9 Day Norway Itinerary
Norway is a destination I’ve dreamed of visiting for as long as I can remember.
The Norway pavilion at Disney’s EPCOT was always my favorite, especially with the original troll and viking boat ride attraction. I had a coloring book highlighting what Christmas looks like in different countries around the world, I can still picture the Norway page. Seeing pictures of the fjords in Conde Nast Traveller. I’m not sure which of these set the Norway infatuation off for me, but alas, something did.
This trip has been on our list of “absolutely must do’s” since moving abroad, but it’s proved to be a tricky one regarding COVID. Two years into our Italian life, we finally got the chance to visit! I’ve wanted to see Norway in the fall, in the snowy winter, and in the summer so it didn’t quite matter to me when we visited. There were both positives and negatives to visiting during the fall (end of September to beginning of October). The positives? Beautiful fall leaves, no crowds, and cheaper prices. The negatives? It rained a smidge more than we’d like (about 3 full days with a few other occasional drizzles), and a couple of things were closed due to it being between high season (summer and winter). But we wouldn’t change this trip for anything and cannot wait to head back.
In this blog I’m going to give you a step by step itinerary of what we did including where we stayed, ate, and played, along with a few outfits I loved during the trip.
For a visual play by play of the trip click here and here to view the Norway Instagram Story Highlights.
Day 1 - Stavanger
To begin our trip we flew into the small fisherman’s town, and home of Norwegian petroleum production, Stavanger. We stayed at the Thon Maritim Hotel which I would absolutely recommend for its fabulous breakfast buffet, perfect location, and great price point.
With an early morning flight we were ready for lunch by the time our adventuring could begin. We stumbled upon Bevaremegvel Bar & Restaurant in the center of town. This would make a great dinner option as well with it’s elegant decor, extensive wine list, and traditional cuisine. Our waiter was the nicest and helped us plan our next two dinners for stavanger as well!
For our first day we just got a little lay of the land by strolling down Fargegaten Street, the famous colorful stress of shops and restaurants; the old town (called Gamlet) on the opposite side of the water, and went in and out of the shops along the way.
For dinner we headed to Bellies by the recommendation of our lunch waiter. Bellies is a vegan tasting menu restaurant. At first glance you may shy away when hearing that it’s a vegan restaurant. But it was one of our favorite dinners of the trip! With such a fun atmosphere and 10 courses of the most satisfying vegan creations. I highly recommend giving it a try if you’re in the area.
Day 2 - Stavanger
In a perfect world we would have taken a fjord cruise for the first half of the day. However, they weren’t running this day as we arrived just after the summer high season. They only run on specific days during low season. Instead we spent the morning visiting the Petroleum and Archeology Museums. The Petroleum Museum was actually much more interesting than you might think! Highlighting what made Norway such an affluent country in recent decades. The Archeology Museum held some Viking artifacts and history which we of course had to dive into!
If you have a car or are willing to take a taxi you could also visit the Sverd I Fjell, an iron monument that showcases a few artifacts from Viking times as well.
After a leisurely lunch at Egon with a beautiful view, we spent the afternoon shopping in the center of town. Norwegian shopping is SO good my friends, it was too fun. Some of our favorite stores were Hoyer, Magiske Masker, Gant, and Rolfsen.
Towns like these are where the cutest cocktail bars come to life, no? We went to Pjolter & Punsj, just beside the colorful road for one of the coolest cocktail bar concepts I think you could ever find! The idea is that the menu is a collection of “crimes” with each cocktail as the culprit. The “offense” is the ingredient list of the cocktail, and it shows you rankings such as sweetness, bitterness, “horsepower” as they called it hehe, and the like. Not only was the concept so fun, but the drinks were fabulous as well! You absolutely have to head to Pjolter and Punsj if you enjoy a cocktail every now and then.
