip in my opinion. Although it’s not the trip to Svalbard that my sister wanted, it was definitely a close second for the coolest place to go! We were in Iceland for 3 nights, our accommodation was in Reykjavik and we had hired a car for the entirety of our stay, a nice little Kia Ceed – it did the job!
Day 1 – Arrived at the Airport by 10:30am and decided to hit the ground running, making the most of our short time on the island, we drove from the airport straight to the Blue Lagoon! A small 40EUR each for access and a towel and we were in the warm water. 38 degrees in and 2 degrees out… It was amazing and awesome and …insert other adjectives meaning awesomeness… I’ll leave it to the photos to do most of the talking.
We spent the remainder of what you might call daylight (it’s dark by 4:45pm) walking around Reykjavik and buying our dinner (bacon was about 15EUR for 6 rashes… so we didn’t have bacon). However, there was a quick 10:00pm excursion about 50km out of town in hope of seeing the northern lights… but unfortunately it was not something we would see at all as it was overcast most nights… much sadness.
Big Cookies at the Camden Markets
I’ve been pumping out the blogs today, trying to catch up so I can write about Iceland (it’s coming next!). This visit to London will be the last until we end up living there. So, Jacqueline hasn’t been to London in about 4 years, since our last family visit. On that trip we did most of the interesting tourist attractions and the big bus tour – so this time we mixed it up a little. Unfortunately, it seems that not many photos were taken…
We ended up staying at a place we found on airbnb.com, it was simply a room in Whitechapel with an awesome double bed air mattress for Em and I with a couch for Jacqueline, it suited us fine and the people we were staying with were more than hospitable. We arrived late on a Friday, so the next day we headed to the Borough markets for some fine food sampling, meeting up once again with Em’s sister, Belle.
After a while of walking around we came away with some Oak Roasted Tomatoes, olives stuffed with garlic, olives marinated in basil infused oil and some chive and garlic butter. Yum!
Picturesque scenes in the New Forest
Jacqueline (JR) arrived in the afternoon on Saturday, pretty tired from the 25 hours of flying. We didn’t really do all that much on that first day except pick up Mia from school. I was still extremely excited to be seeing one of my sisters after so long!
Despite a little bit of jet lag, we only had a couple of days in the Winchester area so we made the most of it. On that first day we headed for Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral and the New Forest to see us some ponies. Stonehenge was still a little bit underwhelming but Salisbury Cathedral was beautiful.
Oxford Street Lights
So Em, Belle and I headed back to London for a few nights before Em and I would head to Winchester for the final time this year. We struggled to find cheap accommodation and found ourselves in a 18 bed dorm on Edgeware Road, there were sirens blasting every couple of minutes.
Once again we didn’t get up to too much in London, still with that mentality that we would end up living there and we’ve seen most of the things that interest us on a tourist level. We headed to the Brick Lane Markets with Belle and her friend Alex – always a good amount of fun! There is just so much vintage, hipster and cheap things on show and for sale; there is a copious amount of good food as well :).
It’s a nessie!
We arrived in Leeds for ONE NIGHT ONLY! Em really wanted to see Bat for Lashes so we did that. She was really good (not as good as Muse a few nights before, haha!). We had some really nice Indian in a slightly fancy looking place, we were kind of worried that it was a bit over budget but ended up working out quite nicely.
After that we jumped on the 8 hour bus to Edinburgh, off to Scotland (now say it with a Scottish accent). Edinburgh was stunning, cold, but stunning. It had so many old buildings and so much history – all of which we learnt on the excellent free New Edinburgh walking tour and by watching Braveheart in our dorm room. We climbed Arthur’s seat, it looked easy from down below but once you’re about half way there is a small feeling of regret building. It made for some excellent photos.
Under the viaduct, its really tall and long.
We spent about 16 days in the south of France, though when we arrived we didn’t have any plans to depart. We arrived in the south of France to be picked up from the airport – now that was something that hadn’t happened for a while. It was also the first time Em had seen any family aside from her sister, exciting!
Over the 16 days we visited quite a few little places in the region, we spent time with Em’s parents and cousins, just Em’s parents, just ourselves whilst her parents went up to Paris, all of her family except her brother and her sisters godfather. Quite a few combinations, but it made it an interesting stay. Especially with the consumption of more than enough wine, beer, gin and whiskey.
BennEh Travels 