11th March 2019. Exploring Oslo Norway

We woke refreshed to a near perfect morning. Breakfast at the Comfort Hotel is included in our package.  We enjoyed an excellent night’s sleep, we were tired but a very comfortable bed. 

Following breakfast we had to get several documents downloaded and this took about 45 minutes but all is good. 

Ken decided to walk through the city to the Parliament, Noble Peace Prize establishment, the National Theatre and several other beautiful buildings prior to a coffee at morning tea time down at the recently refurbished waterfront area. 

On our last visit to Oslo we had caught the tram to the famed  Vigeland Sculpture Park,with its thousands of human and other sculptures but we decided against such on this visit.

Instead he decided to walk from Oslo Central Station, down to the superb Oslo Cathedral, then passed by the beautiful Parliament buildings, down to the National Gallery and National Theatre and about 400 metres away the National Gallery.

Ken turned then to visit the dark City Hall building with the wonderful interior artworks. In the background was the spectacular Royal Palace in its beautiful gardens.

From here he turned from the City Hall area where there is a lot of construction work to the Nobel Peace Centre.  We had previously completed a tour.  Well worthwhile and enjoyed this visit. Then walked along the prominade to get to Aker Brugge.  Enjoyed this whole area in perfect conditions with clear blue skies and no wind. 

Sown further was the Astro Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.  Again enjoyed the visit. 

From here walked back to the hotel, tired but a wonderful morning. 

Then this afternoon we walked to the new Opera House, bearing comketion with much paving work being completed.  A stunning architectural project with striking design on a perfect site.

Following this we walked to H & M where Jeanette purchased some warm gear. 

Dinner tonight at Olivias, where we enjoyed a superb meal. 

A fantastic day. 

We commence our Norway in  Nutshell self guided tour early tomorrow.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Oslo.

7 March - 10th March 2019 Dubai UAE

We were picked up at 3 .00am by the Emirates chauffeur.

 The bodies are tired but we are excited as we set off on our holiday to UAE and then to Norway. The trip to Melbourne Airport takes 40 minutes, we are checked in 10 minutes later but cannot progress through customs and immigration, because these facilities don’t open until 4.00am.

We quickly profess through both areas although Ken has to be scanned.

Into the Emirates lounge before boarding at 5.15am.  All smoothly and efficiently with Jeanette in a window and Ken slightly behind on this A380-800. 

Departure is about 3 minutes early, we enjoy a drink, before Ken has his bed made and proceeds to have 4 hours sleep, missing the breakfast service. Jeanette enjoys breakfast before lightly sleeping. 

We then each watch 3 movies including Bohemium Raphaody and Momma Mia.

We are then served lunch and it is a superb meal including superb French red wine.

Our14 hour flight has been most enjoyable and we are prepared for landing. We exit the plane being very impressed with Emirates in every way.  We are through immigration pretty quickly, walk to the Emirates Chauffeur area, where our booking is confirmed and we exit via gate 4 where we are greeted and taken to the vehicle area, where there is a fleet of Mercedes Statuon Wagons. Our luggage is loaded, we are greeted by our driver with cold drinks. We are whisked to the One and Only Royal Mirage, Arabian xxxxx, where we are greeted, taken in through an amazing entrance vestibule, seated and checked in.  It is a stunning hotel, we are in room 1004 on the ground floor, which is 2 levels below the reception area. We are some distance from the reception area.

We are walked to our room, our luggage arrives some 10 minutes later. We checked in at 13.45pm and we are in our room inside 25 minutes.  We are tired but want to work our body clocks around.

The room is simply stunning, with views out to the pool and our beach area.  There are manicured gardens everywhere.

We unpack and there is terrific storage for all of our gear. Ken decides to go for a walk to the pool and beach.

Dinner tonight is in the Rotisserie Restaurant where we enjoy the amazing Arabian ambiance and superb buffet.  It is one of 5 highly rated restaurants at the 2 hotels that we have access to with our package.  During dinner which we enjoy we both feel ourselves slowly wavering. 