We then went to our second dinner recommendation for Stavanger at Matkontoret. What we didn’t realize before coming to Norway is how into tasting menus they are! We accidentally went to two tasting menu dinners in Stavanger with this being the second (and noticed many in the Bergen area). The cuisine here was much more Scandinavian with a “cozy” food vibe and a cabin feel. Our favorite was the cod. Matkontoret has a fantastic location as well, right in the center of everything, on the water, yet surprisingly romantic and quiet next to the hottest bars in town.
Day 3 - Pulpit Rock “Preikestolen”
If you’ve ever googled or Pinterested photos of Norway, Pulpit Rock, or Preikestolen in Norwegian, is probably one of the photos that turned up for you. It is a stunning 45 minute drive from the city of Stavanger above Lysefjorden. Know for its 604 meter sheer dropoff cliff at the very end looking down the fjord as far as the eye can see both to the left and to the right. What I loved about this hike is how stunning it was for the entirety of the 4 mile loop. Passing through the woods, a beautiful field, a mountain-top lake, and of course the ending view. Sure, it may be full of visitors if you go during peak season, but it’s definitely worth the trek in my opinion.
Afterward we checked into this Airbnb for the night. The location was perfect, not to mention the view! And the little sheep friend neighbors! There aren’t many hotels in the area to choose from unless you stay in Stavanger. I’d nail down your Airbnb early to make sure you have an arrangement closer to the hike.
We headed to Villa Rosenhagen for dinner. This was another favorite of mine in the trip simply because of its setting. The restaurant is in a renovated farmhouse with windows everywhere so you can fully take in the view of the fjord. The food was incredible nonetheless. You just have to get the carrot cake for dessert!
Overall we loved the nature and scenery of this area.
Day 4 - Kjeragbolten Hike & Drive To Odda
This was the day we had planned to hike the iconic Kjeragbolten hike, with what looks like a suspended boulder between two edges of a cliff. I was absolutely horrified to eventually watch my husband run onto said suspended boulder because who knew apparently I’m afraid of heights now!? So maybe the Lord was on my side when he created 40-50 mph winds the morning of this hike for us (seriously though)? With weather advisories suggesting to avoid the outdoors if you’re able, we decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to hike this morning. All jokes aside, we were pretty bummed to miss out on this hike, but we had a 16 mile hike planned for the following day so we figured we could use a day of no hiking anyway! We instead spent the day leisurely driving to our home for the night, Odda.
One of the coolest parts of this trip was the driving. Given that Norway is so mountainous, there aren’t many traditional highway systems, but rather two lane roads winding along the fjords passing numerous breathtaking waterfalls. I mean, are you kidding me?! This drive was stunning and we ended up stopping a few times to admire the views.
Arriving at our destination for the day we decided to park and soak up the town while we had the time. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday so nearly everything was closed. But still a beautiful view of the fjord no less. If you’re familiar with the Netflix show Ragnorok, Odda is the town where it was filmed! Tyler and I watched this show after visiting Norway and it was actually so good. It’d be a fun show to watch before you head to Norway to get excited for your trip! It’s about the legend of the giants versus the gods in Norwegian mythology set during modern day.
Odda is a pretty small town, with most of its tourism coming from those who are hiking Trolltunga, another iconic spot in Norway.
We chose to stay at the Tyssedal Hotel which is a short drive north of Odda. They generally have a restaurant but unfortunately it was unexpectedly closed the day we were there, so we headed to one of the only restaurants open, Smeltehuset Mat Prat Bar instead. It was a cute bar set on the water, perfect for a family who all want a little something different for dinner.
Then it was time to get some sleep before our 16 mile hike to Trolltunga (“troll’s tongue”) tomorrow.
Day 5 - Trolltunga
Trolltunga is one of Norway’s most famous hikes. During tourism months this hike can be quite crowded, with 2-3 hour waits to grab a photo at the troll’s tongue rock formation that inspired this hike’s name. With it being 16 miles, it is said to take around 10-12 hours from beginning to end. Many people opt to camp on this hike in order to be able to take it all in and enjoy it as opposed to only spending an hour or so at the end before heading back. There are a handful of cabins available for rent, as well as “igloo” tent enclosures you could opt for, along with of course bringing your own tent. I will vouch for this idea even though I am not a camper. The last quarter or so of this hike is breathtaking and it's hard to enjoy it as much as it deserves to be enjoyed when doing it in only one day.
