London and Norway 2025
Ever since my last trip to Norway in 2016, I’ve wanted to go back and see more of the north. I looked into renting a car from Oslo and driving north, but I couldn’t find any one-way rentals. Also, gas is very expensive in Norway, around $8–9 US. So I decided to travel by boat instead, and I booked a 12-night coastal voyage with Hurtigruten, going from Bergen to Kirkenes and back.
Since I don’t like traveling a long way for just two weeks, I wanted to find somewhere else to pair this trip with. Because I was approaching my 90-day Schengen limit, I had to pick somewhere outside the Schengen zone. And I decided it was finally time to make an extended visit to London. I’d been there twice before, on choir tours in 1990 and 2000, but for such short visits that I really didn’t have time to see very much.
Anyway, I ended up spending a week in London before flying to Bergen and embarking on the MS Richard With.
Here are all my photos and blog posts from the trip.
Photos and Videos
London
Art Museums (78 items)
Everything else (250 items)
Norway
Bergen (24 items)
Coastal Cruise (360 items)
Wildflowers (37 items)
Blog Posts
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Two trips in one: London and Norway
Yes, I know, I just got home. And now I’m getting ready to travel again, this time to London and Norway. I’ll be staying a week in London and then taking a Hurtigruten cruise up and down the west coast of Norway. I have wanted to take a Hurtigruten cruise ever since I first heard…
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I made it to London!
Yes, I made it to London. Not everything on the journey went as smoothly as it might have, but I’m here.
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London Day 1
I spent my first morning in London doing a Changing of the Guard tour. And I spent the afternoon at the National Gallery. Here’s a bit of detail about the day.
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London Done (say it out loud; it’s alliterative)
I started with such good intentions a week ago. My plan was to blog every evening about the things I did each day in London. I made it through the first two days, and then, utter failure. Here’s what I did wrong: I tried to organize all my photos so I could share them with…
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Cruising on Hurtigruten: Bergen to the Arctic Circle
This is Thursday, day four aboard the Richard With. We set sail from Bergen on Monday evening, and early this morning we crossed the Arctic Circle. So far I’ve been off the boat twice so far, once for a bus ride from Geiranger to Molde, and once for a walking tour of Trondheim.
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Turning around at Kirkenes
Yesterday we reached Kirkenes on my Hurtigruten cruise. We’re now heading back toward Bergen. I don’t have a lot to write about, and because the ship’s wifi blocks photo apps, it’s hard to post a lot of photos. So I’ll just share a few highlights here, as best I can remember them.
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Hurtigrut-End
My Hurtigruten cruise is coming to an end. After twelve days, it turned out to be about six days too long. I’m glad I got to see some of the beauty of northern Norway, and I learned a lot along the way. But I will never do a cruise again, at least not as a solo…