Following dinner we both turn n quite quickly at about 9.00pm.  It has been a terrific start to our holiday. 

We sleep very soundly! 

We awale at 7.20 am after a long sleep, but even so we still feel somewhat jet lagged.

Breakfast is in the Rotisserie Restaurant with a choice of inside or out. We choose inside, it is a beautiful breakfast. 

Following breKfast we get a taxi tu Dubai Marina Mall, then pay for a hip on hop off day tour on the Red Bus.  We do 3 different routes taking the yellow initially to the Palm Island and Atlantis. The size and scale is simply amazing. Then we catch the Yellow line to Mall of the Emirates, where we transfer to the Red line which is the Ild Dubai and most of the Museums.

There are many highlights but the Dubai Marina the Dubai Mall, the Palms and the amazing Atlantis are just a few.

Having had an amazing day seeing so many new attractuons and developments, we came back to Royal Mirage by taxi, changed after hot showers for our 7.30 pm dinner at Olives Restaurant at the Palace Hotel which is the sister adjoining hotel all within the one large beautiful property. 

We are taken by shuttle to the Palace Hotel an wven more up scale hotel than ours. 

The restaurant is superbly fitted out to reflect the Mediterranean style.  We enjoy the meal very much, but we again are tiring very quickly.

Back to our room, then Ken watches EPL for about 90 minutes. 

Morning does come very quickly, we sleep well and our body clocks are adjusting.

Breakfast is in the Rotisserie Restaurant, very good. 

Jeanette decides to relax and stay in, who.st Ken catches the tram to Dubai Mall then does an hour’s cruise which travels along theremarable Marina showcasing the development.  Just simply amazing. 

He returns to Dubai Mall, enjoysa coffee at Starbucks.  Before returning to the Royal Mirage forlunch andantes afternoon relaxing before dinner at the Rotisserie Restaurant.  Simply superb. 

We pack make sure we have awake up call for 3.00am with our chauffeur car to pick us up for our 7.45am flight from Dubai to Oslo, Norway. 

But before dinner we went back to Dubai Mall and arrived just in time to see the wonderful Dubai fountain and it’s perfrmances in front of the amazing Burg Khalifa. There were thousands of people but we managed to get a very good vantage point.  Simply amazing very much like that in Las Vegas at Bellagio. 

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The morning and wake up call came too quickly. 

Driver arrived at 3.45am, we delayed the Royal Mirage at 3.50pm,   and we were deposited at Emirates First and Business Class check in area at 4.20am.   We proceeded very quickly through check in and immigration then to the large business lounge.

Boarding with a text message and then an excellent flight to Oslo on 777 ER.  Just first class, we both slept. Excellent meals and service.  Then as we approached flying over Russia, near Moscow we started to see the amazing snow covered landscape and this continued all the way to Oslo. 

Landing was excellent, we disembarked quickly, were processed through Inmugratuon, then through Customs, exited there was a person with an Emirates sign, who took our name, we waited 5 minutes for our chauffeur to arrive, luggage loaded into the new Jaguar and 45 minutes drive through snow covered fields on a clear perfect spring day. 

We checked in to our hotel and we were initially shocked.  It is a very modern hotel in an old station building.  Contemporary in every way. 

We unpacked as best we could went for a walk.  No dinner and into bed at 7.00pm

16th and 17th Bergen , Norway then Meet and Greet before departure for our Cruise and Land tour.

We awake after a good night’s sleep although Ken still manages to get himself tied in knots with his doona.

Fiollowing a hearty breakfast we begin what will be a long day of waking around this picturesque small city. 

We commence by walking around the harbour see the interesting fish markets with an eclectic collection of restaurants within the actual market.  From here we walk up the hill past Starbucks to the famed Funicular.  We ride the Funicular and the weather has behaved, the skies have cleared to a stunning blue, we enjoy wonderful views of the city and harbour. 

From here we return via the Finicular back to the tourist area and decide to walk through the World Heritage listed area of Bryugge. 

These ate beUtifully preserves buildings. 

We conclude this lengthy walk by visiting the fortress on the peninsula. 

