Day 41: Final Remarks on Norway!

We had a nice lie in on Sunday morning, knowing that hardly anything is open on Sundays in Norway. We woke at 9am and Mark realized that I had booked our Iceland tickets for Aug 31st instead of July 31. Oops! Not a fun mistake to make. So, the scramble and hunt to change that was quickly in motion. I called Chase Travel, who I booked the tickets through. They said they couldn’t get in contact with our airline, SAS, and so they couldn’t process anything. We took a bus ride to the airport to get in front of an SAS employee, but the airport is so small that the only employees there were baggage ones from Tromsø Airport and none specifically employed by SAS. They were able to give us an SAS phone number, which gave us information, so that was a clue in the saga. We took the bus back to the hotel, called Chase again and were able to get on the exact same flight, but with the correct dates. Three hours later and a chunk of change and it was sorted. Phew! We had a lovely breakfast of an omelette and parfait. I then headed out to the art gallery for a day two visit, while Mark stitched his bathing suit in the hotel room.

We are sauna hooked so we tried Tromsø’s sauna. This one was called Pust, which is Norwegian for breath. It was very fun. We couldn’t last more than 11 minutes in the sauna, followed by jumps into the Norwegian Sea. I found this water colder, but maybe that was because the weather was warmer in Tromsø than in Stokmarknes. We unfortunately didn’t take any photos. We decided that we liked Dypp a little more, and perhaps Bellingham needs one?

After a quick change we went in search of caviar. Unfortunately, the one fish restaurant open on Sunday was out of it. We still enjoyed a nice drink on the boardwalk. It was so warm we had to stay out of the sun. I think that’s a first this Norway trip. I asked the concierge in our hotel if they are busier in the summer or winter (as all Tromsø’s online recommendations seem to be northern lights geared) and he replied, “Oh far busier in the winter! Most people want to be somewhere warm in the summer!” Well, we missed that memo! We have largely had great weather, though. It has been chilly and gray at some point every day but we really lucked out not getting rained on while cycling. The chilly weather is perfect biking weather as well. It was nice to feel the sun and warmth today though.

We then went to a nice pizza restaurant and afterwards we watched the Tromsø - Bodø football match at a pub (Tromsø has pubs and is known nationally as a party town, but as they say, I don’t think they‘d be able to do much damage). Last night, our bartender warned us that this was a huge match and that the Tromsø - Bodø rivalry is alive and well. This is the same bartender that said to us, “What state are you from? You look like mountain people.” Keep in mind, this was said after we had showered and changed out of our biking clothes and put on our best ”going out” clothes. Yikes! I guess we’re not fooling anyone. We made it to halftime, with a score of 1-0, Tromsø. Tromsø was the underdog so that was exciting and they ended up winning 2-0. We had a quiet evening packing and finishing Master & Commander.

4:20 wake up for our flight to Iceland!

Some final thoughts on Norway:

1. It is so clean! There’s no trash or debris on the roads, which is unusual. Cleanliness is a national value, we learned. People’s lawns are perfect, flowers abounding, and their houses/paint are in great condition, especially considering the harsh weather they’re exposed to.
2. Eye contact is very important in Norway, but words are not. There is a lot of non-verbal communication and thus they have mastered the art of subtleties. Sudden/grand movements make people uncomfortable.
3. Cars are super respectful of cyclists.
4. Every fish is cod on the menu :)
5. Pubs are not a thing! When you google it, supermarkets are the only things to match your search and it is illegal for supermarkets to sell wine. They do sell beer, though. Wine is sold in a wine monopoly (really). We couldn’t even get a glass of wine to go at our hotel. Each town will have about 8 supermarkets and zero pubs. It’s not the culture. They spend their time fishing and hiking. Or indoors cooking, cleaning or doing art. We saw lots of galleries.
6. It is a late country. The roads are empty before 9am. We were turned away at 1:15pm for lunch being told, “You’re a little early for lunch. That starts at 2pm.“
7. The food has been absolutely fabulous! We truly ate our way through Norway. I only had one or two bad meals, and those were pizzas that were almost certainly frozen. It is a meat heavy cuisine. Every sandwich I got I pealed the ham off and handed it to Mark. Almost every dinner menu had a veggie option, but for the few that’s only option ended up being a pizza, it was not great. Otherwise, I had interesting and tasty and intricate vegetarian meals, even in very small towns.
8. We would recommend Norway a thousand times over! We of course only saw a sliver of it, but would return in a heartbeat. The part that we saw was jaw droppingly beautiful. Most of our rides were spent saying, “Wow!”, “Beautiful!” or “Look right! Look left! Look in front!” and each vantage point was unique and majestic. The photos show a fraction of its reality. There were lots of outdoorsy people there. Hikers, cyclists, rock climbers, kayakers, traveling by foot, bike, truck or camper van. It is an outdoor person’s fairytale. For those who are not interested in the outdoors, you’d be hard pressed to occupy your time in the towns/places we were. You can camp anywhere (you do not have to camp within an established campsite although there are those available as well), with only a few reasonable restrictions, so that additionally makes Norway a camper’s haven.

Thank you, Norway, for a great 11 days and see you in the future, whales!