If you stay at the Tyssedal hotel, they do offer a shuttle service to the beginning of the hike that will take you all the way up to P3, the furthest parking lot you can get to. If you don’t opt for a taxi or shuttle service, I highly recommend reserving a parking space at P3 well in advance as there are only about 30 spots there. Otherwise P2 is about 3km before P3 in which you will have to hike the winding road that leads up to P3 with a relatively aggressive incline.
Unfortunately for us, the weather was not great this morning so in an effort to stray people away from the hike, P3 was closed. So we were lucky enough to hike the extra 3km!! Jokes aside, we were so excited for this hike we didn’t really care. It took us less than an hour to hike to P3 and begin the hike.
If you follow me over on Instagram, you might know that this hike didn’t exactly turn out peachy for us..! We had a slight bump in the road. A little back story, we woke up this morning and looked immediately at the weather. It said that throughout our 10 hour time span we’d be hiking, it would only be raining for about 2 hours of the hike. Not bad at all right?! It even showed many pockets of sun throughout the day. We thought it would be the perfect hiking weather just like we were able to get a couple of days before at Pulpit Rock. Alas, mother nature does what she wants doesn’t she?!
After getting to P3 and to the official start to the hike it was still consistently drizzling. At this point you have a pretty wide and open space to walk through of sheer rock and not much tree coverage. On the one hand, it’s surprisingly pretty to see this vast open land with small lakes and rivers scattered about. On the other hand, when it’s rainy, if it gets windy it’s pretty darn chilly! Shortly after reaching the end of the flat open land we got to see the most beautiful rainbow amidst the consistent drizzle of the day. Seeing this really lifted our spirits. “The rain is coming to an end finally!” we thought. We crossed one of the first peaks and began to head down a small valley with a beautiful natural pond. Still raining, we still kept our spirits high. But then the wind came. My hands were absolutely FREEZING, so I decided it’s a good time to put my gloves on, right? Wrong. Given that my hands were already wet (along with the rest of my body) the gloves only locked in that wet cold feeling and made it even worse. The wind picked up to being actually windy as opposed to a breeze and I was downright COLD. About a 10 or 15 minute hike away we could see an emergency shelter. “Okay, just make it to the shelter and get out of the rain and wind for a minute and that will help wonders,” I thought. A few minutes later my hands started to burn, my arms were absolutely freezing and my mind started to spiral! I absolutely cannot finish this. I can’t imagine another 7 hours of feeling like this. The short ways to the emergency shelter felt like an eternity when we finally arrived inside. We quickly realized that my rain gear hadn’t quite held up it’s end of the bargain and I was completely soaked to the bone.
Rewind to the days before leaving for this trip and my husband is packing as if we’re hiking through the middle of a hurricane for the next week with no shelter or food and I am COMPLETELY making fun of him, and letting him gently know that if the weather is that bad there is absolutely no way in h-e-double hockey sticks that I’m going to do it. Sorry for that run-on sentence…
Welp, thank God he packed for the next major hurricane am I right? I thankfully listened to him and brought an extra base layer top and bottoms, socks, and another sweatshirt. He brought those silver space blankets that you see people wear after marathons, and fortunately his rain gear was working like a charm!
About 45 minutes later I was beginning to feel my hands again...lol seriously...and another couple of adventure seekers joined us in the shelter for a little break.
We shared jackets (again, I can’t not lol at this), she shared her chocolate, and my mind stopped thinking about how cold I was. This man and woman told us we were only an hour or hour and a half away from the end. I absolutely cannotnot finish it if we’re that close! Which also meant that we had CRUISED up until that point. If we were going that quick, and they say we’re only an hour or so away from the troll’s tongue, if we go quickly we’ll be there so soon!
