We Took a Magical Household Journey to Norway In the course of the Winter—How one can Go to

I’m a toddler of the tropics. I grew up in coastal South India, simply above the equator, amid lush rice fields and an excellent burning solar. I wore T-shirts, shorts, and sandals all year long; closed footwear have been a clammy imposition. So what was I doing on a stormy, freezing hill in December, knee-deep in snow, bundled in 4 layers of protecting clothes and thick boots? How did I find yourself in Norway for Christmas, snowshoe mountaineering at 2,600 ft, overlooking a frigid fjord sculpted by historic glaciers?

The trail that led me and my household to that snowy hill is considerably inconceivable: it started with a web-based sport referred to as GeoGuessr. The sport flashes scenes from Google Road View throughout a display screen, and gamers should establish the areas. My son, aged 15, has spent too many hours taking part in it. Because of this, he has developed an acute, considerably weird, data of obscure geographies. Certainly one of his specialties is Scandinavia. Late one night time, he insisted we guide our tickets for the approaching December. “Norway in winter is my life’s dream,” he mentioned, plaintively. What self-respecting father or mother might deny their youngster such a deeply held want?

And so we discovered ourselves in Oslo two days earlier than Christmas, the town deserted for the vacations, most outlets and eating places shuttered. We wandered its broad avenues, which have been lined with mounds of packed snow, and its elegant parks, clad in sheets of ice. Close to the middle of city, within the previous harbor space, a abandoned promenade ran between frosty vistas and imposing museums and cultural buildings. The enduring sloped roof terrace of the Oslo Opera Home, which swarms with vacationers in hotter months, was now closed to guests. Cruise ships sat, as if deserted, within the harbor, no passengers or crew in sight.

There was one nook of the bay that did, nevertheless, appear busy. On the fringe of a dock, subsequent to a modern wood-and-glass construction that regarded like a floating bunker, a gaggle of women and men stood shirtless within the chilly. They approached the water and, to my astonishment, plunged in. The constructing was a floating sauna; everybody I spoke with swore by the bodily and psychological advantages of the fast transition from warmth to chilly supplied by these dives. My preliminary sighting of this follow set my coronary heart racing. It appeared like a ritual reserved for locals—positively not one thing a customer from the tropics would ever try. 

After three days in Oslo, we headed to the village of Flåm, some 200 miles to the northwest in a mountainous area recognized for its UNESCO-listed fjords. Earlier than arriving in Norway, my son had informed me concerning the practice journey from Flåm to Myrdal, which was reputed to be one of the crucial scenic on the earth, and he confirmed me lists that described the journey as “breathtaking,” “spectacular,” and “epic.” I quickly came upon that none of this was exaggeration.

We began early within the morning, driving by white landscapes that stretched to an orange horizon the place the solar perched gently, like a ball of butter. There was a soothing predictability to all of it, the monotony of snow-covered fields and thinned-out birches and spruces passing over us like a balm, interrupted sometimes by an remoted hamlet or residence seemingly trapped within the ice. I questioned how their inhabitants acquired out and in; maybe, I assumed, they hibernated within the winter. 

At Myrdal Station, which was crowded with Norwegians wearing colourful ski outfits, we modified to a smaller practice. It was slower, crammed largely with vacationers, and the environment have been very totally different. We made our means on a slim monitor in a craggy panorama of grey rock and icicles, with the occasional stream flowing—seemingly impossibly—by frozen ice. The practice descended right into a valley, on what I later discovered was one of many world’s steepest standard-gauge railway traces. 

Round six hours after leaving Oslo, we arrived in Flåm, the place we walked to a low-slung shed by the Aurlandsfjord. There we met Julie Aksnes Williams, a pupil within the close by metropolis of Bergen and a part-time information for Fjordsafari. She greeted us with a distinctly American twang. Though she had grown up round Flåm, her father was from Barbados. It appeared becoming that I’d been matched with a information who was acquainted with each the snow and the tropics. 

