0:04
Hello, everyone and welcome back to the Beyond Your Science podcast. How are you? I know, it’s been like a really long time, it’s been probably at least like two months or so since the last episode. And I’ve still like in the process of like, getting all my like the stuff that I want to write and share together. And in this episode, in the next episode, I’ll still be like recapping some of my summer activity. So I’m just like trying to catch up. And I know this is super late, because like this all happened like back in July and August. And it’s now November, which is really wild to me, like how fast time has flown.
1:16
I’m really excited for this one because it’s about my trip to Norway, I am going to share my itinerary like what I did in each city in town when I thought about it, and what I might do differently knowing now, what I know. So in the following episode, I’ll also share some tips and answer some Q and A’s that I got about the trip.
1:37
So first of all, what was I doing in Norway, I was attending a conference for a super niche chemistry topic that’s related to my research. And that was for a couple days. And then after that I took an extra week and a half to travel Western Norway with my family. So my professor offered this opportunity to me and I’m really grateful for it because it gave me the opportunity to learn science and to meet other notable chemists in the field in real life. And in the upcoming episodes, I’ll also share more about like my conference experiences and like what I’ve learned about all that, so that’ll be a different episode. And since he gave me the opportunity to go to Norway, I also thought it would be a great opportunity for my family I to go on another family trip. We haven’t been on a family trip since 2019. Back then, we went to Banff in Canada. And so I thought this would be a great opportunity for us to all travel together again.
2:36
So what did I do in Norway. So in Norway, I mostly traveled through the western part of Norway. And so we went to see Bergen, phloem and Voss. Most of the trip was sightseeing and nature activities. Since I was traveling with my family, I wanted to make sure that my parents who are in like their mid 50s and early 60s, were able to participate in the activities. So I didn’t want to do anything that was too strenuous for them. And so I’m going to be giving a breakdown of each of the different cities and the places I visited and all of that. So first, we’ll start in chronological order. I first landed in Bergen, which is where the conference was held, and Bergen is the second largest city in Norway. The city is surrounded by fjords and mountains and it’s probably one of the most scenic cities I have been to.
3:30
Before the conference started, I took some time to explore the city center area, such as like Koda museums. And in the current museums, they highlighted like Norwegian artists like Mr. Moon. And while I was at the conference, they also incorporate a lot of activities where we could explore Bergen so for example, I got to go see a Bragin which is a UNESCO heritage site, and it’s all the iconic colorful wooden houses that you might have seen when you look up Bergen or Norway. Unfortunately, when we got there, it was covered up by a bunch of plastic tarp because of renovations. We also visited the fish market which is really iconic, and they have really good sushi me. But I later found out that that whole place was a tourist trap, but I still think there was like some good food there.
4:21
And at the end of the conference, there was a banquet that was held in a restaurant at the top of a mountain called Mount Ulriken. And Mount Ulriken seemed to be like a favorite of the locals. They really like to hike up and down the mountain. But since we were going to a banquet we didn’t hike up the mountain we took a cable car up and we had dinner at a restaurant called Skyscraperen in if I’m pronouncing it correctly, and so the food was pretty good. There was like a set menu. But again, since it was a set menu, I don’t know what their usual food was like but I thought their food was pretty good for what it was. When we got to the view at the top, it was really amazing, you could see the entire city. And it was pretty breezy up there. But I thought it felt really nice. And the other thing is that like you actually don’t have to eat at the restaurant to see the view. There are a lot of people like families who hiked up the mountain. And there’s like a little cafe that they could chill out, before they hiked back down. Or you could also take like the cable car back down. And actually, there were some professors and other students at the conference who hiked down the mountain. And if I had brought proper shoes, I would have been able to hike down to but I would have wanted to, but I didn’t. And we stayed up until 10pm. And even at 10pm, the sun was still setting like it looked like it was like 6pm or something like it was not dark at all. And like I mentioned earlier, it was really breezy up there. I’m really glad I brought like a Patagonia sweater, because it was probably around like 50 degrees Fahrenheit or like 12-13 degrees Celsius plus wind.
5:59
So after the conference was over, I joined my family for the remainder of the trip. And so this was me and my brother and my parents. And so this trip, I planned most of it. And I sent her centered around a lot of touristy things. Because my family and I, we just want to see like the most notable things. And, you know, like I mentioned, my parents are like not as strong as they used to be. And so we wanted to find activities that were on the easier side. So that meant like no adventures all day hikes. And since we were relying primarily on public transport, like walking bus or train, a lot of those were near like, the populace stations or near the popular places. And so even though we visited a lot of popular attractions, it was still very memorable and really worth it.