So we packed up again and headed back out. The wind had lightened up a bit along with the rain and we began to see the most spectacular views of this hike. The first moment we saw the fjord was absolutely breathtaking. With rainbows, clouds, and the numerous waterfalls, we were in absolute awe. We eventually made it to the end when both the rain and wind stopped for a good 10-15 minute gap for us to step out on the ledge and soak it all up.
I really am so glad we still completed this hike. We saw a fjord in a way you can only see by foot, and that first view of the fjord (below) is forever imprinted in my mind.
Even though many people say this is a really “touristy” hike, I would still do it if I were you. Try to arrive really early, camp, or visit outside of the main hiking season if you’d like to avoid the crowds. Oh...and make sure your rain gear works, and still bring an extra layer or two ;) All in all it only took us about 9 hours and 15 minutes, including a full hour stop to feel my body again hehe, and about 30ish minutes total of stopping and taking photos. The 10-12 would be if you stop much longer or take frequent breaks.
After finishing this hike we drove about two hours to the town of Vossevangen for the night. We stayed at the Scandic Hotel. If there’s a night you actually want your dinner to be a massive buffet it’s probably the day after a ginormous hike, no? Ha! The Scandic offers a vast dinner buffet with everything from scandinavian fish, to a salad bar, dessert, egg rolls, and everything in between for only 35 euro each (VERY cheap for Norway). The hotel itself was also very nice, and the town was much bigger than I anticipated. Anywho, we quickly fell asleep before our adventure to Flam.
Day 6 - Flam
The next morning we woke early to drive the hour to Flam before our Fjord Safari began. Yep, you heard that right, a fjord safari.
Originally, our Norway trip was supposed to be on a Disney Cruise, beginning in Dover England, travelling through the fjords, and ending in Amsterdam. If you know me, you know I grew up in a Disney family. This was a full dream come true! Well, the Air Force decided my husband needed to leave on TDY (an extended period of training away) during our cruise. Sad, but we made up for it as you can see! But I still just HAD to see the fjords by boat.
I had found this leisurely looking fjord boat outing on Airbnb that looked magical. Cruising along the fjord taking in the sights. My husband and I usually both research a few activities to make sure we’re choosing the best option. So I’d asked what my husband found for a fjord boat outing. What did he find? A fjord safari that comes equipped with full body suits, goggles, hats, gloves, and a speed boat. Lol. Same….but different am I right?!
Anywho, the fjord safari was actually way different than I expected, in a good way. We simply cruised along the fjord with a wonderful guide explaining the significance of the towns we passed, the history of the fjord, and looking for animals. We saw mountain goats (who are apparently very friendly and will jump on the boat with you if you’re close enough!), seals, and you might even be able to see a killer whale if you come between February and March. Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable, his “day job” was as a researcher of the oceans and animals in the northern hemisphere. He said that the killer whales arrive nearly to date every single year, arriving almost consistently on February 10. So mark your calendars!
We passed by the town of Undredal, which is the inspiration behind Disney’s Frozen movies. And we learned about the legend behind trolls in Norway, and the viking history.
As you can see, we really enjoyed this experience and it was SO MUCH better than doing a massive boat. With 12 people or less, you get up close and personal with the wildlife around you. I could not recommend fjord safari more.
After the fjord cruise we stopped into Flam Bakery for a little snack and coffee break. We planned to spend the rest of the day walking around the town. I will say, I never read anywhere about how SMALL Flam is. We’re talking walk from one side to the other in less than 10 minutes small. So charming no less, but not a ton to do in the town.
After a little while of wandering the town we headed to a beer tasting at our hotel, the Flamsbrygga hotel. The hotel is actually home to the Aegir Brewery, a viking inspired brewpub that is known as one of the best in Norway with world-class internationally recognized beer. The building itself is inspired by the viking era and is created to resemble a stave church.