“Any of you ever gone snowshoe mountaineering earlier than?” she requested, smiling. We stared again blankly. So she piled us into her automotive and drove up a winding mountain monitor till we reached what appeared like the top of the highway. She unloaded 5 units of snowshoes, helped us strap in, then led us into the white hills, below frozen bushes that stood like sentinels.

The snow was 4 or 5 ft deep, powdery and lightweight, and our snowshoes barely stored us from sinking. We made our means up a steep incline, huffing and puffing—I discovered that snowshoe mountaineering is significantly extra exhausting than the normal model—after which, after about half an hour, we discovered ourselves above the clouds, in a clearing. Under us, like a sudden revelation, opened a panorama of hazy, stormy mountains and darkish fjords.

Williams unpacked a thermos and served us a scorching—and really candy—drink constituted of black-currant syrup. The world felt distant and, save for just a few twinkling lights, empty; it appeared we had the fjords to ourselves.

I used to be disabused of this notion the following day, nevertheless, after we met Williams once more, this time for a journey alongside the fjords in a inflexible inflatable boat, or RIB. We got here bundled in our warmest winter gear, however the workers at Fjordsafari informed us that we would want one thing heavier for the temperatures out on the water—which, they warned, may very well be 15 levels colder. So we have been draped in thick layers of thermal put on, lined with neon-colored flotation fits, and adorned with tinted goggles and durable rubber boots. We regarded like astronauts. 

The setting was, certainly, moonlike—a panorama of rocky hills dotted with frozen waterfalls and patches of white. However as we went farther out onto the water, the wind blowing brutally onto our cheeks, I began seeing indicators of human habitation amid the otherworldly surroundings: purple barns, picket docks, even a resort set on high of a mountain (which, Williams knowledgeable us, might solely be reached by a 45-minute hike).

Steadily, as we went deeper into the fjords, villages revealed themselves. They have been inhabited by a handful of individuals and some goats; one village had a single resident. The existence of pastoral life on these hills was maybe essentially the most stunning side of our fjord tour. I had come to Norway anticipating a Twenty first-century European nation with spectacular nature, and I wasn’t disillusioned. However I didn’t anticipate centuries-old life clinging tenaciously to the hillsides.

We stopped at Undredal, a picturesque hamlet well-known for a goat inhabitants that outnumbers people by a ratio of 5 to 1. The village can be recognized for its brown goat “cheese”—a candy Norwegian confection constituted of whey that extra intently resembles fudge than cheese—and we sampled some, together with domestically produced sausages, in a restaurant by the water. We took just a few moments to wander the city’s icy paths and walked previous its Twelfth-century stave church, which is reportedly the smallest nonetheless in use in Scandinavia. Then we clambered again into our motorboats and returned to Flåm.

Williams and I made a plan to satisfy later that afternoon; I informed her I needed to raised perceive how the city and its environment had modified over time. First, although, my household and I had an appointment that had been nagging at me all morning: a reservation at a type of floating saunas.

We constructed up our braveness with a lunch of burgers and pizza on the Flåm Marina, a comfy place with beneficiant views of the fjord. I confess to experiencing a low degree of tension all through the meal, a trepidatious inside monologue about whether or not I’d really make the leap. The water, we had been informed, hovered close to freezing, on the low aspect even for the season. Maybe, I rationalized, I might skip it, on a day that even locals would possibly think about chilly. 

However then lunch was over and my household, seemingly much less hesitant than I used to be, ambled over to the sauna, and I actually had no alternative however to comply with. Earlier than I knew it we have been stripped right down to our swimming wear and ensconced within the woody heat of a room overlooking the fjord. This, in fact, was the simple half. We reclined on the picket benches and gazed out on the shimmering water, which was backed by shadowy peaks. I might have stayed in there all afternoon.