6:47
And so while we were in Bergen, we stayed at a hotel called the Grand Hotel Terminus, which was also the conference hotel. And so we got a room that accommodated for people, which was like a family suite. And it had all you can eat breakfast and a lot of other amenities. But this hotel was pretty pricey. It was like $2,000 for four nights are five, I think it was four nights. So you’re looking at like almost like $500 a night. But I think that the all you can eat breakfast is pretty nice. Because our strategy was to eat a really big breakfast, do our activities and then eat an earlier dinner. So we would like just skip lunch, you would just take the entire afternoon maybe like from like 10am to about like 4pm to do activities, and then like eat an early dinner like 5pm. So that’s kind of like the general schedule that we were doing.
7:37
Okay, and so over the next couple of days, while we were Bergen, I really tried to plan it out to like one major activity per day, because I was trying to account for travel time, and just like taking things leisurely. I think in the past when I traveled with my family, I felt that everything was really compressed because we wanted to see so many things. And so I really wanted us to just enjoy more and not feel stressed about making it from like one location to the other. So some of the places we visited were Troldhaugen, which is the home of Edvard Grieg, a classical composer and Mount Floyen, which is the other mountain peak in the Bergen area. So the first day we visit trout trollhaugen. And it was really important to me to visit Troldhaugen because as you may know, I am a huge classical music fan. I played piano and violin. And so being able to visit a composer’s home was a really great educational experience for me.
8:44
So you might be familiar with Edvard Grieg, since he wrote a piece called “In The Hall of the Mountain King,: which is used in a lot of ads and movies. And if you just look this up, like you’ll definitely recognize it. And like I mentioned, since I’ve never visited a composer’s home before I really could not miss this opportunity to do so. So to get to Troldhaugen, we have to take the bus and then we had to do like a really long walk, but I thought it was all pretty fine for my family. And once we got to Troldhaugen we we toured the grounds. And we also attended a lunchtime concert, which featured a local Norwegian pianist. And we also did a little tour of the home. And so before visiting Troldhaugen, I didn’t really think much of Grieg like I have never personally played any of Grieg’s works, but my brother has and I honestly didn’t love him. I didn’t have like a deep appreciation of his work. I thought it was nice. He has like a lot of these like little pieces called Lyric Pieces. And they’re all very just like, nice. I didn’t I didn’t think much of it. But after visiting Troldhaugen, I gained a lot more respect for him and his work. And I just think that in general that with classical music, you really learn to appreciate it a lot more, once you gain context and the history behind it.
10:11
And with Grieg, it was because like, he was one of the first like, true Norwegian composers. And even after, like his death, it was his wife who really championed his work, and really, like push for people to remember, like his contributions to like, classical music and Norwegian culture. And so I think that, that entire story kind of, like, put it more into context for me about, you know, how important it is for you to have like people who support your work and like your legacy is really, it’s not just like what you create, right? But it’s also like, how you push others to continue like growing in their field, because that’s what Grieg really did to he really encouraged like, the Norwegian people to build their own like, culture, not just in classical music, but like in all of the different like parts areas.
11:11
Um, and so the next day we visited Mount Floyen, which was completely different vibe. And so we went from like an arts and culture vibe to more adventurous outdoorsy vibe. So Mount Floyen is another big mountain peak in the area. And so to get up the mountain, you could either hike up or take the funicular system. And so a funicular is basically like a little railway that goes up the mountain, and you’re just like standing and it is kind of crowded, there were a lot of tourists. And there’s like a really long line when you get to the funicular. But if you just buy the ticket ahead of time, you can skip the line. And so once you get to the top of Mount FLoyen, it’s really developed there’s like souvenir shops and food shops and there’s like a whole lookout area so you could get really nice panoramic view of of Bergen and Mount Floyen is also the trailhead for many of the trails in the area. And so my family and I took some time to explore a little bit of the trail system. And it actually connects all the way to Mount Ulriken, which was the other mountain that I visited. And I wish that we had more time to like visit more of the trails there. It was really vast. And we saw a lot of really nice views to like we we made a lot of progress.
12:29
So the views from the mountain trails are amazing, because like as you gained more elevation, it was more than just like from the tourists point. So you can actually go even higher and like see even more down below. And we also found like, like cute little hidden ponds that were really breezy. So we like relax and take breaks there and take photos. And then throughout the trail, there are also rest stops with snacks and drinks and bathroom. So even if you didn’t bring any refreshments, you could get something small to tide yourself over.