Okay, confession. I do not like beer one bit. Like, not even a little bit. But I did the beer tasting and it was actually so fun! We even learned the mechanics of how to taste wine as it’s the same for beer, which I haven’t even learned in Italy yet! And of course husband loved it. Our dinner at the pub was also one of my favorites of the trip. We ordered the cod and the chickpea burger and split them. SO yum!
Day 7 - Borgund Stave Church
I posted photos of the Borgund Stave Church to my stories on Instagram the day we went and asked if you have ever heard of or seen photos of Stave churches. Most of you said no, which didn’t surprise me! The only reason I knew about them was because of Disney World, it’s the main building of the Norway Pavilion at EPCOT.
The Borgund Stave Church was only about an hour away from Flam which made for the perfect day trip before heading to Bergen for our last city of the trip.
We made it to Borgund in the late morning for a little tour. We learned that at one point there were 1,000 stave churches in Norway, and today there are only 28 left. There are 3 that are still well preserved, Borgund being one of them.
Unfortunately we arrived on one of the few days of the year that they spend repainting the church, but it was sort of cool to see. We learned that they’re actually painted with tar as opposed to paint in order to better preserve them.
Much of this church is still the original structure. One of the reasons that it is still around today is because there was a time when the King of Norway demanded all Stave Churches be destroyed and replaced. The town where the Borgund lives was quite poor (and is still very small to this day) so they could not afford to do so. So it is still alive and well today.
Definitely a cool thing to see if it fits into your itinerary. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving about 3 hours to the city of Bergen.
We stayed at the Moxy Bergen, purely because we have a Marriott rewards membership! But there are plenty of cute hotels, many much closer to the center as well. There is both a Thon and Scandic in the center which we really enjoyed in Stavanger and Vossevangen.
After arriving at our hotel we walked into the city center to get a little lay of the land. Bergen itself was MUCH bigger of a city than we expected. But the center by the water was very cute, with beautiful architecture, shops, and restaurants.
For our first dinner my husband found an “authentic viking experience” restaurant that was, well, exactly that I spose! The experience of it all was quite fun and a bit of a laugh to look back on. If you’re wondering how authentic it really was, well, the fork was a small pitchfork with only 2 prongs. Watching my husband try to eat salad with this tool was a laugh I won’t forget my friends! You can watch it in this Instagram story, ha!
Day 8 and 9 - Bergen
For our last two days we spent our time wandering throughout Bergen. Unfortunately it was drizzling the entire two days we were there. My original idea was to take the fjord ferry to see a bit more of the coastline, but when the clouds are low and it’s foggy out that doesn’t quite make sense! I would definitely recommend that if you have clear weather. So instead we took in all of the wonderful shopping Bergen has to offer!
A must-do is of course a good walk down Bryggen, the famous street full of colorful buildings along the water.
If you’re like me and wanted to try to find an authentic norwegian sweater, I loved Susan Fosse. I found a cute quarter zip sweater that had the authentic patterning but a more modern style. Better yet, these sweaters are unique to Norway and aren’t sold in major retailers in America like the bigger brand norwegian sweater companies.
A few restaurants we went to and enjoyed are:
Cartel’s Latin American - highly recommend the fajitas and the coco loco marg!
Bjerck Restaurant and Bar - so fun for lunch or brunch!
Godt Brod - for the BEST chai tea latte and pastries in the morning!
MM Cafe - great for lunch
No Stress - for a fun cocktail bar
Last Monkey - we weren’t able to make it here but it was recommended to us and it looked so fun for another cocktail bar option.
I’d definitely make reservations if you are able to!
And that’s it folks. I hope you enjoyed yet another travel blog. As always, I actually have a“travel hacks” highlight where I explain how to use google maps to save places that you want to visit in the future, whether you have a trip planned or not! Click here to view that, go through these places and be sure to save your favorites! I’d love to hear which ones you end up going to! Never hesitate to DM me on Instagram or shoot me an email here, I love hearing from you!
Until next time, XO,
Di