Sooo we’re almost certainly going to Norway for a couple of weeks in August, naturally about a week before everything goes off season an gets cheaper, but hey ho.
Anyhoo the plan so far is to book a cottage/holiday home type thing for a week somewhere in the vicinity of Bergen and camp another week either side. Get some walking in, see some mountains, endlessly recite the dead parrot sketch and pretend to be vikings.
I’ve been to Oslo, once, 17 years ago and do remember a lot of things in Norway being expensive enough to make me gasp which is where the meandering point of this post is heading.
We’re going to take the car so I’m trying to get a feel for what we should bring that is likely to be much cheaper in the UK than in Norway. Alcohol, for example, seems to be an obvious choice. In terms of Spends, after travel and the cottage we’ve got about €1600 to last us two weeks and cover the cost of camping, petrol, food etc.
And the standard query of any recommendations of things to see/do in and around Bergen which I gather is supposed to be a beautiful city…
Alcohol and food seems likely, yes. There are pretty strict limits on how much alcohol you can bring in toll-free, though.
As you may already know, Bergen has a not entirely undeserved reputation for lots of rain, with an average of 242 days each year with some precipitation (the average for August is 20 days).
That can’t be a sign of a Wal-Mart economy. This sounds like Britain in the 70s, where orange juice = concetrate. Still, as a kid, I loved that concentrate.
What do you mean the 70’s? I’ve been to places recently that still serve egg cup sized glass of concentrated (well, not by time they’ve finished running it under the tap it isn’t) Orange juice as a starter.
Norway is the only country I know, where you buy cucumbers in quarters
I’m sure there’s a porn joke in there somewhere.
So my 2 week supply of alcohol needs to be cunningly disguised as salad ingredients.
Really? I just figured you could at least get Tropicana there by now.
Anyone know what that concentrate is called? My grandma called it “Lemonade,” but she called everything that was too sweet for her “lemonade.” It came in a big glass bottle, and you’d pour some of the concentrate in a cup, and then some tap water. It was awesome. My mom said it was probably comparable to Tang, but I think it was different.
Also, I loved orange Fanta, which you can’t really get here. Sure, you can get C Plus and Orange Crush, but neither has the bite of Fanta.
Anyone know what that concentrate is called? My grandma called it “Lemonade,” but she called everything that was too sweet for her “lemonade.” It came in a big glass bottle, and you’d pour some of the concentrate in a cup, and then some tap water. It was awesome. My mom said it was probably comparable to Tang, but I think it was different.
Oh that stuff, I thought you meant the grotty Orange juice. Generically, we call it “squash” for reasons that I cannot fathom and it is alive, well and still coating kiddies mouths with Sunrise orange colouring (or whatever the stuff other than computer games that turns kids into murderers is called) and copious amounts of sugar.
According to an Irishman I know, beer prices are catching up in Britain and Ireland. I don’t think a Brit will be too shocked at the prices.
Bergen and Oslo are very different cities, most importantly because of the citizens.
Bergen is a happy place, while Oslo is emo-land. Both have fjords, so there’s no contest.
The UK does have lax sugar laws. Finding non-surgar free adult gum here is just about impossible.
Thanks! Squash is probably the stuff I’m looking for. I don’t really recall, my grandma died years ago, and I haven’t been to Ireland since. She used to get it delivered in the morning with the milk, eggs, and bread.
There is a Scottish store around here somewhere, hopefully they’ll have it, Fanta, and that chewy candy that come in yellow or green rolls (the green are sugar coated), Orbit gum (it’s not sugar free, right?), and of course, some mini gems.
Most of the gum I’ve seen recently is sugar free, Orbit certainly is.
According to an Irishman I know, beer prices are catching up in Britain and Ireland. I don’t think a Brit will be too shocked at the prices.
I hope so, I really don’t fancy having to hide a fornight’s worth of beer in body cavities. I guess it’s comparison time.
UK beer price - around 48 nKr for 4 cans or 36nKr a pint in a bar.
Bergen is a happy place, while Oslo is emo-land. Both have fjords, so there’s no contest.
Accomodation around Bergen is also much cheaper than Oslo and it sounds easier to go see a Glacier or two before they all melt as well. I don’t recall Oslo being that miserable, but it was a long time ago that I went there. It’s moot anyway as there isn’t a Ferry direct to Oslo from the UK and the stuff around Bergen looks nicer than around Stavanger.
The top one says “for the poor”, the middle “for the rich”, and averages on the third list. All prices are in Oslo.
The cheapest I could find during a brief net search of Bergen’s prices, was 61,25
for half a litre. Note that you get actual pints in Bergen, though. So about twice
what you’re used to over there.
But Oslo needs cheap alcohol, considering how miserable everyone is ;)
see a Glacier or two before they all melt as well.
Cheers for the info, useful to know. I’m not expecting that we’re out on the tiles every night and I’d rather not bring a car full of groceries on holiday which seems to defeat part of the point of going to another country to begin with.
And it’s booked, arriving in Bergen, week in a cottage type thing in a fjord for a week, a weeks camping then going home from Stavanger (guess when it’s going to pour with rain).
Take Flåmsbanen down to Flåm (I can remember the town that it leaves from, but it’s on the rail line from Bergen to Oslo) and then take the ferry from Flåm to Bergen. Flåm is a beautiful little down nestled down in a fjord and the train down to it was specially built to be on more narrow tracks or something, including switchbacks inside the mountain.