13:00
So if I could do it differently, and if I had more time, I would definitely go to Mount Ulriken and hike up or go from like Mount Floyen to Mount Ulriken. But like I mentioned since I was with my family, I didn’t think that that was something we could do. I think that if I were to try it, it would also still be challenging for me personally, it would probably be like almost like an eight or nine hour thing to do. Mount Floyen definitely has more tourists, but it definitely also has more amenities and shops than Ulriken. And the benefits that the trails from floydian are more developed. And so it’s like more clear like where the trail is where’s like Mount Ulriken from where I was, I couldn’t tell like if it’s just like straight up land or if there’s like an actual trail connecting. But like I mentioned, I do think the view of Ulriken was a lot better, just because it was less crowded. And the local people also say they prefer to work and like when they want to take friends and stuff who come to visit. They take them to Ulriken instead of Floyen. And so yeah, if I could go again, I would probably do a one way trip of Ulriken or Floyen and hike to the other side and then take like the cable car or funicular down, but keeping in mind that that would probably be like a 10-12 hour activity. So it would be a quite strenuous day.
14:25
So the next step on our itinerary was Flam or Flam. I always forget how to pronounce this. But to get to Flam. We took the Vy train. It’s that’s v y that’s like the train that connects all the towns. And so we took that to a small town called Mytdal. And then from there we took another train that’s really popular called the Flamsbana. Anyways, on the Flamsbana, we stopped by this waterfall which was really large, but it was really short. We only stayed there for about like 10 minutes and there’s like a waterfall dancer or siren who comes out and sings and there’s like music. But that was definitely just for tourist entertainment, but it was like a nice shot. I read online that pretty much once the tourists once the singer or the siren is done with their song, that’s pretty much like time to get back on the train. There’s really not a lot of time there.
15:24
So once we got to Flam, we stayed at a hotel called Flamsbrygga, which is right across from the train station. And the the town itself is quite a small area, but it’s very picturesque, it’s like right in the middle of the fjord. And actually, this town was inspired Arendelle, which is like the town that is in Frozen if you’ve seen Frozen. The town itself is it does accommodate to a lot of tourists. Like because it’s so picturesque there’s a lot of tourists coming in from the, from the train like we did or like from cruise ships. So that is something about foam that like even though it is like so peaceful and tranquil, that’s something else to consider. And most of that main town area is like the Mall of Norway, there’s just a lot of souvenir shops, there’s a grocery store. There’s like restaurants that are related to the hotel, and other small cafes that are really only opening open during the day, and close around like five or 6pm once like all the tourists on the cruise ships leave. And so I think it’s personally is really important to look up the cruise ship schedule to see like if you’re going to be in Flam when there’s also like a lot of tourists from the cruise ship. And I knew that we would kind of hit a day where there would be a lot of tourists from their cruise ship. But I think it was like a smaller cruise ship. It was maybe like 6000 people or something. It wasn’t very big.
16:59
And so like I mentioned, we stayed at the Flamsbrygga, which was, like I mentioned convenient because all the activity was right in that town center. And we had a really nice balcony view of the fjord, at least before the cruise ship came in. I booked a two day all inclusive package for four people, which included two rooms and all you can eat breakfast and dinners plus beer tasting, my family doesn’t really drink that much beer. So we didn’t really do the beer tasting. But it was really convenient to have breakfast and dinner already scheduled for. And so we didn’t have to think about where we wanted to eat or like having to wait in line. To be honest, I think this was like mostly a marketing move on the hotel part. Because they were like, oh, you know, the hotel, really just prioritizes the guests for their dinner service. So I was just really afraid, like, okay, whatever, there’s like a lot of people there, and we wouldn’t get a guaranteed dinner spot. So I just decided to just book everything all inclusive. Yeah, because the time was so small, I just wanted to make sure that we had our food options covered. There are a lot of food carts during the day. So that was like a good place to grab lunch or a snack or whatever. But like I mentioned after 6pm, like pretty much all those places are closed.
18:28
So after we checked into the hotel, our first activity in Flam was to go to the viewpoint called Stegastein. And in the photos Stegastein looks really spectacular. It’s the structure that overlooks the Aurslandfjord. And the sky is is really blue, the waters are turquoise mountains green. And it’s just amazing. But to get to Stegastein, you have to either drive up or book an electric bus tour, and some people online so they try to walk up but it’s pretty difficult to walk up because there’s no walking path. It’s just roads. Since we didn’t have a car I booked the electric bus tour for my family and I which came out to be $40 per person. It sounds kind of expensive at first, but there’s a reason why it’s priced like that, and I think it is really worth it.
