Trondheim, Norway - Part 2

Keeping up to date with blog posts about our most recent travels is proving to be a challenge. But now that we have 'settled' back into a routine in Melbourne, there will be more priority placed on re-living the holiday and also eventually blogging about culture, food and travels locally in Australia. This post covers Day 3 to Day 5 where our time was spent relaxing with family, exploring Trondheim and finalizing details of the African and Asian parts of our trip.

Trondheim, Norway - Part 1

When we started our '5in5months' adventure in August 2015, there was an optimistic goal of writing a blog post every day of the trip. This meant that for 130+ consecutive days, we would need to think of something interesting to write than just food pics and comments about our hotel room. That initiative was soon abandoned and instead 'eventually' we will write more detailed recap posts with tips and stories that will be more useful to our readers. Kicking off the first blog post, we set the scene - a Thursday morning in August and we are off to Gatwick Airport. Sounds simple enough, except of all days, there was a Tube Strike.

Tromso, Norway

Ticking off the Arctic Circle was a byproduct of chasing the Northern Lights - something we become  obsessed with after failing to spot them during a trip to Iceland. With every social media post by friends of the Aurora Borealis across various Nordic cities, we were increasingly envious and motivated to tick this natural phenomenon off our travel to-do list. So after some research, we booked flights in March to the student city of Tromso. Known also for its high concentration of bars per inhabitant, at least there was something to do if we weren't successful. But we were and this is a recap of our trip.

Bergen, Norway

Our weekend trip to Bergen in mid September had been scheduled as a result of a travel clash between our plans and Olie's work related commitments in the USA.
The change in season for our travels from mid Summer (and perhaps experiencing a midnight sun) to early Autumn did little to improve the weather - as Bergen lived up to its reputation as the 'City of Rain'.
Bergen is located on the west coast of Norway and is famous as the gateway to the fjords, pretty medieval wooden architecture and the most delicious creamy fish soup.

Trondheim, Norway

The traditional Christmas scene that you see on cards, snow-globes and chocolate tins is that of powder-white pine trees, family gatherings and plenty of food and drink. Christmas 2012 will be etched in our festive memories as our first White Christmas and proper Northern Hemisphere celebration in the land of the Vikings - Trondheim, Norway. On this trip we stayed with Michelle and Marius, met our extended family, ate traditional food (including brown cheese and reindeer) and relaxed indoors next to a real pine Christmas tree whilst temperatures outside fell to -15 degrees Celsius.

Oslo, Norway

Keeping up with our international travel schedule, we were back at Stansted Airport early Saturday morning to catch a Ryanair flight to Oslo.We soon discovered Norway as the stunning country of fjords, Viking heritage and also one of the priciest places in the world to buy alcohol. Our travel plans for this trip were initially put on hold after news of the inner city bombing/mass shooting. The events made us anxious about safety and the mood of the city. However, this was an over-reaction as Oslo was brimming with energy, activity and resilience.