Norway by Train: From North to South
Norway, just like its people, is a very tall and slim country. You will always have the company of amazing nature regardless of the mode of transportation that you use to travel within Norway. You will get to see the snowy peaks if you are traveling by air. If you are on a train, you can at anytime spot people fishing over the ice through a hole digged in the ice. A bus trip will take you through amazing tree dominated landscapes. If you ask my personal favorite though – after a 17 hours train journey traveling from the northern town of Bodo to the southern town of Oslo, I can confidently say that train is my favorite mode of transportation in Norway.
If you purchase your tickets well in advance, you can even guarantee a train seat for almost as low as USD 30 for a lengthy train trip. There is no doubt that Norway is an expensive country but it is equally possible to reduce your transportation costs if you plan carefully. Lets get back to my long train journey traveling from the far north down to south. Before getting on the train to start my 17 hours journey, I first take the short 24 minutes plane ride between Lofoten Islands and Bodo on the mainland. If the sky is clear, this short journey in a very small plane packing a maximum of 20 people is an extremely rewarding one in terms of the views. I was however not very lucky during my last trip. We still got to spot some islands during the very final part of the trip when the sky cleared a little but it was not much compared to my previous experiences. Once in Bodo, I spend some time in a restaurant before getting on the train for my 10 hours long train trip to the important port town of Trondheim, located in the central west coast of Norway. It is now 9 pm and I am heading to the train station, which greets me very atmospheric views of very dim lighting and continuous snow. I settle in my wagon where we are only 4 people and start listening to “Girl from North County” by Bob Dylan, which I find to be fitting with the circumstances. I then quickly fall a sleep. When I wake up, we only got two hours left for Trondheim.
After a very short stop at Trondheim, I soon find myself in the second train heading down to Oslo. The second leg of the trip will take around 7 hours. The daylight shows up and I get to witness amazing landscape views. It is quite surprising that the views get even better as we get closer to Oslo – to the more urban parts of Norway in other words. I get to see people taking a walk over the frozen lakes or doing ice fishing through the holes. I then find out that this train also stops at Oslo Airport, eliminating the need to go all the way down to Oslo city center. This is the last happy surprise of this amazing train journey. I would as a matter of fact not mind if I had another 17 hours to pass watching the amazing views that I got to experience in this very cold February day in winter.