19:25
So to get up to Sega Stein, you have to drive up the mountain right? But the mountain roads are very narrow. There’s only enough space for one car to go both ways and you might be wondering like okay, how can it only be one car wide for going up going up and down? And so the reason why this is so you’ll have like two cars like going in separate directions. And but like there are certain designate areas where the street is like slightly wider. It’s just enough for like one car to pull over so the other car can go through. And if you’re not someone who is like a very strong driver or not familiar with like Norwegian driving etiquette, or just driving on mountains in general, then absolutely do not attempt to drive up the mountain yourself. Even though it’s possible, we did see some people like just drive up it is pretty dangerous because the mountain is also a switchback. So it’s like hairpin turns, it’s very narrow. And if you’re not careful, it can be dangerous or fatal. And our bus driver also mentioned that like, sometimes there will be not just accidents, but just like, trap like standstill, because again, it’s only one way up and down. And so if there’s something were to happen, it’s really difficult to, to undo it, I suppose.
20:56
Anyways, once we got up to the top, we only had 20 minutes to enjoy the view. You know, we wanted to take photos and to take photos of every possible combination of our family of four plus, like different poses and bad taste and navigating around other tourists. That all takes like the entire 20 minutes. And so it goes by pretty fast. So I really wish that we had more time to like really take in the view. But of course, we were on the electric buses schedule. So we just had to, you know, follow, like, get everything done and get back onto the bus. So when we got back, we had dinner at the hotel. And after dinner, the sun was still out. And it was already like past 9pm. But it only looks like 5pm or something.
21:43
And since it was like really clear and everything we thought, you know, even though we’re tired, this is like a great time for us to take photos of the fjord in the valley, in the background. And it was a great idea for us to take that opportunity. And so that’s actually where I got my current podcast cover on that, in the background is, is if you’re at like 9pm. And so as you can see, it’s it, I don’t know, I could have just like, just live there. Um, but yeah, we got a lot of good individual a family photos, and pro tip, definitely get an iPhone tripod, or something that has like Bluetooth remote. And that you know, can collapse it’s easy to travel with, because it makes it so much easier to take family photos or a couple of photos or whatever without having to ask somebody else and you can like really pose however you want and take as long as you want.
22:41
The next day, we were really glad that we took the photos the night before. Because one the next day it was really cloudy and drizzling. And to the cruise ship actually came in that day. And so it blocked the entire view of the fjord. And the weather change pretty quickly in the valley. But fortunately, we were prepared we had like raincoats and things like that. But unfortunately, this was also the same day that I scheduled kayaking in the fjord, but we were not going to let a little drizzle, like get in our way. So kayaking is a pretty common activity, but I thought it would be a fun family activity for us to do it in the fjord. But since my family and I don’t kayak very often we opted for guided kayaking, which made the entire experience feel more interactive and comfortable. So our guides name was Berber. She was very kind. So she kayaked with us but she just kind of stayed on the outside of us and make sure that like we were staying closer to the to the side of the fjord where there weren’t any, like larger ships because the other side is like cruise ships and those like smaller boats that that go really fast a speed boats. Yeah. But yeah, we just she just made sure that we were comfortable with the speed that we were going making sure that everyone felt safe. And she also shared a lot of interesting history about flow.
24:10
And to be honest, my entire, my biggest concern during that entire kayaking trip was dropping my phone in the fjord, but they get did give us like these floatable boxes, where you can like put your phone and other things in. But yeah, so we were able to kind of like stop at certain point and take a few photos and videos of the fjord and the little drizzle did not stop us from enjoying the kayaking it actually like added to the experience. It was just a very different vibe. We ended up kayaking about three or four kilometers round trip which is about like a mile and a half or so. Which is always pretty amazing for me personally since I really kayak and I was really proud of my family for like sticking it out and making it all the way around.
25:02
So the next day we were back on the road again, we were taking a cruise around northward to a smaller town called good bargain. And from there we took a bus to the last town on our itinerary for us. And so the cruise was only about two hours long as we got enough of the view through the fjord. And actually I probably only spent about like 30 minutes outside admiring the fjord as we were going through because it was really windy and it was also pretty drizzly as well. And a lot of people just kind of sat inside the boat and relaxed and like looked out the window. The nice thing about the boat was that it’s pretty spacious. So you can definitely travel with your bags, no problem. Like my family and I we each had our own luggage and a backpack. And a lot of people also like travel with their luggage and there’s like a designated luggage area that you could put your things in if you wanted to.