 It is a wonderful old structure which is being preserved and restored. 

In the late afternnoon, we walk through the cemtral shopping precinct.

For dinner we visit Olivia’s Restaurant for soup and bread. Again expensive but very good. 

At 7.30pm we meet as a group for the first time, with our tour guide introducing herself, explaining the cruise and the land tour component. 

There are 22in our group, all Australians and Eileen as the sole New Zealander.  Several of the group are jetlagged.  Our initial briefing goes for about 90 minutes. Inger is our guide .

Into bed, Ken is very tired and sleeps from 9.30pm through until 7.20am.

Breakfast then we pack and prepare for departure with luggage out at 12.00pm and departure for  a city tour at 1.00pm then, we board the ship at 5.00pm.

Dinner and sort out excursions. 

All good has been a terrific first 10 days of our holiday. 

20th March 2019. Our visit to Trondheim and then into Boda after crossing the Arctic Circle. 66.37degrees North.

We are at berth in Trondheim, Norway’s 3rd largest city.  We arrived here at 6.00am and depart at 12.00pm. It is the closest thing we have seen to an industrial port. 

We are walking 20 minutes into the city centre, then will see some of the historical sites.

The weather is clear, dry at this moment with maximum temperature of 2C. 

There is a lot of fresh snow on the neighbouring hills. 

Trondheim wad founded by the Viking King Olaf Trygvason n 997 and today has a population of mixed backgrounds and ethnicities. We look forward to visiting the Nidaros Cathedral and Archbishops Palace.   It is the second largest city in Norway and a financial hub for the Northern half of the country with a population of 170,000 people.

The Nidaros Cathedral and Archbishop Palace is simply amazing, superb stained glass windows, wonderful organ, a rustic simple touch for the most Northern Cathedral in Norway and the Arctic.

walked around the streets across the wooden bridge, passed by the University, then to the city mal and city square area. A most enjoyable 3 hours, then caught the local bus back, whilst others in our party walked the 40 minutes. 

We returned with another couple, on the bus, which dropped us 300 metres from the gangway. 

Afternoon we sails by several hundred small islands all part of the amazing visual panorama.  Some heavy showers of rain, noticeably cooler. 

Dinner tonight at 6.00pm, we shuffled seats and sat with another older couple from Western Sydney, enjoyable company.

We stopped at 4 different ports overnight. 

At 7.01 am we crossed the Arctic Circle and a ceremony was held by the exploration team to recognise the crossing.  Weather is again showery with the occasional snow shower, but is still OK.

At 10.15 am another ceremony to celebrate the Arctic Circle and to nominate the winner of the competition as to the closest to the exact time of crossing the Arctic Circle. 

Then at11.00am we meet our guide to determine our excursions in Lapland and Finland.  That is an exciting time in the trip.

Then we arrive n Boda and several of our group will walk with Inger. 

Our ship waiting for us to return from our excursion in Trondheim. 

Crossing the Arctic Circle@ 7.01am. Some 250 people on deck nine as the Expedition Team explain. 

At 10.15 am Njord the god of the seafarers came on board and there was a ceremony and celebration as we had crossed the Arctic Circle and he is here to protect us.  He asked for our wishes to see the Northern Lights, without any storms. 

They then proceeded to tip ice and ice water down the back of people as a celebration similar as to Neptune when you cross the equator. 

We walked 300-400 metres n Boda having docked at 12.30pm.  The weather in this industrial and fishing port in noticeably colder with persistent heavy showers together with several snow showers which are like pellets hitting your face and skin.

Boda is also the starting point for Nordic cross country skiing as well as many of the Nordic Forrest walks? 

We visit the Centrum or town centre, a shopping centre and super,Arlen for wine, soft drink and crisps. 

Fortunately we return to the ship by 2.00pm, just early enough to enjoy lunch in the dining room. 

The rain has become heavier.  We have several ports to visit this afternoon and evening. 

Jeanette has selects our land tour excursions for Lapland and Finland.  That all looks exciting.

We made a wise decisions to return to the ship ahead of busy crowds and the now incessant rainfall.