25:54
But the one thing I didn’t really like about this was that after we finished a cruise, we get off in Gudvagen and Gudvagen is pretty small. So there’s really nothing there. It’s just a transfer point. But you have to get on the bus and there is a lot of commotion at that transfer from Gudvagen to Voss and it was really hectic because there’s no order on getting onto the bus so people are just like cramming in and try and push around and it was just a really big mess. And it was it was the first time I saw a grown woman like push and like a child like a seven year old child out of the way just so that she could get on first and I don’t know it was just a bad experience. I definitely don’t recommend this route because there’s like not much in Gudvagen anyway.
26:41
And after looking at the other routes I think it would have been better to take the like the Sognefjord cruise which is longer from Bergen through Flam, and then spend your time in Flam and then just like take your own public transport to Voss. So we finally arrived in our last town in Voss. And once we got to Voss we stayed at a hotel called the Fleischer motel, which is part of the Fleischer hotel but because I wanted an apartment style room that had four beds and a mini kitchen I thought that was like more appropriate for us. We the motel actually is like right on the lake that is in the center of Voss and I really love this hotel I think that like should definitely say that I thought it was great value. There’s no like food like breakfast or dinner included. But if you like you know cooking, like buying your own little groceries and cooking for a couple days, like I would definitely recommend staying here because like waking up and like seeing that like out there. It was so peaceful. So quiet. Yeah.
27:51
So yeah, Voss is definitely a quieter town than Flam. But it’s known as an adventurous town. There’s a lot of activities you can book I really wanted to try whitewater rafting, but since we already kayaks, I thought it would be better to take it easy and just explore the town. And so my family and I opted to visit two local sites which is a Bordal… I cannot Bordalsgjelet Gorge and Tvindefossen. And so we did this in one day. We first walked to the gorge from our hotel in the morning and then came back for a short break and then went back out to Tvindefossen. So the walk for the motel to the gorge we walked around the lake, which took about an hour and a half. Because we stopped to take photos and everything. I’d like to walk to the lake it was a bit long because you did have to go like up a hill like through neighborhoods and things like that. And I later realized probably could have been faster you just take the bus.
28:51
But there were a lot of nice sights of like the landscape on the way to the gorge and like once we got to the gorge it was also like a descent into the gorge which was also pretty adventurous. I thought it’s a little wet there. And it got slippery as like we started going down and more narrow the deeper you went into the gorge. And so my parents had to stop halfway down and just kind of take a break because, you know, we were concerned like they might slip or something. And even for my brother and I you know we had to be super careful as we stepped down because the steps weren’t even and slippery. So once we got to the gorge, you know we could see like the rushing water and it was it was just a nice sight to see very nature activity. So I really need to look up the pronunciation for this, but it’s like Bordalsgjelet, so there’s BORDALSJELET, Bordalsgjelet.
29:51
Anyways, so, after we got back to the hotel, we took a little mid afternoon break. We took a bus to Tvindefossen which was one of the larger waterfalls in the area. And we just took the public bus there and walked in, you could like see it. And the waterfall is really big, you really didn’t need to like, go anywhere, it’s like right on the street, you can get pretty close to it. And there’s like a lot of people who stopped by on a bus tours to see it. And it was a great place to take photos of everyone and of the whole family. There’s also a camp nearby. And I think there are trails that you could take to explore like the area and get to the waterfall and around. But Tvindefossen is technically on private property, they just open like the waterfall part for people to to take pictures of so exploring further was really only for people who were staying at the camp that was part of Tvindefossen.
30:49
So after that our trip was over, it went by really fast. And so we returned to Bergen and just spent the last two days hanging around the city. Because my family and I all have different departure time. So we stayed at a Quality Inn Edvard Grieg which is a hotel that was like relatively close to the airport like you just take the rail there and it was also like close to you know, like shopping centers and things like that so we really just spent like the last couple of days just like we went to dinner we would go to like the shopping center and look around and then kind of go come back and just chill and you know my brother left first and then my my parents left first and then I left last and so yeah, staying at that hotel was pretty convenient.
31:36
I think like for value that hotel was probably a lot better value in terms of like pricing in terms of like convenience. I think that I liked like Grand Terminus in Bergen just because like I could, like walk straight out into the city center like I wouldn’t need to take like a 30 minute train ride. But I definitely think like price wise that the Edvard Grieg Quality Inn was definitely cheaper so yeah, if you need like a cheaper stay in Bergen and you don’t mind like commuting in via the train probably stay on that one because they also have a really cool gym with a really nice view as well. And they’re all you can eat breakfast was also pretty good. Yeah, so that was my trip. Like I mentioned I’m really grateful I had this opportunity to visit Norway and go with my family because it really was like a once in a lifetime opportunity. And so with this episode like I just want to like wrap it up and in the next episode, I’ll share some more tips and answer some Q and A’s that I got about my trip.