Depend on teenage boys to disrupt their mother and father’ consolation zones. About quarter-hour in, my sons opened the door to the sauna and walked onto the deck exterior. I determined it was irresponsible—to not point out damaging to my fame—to allow them to take this plunge alone. And so I stepped out, pushed them gently apart, took a deep breath, lowered myself down a ladder, then treaded considerably frantically within the frigid chilly till I’d counted to 12 (I used to be decided to go over 10). Then I pulled myself up the ladder, to basic acclaim from the household.

For us fathers, respect is hard-won—and sometimes short-lived. To our proper, on an adjoining floating sauna, a gaggle of Norwegians laughed loudly of their swimsuits, cannonballing and frolicking within the fjord for prolonged durations, as if on spring break in some sort of tropical paradise. 

Later, at nighttime blue gentle of afternoon, Williams and I walked alongside the town’s docks: previous a few ferries, anchored in a single day, and a row of colorfully painted picket buildings. The buildings have been immaculately preserved, and the streets that ran alongside them have been nearly empty. The entire scene was positively pastoral, nearly too quaint to be true. I informed Williams how shocked I used to be by the obvious continuity of life within the space. “This city appears to be like unchanged,” I mentioned. “Are these buildings actual, or have been they constructed for a film set?”

She laughed, and confirmed that these have been certainly originals. However she added that issues weren’t fairly as static as they could seem. She mentioned I used to be fortunate to be visiting in winter, when the city wasn’t as crowded and retained one thing of its authentic really feel. In summers, she went on, Flåm’s slim dockside may very well be overwhelmed with vacationers disembarking from cruise ships, which carry noise and air pollution. Some farmers had not too long ago protested; they painted no cruise ships on bales of hay. As all the time, she mentioned, tourism was a double-edged sword: even because the crush of outsiders disrupted life, it additionally offered the earnings—and incentive—for Flåm to guard its previous. “Individuals work actually onerous to deal with this place and protect its authentic feeling,” Williams informed me. 

We have been standing in entrance of a practice station when Williams informed me all of this, dealing with a carriage that may have been crowded with vacationers only a few hours earlier, earlier than public transportation into Flåm shut down for the day. Williams informed me she used to take this practice residence from faculty when she as a toddler. She sat with the conductors they usually helped along with her homework. Now the brand new conductors don’t acknowledge her; they yell at her for not loading her winter gear appropriately.

“That’s simply the best way it’s,” Williams mentioned, considerably ruefully. “Some issues change, and a few issues keep the identical. It’s only a truth of life.”

Kids of the tropics belong on seashores; we lengthy for crystal-clear water, white sands. For our final cease in Norway, we flew to Tromsø, 217 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Seashores have been the very last thing on my thoughts after we landed. Temperatures hovered beneath freezing; the city was bathed in a perpetual winter darkness. But late one night time, we discovered ourselves standing on a seaside. 

Sommarøy is a city about 22 miles exterior Tromsø, and we had traveled there with a gaggle in hopes of seeing the northern lights. The seaside was in contrast to every other I’d visited. Sheets of undulating snow led into gently lapping Arctic waves. There have been no sand dunes, solely hills of silvery ice that shone like miniature Alpine peaks below an almost-full moon.

The northern lights have been on our bucket record. We have been decided to spherical off our journey with a sighting, however the night started inauspiciously. Sarah Caufield, our Canadian information, informed us that the viewing had been poor in current weeks. The lights have been capricious, she mentioned, and nobody actually understood when or how they would seem. All we might do was hope. 

We stood for greater than an hour on the freezing seaside, gravitating towards a campfire maintained by one other group. We scoured the sky, admiring the sensible stars, typically wishfully seeing indicators of the lights in wisps of clouds. Caufield monitored an app on her cellphone, making an attempt to gauge our possibilities. Some folks gave up and returned to take a seat inside their parked automobiles.

Then, all of a sudden, we noticed a faint inexperienced hint, adopted by a extra pronounced line, which quickly turned an plain arc ripping throughout the sky. Individuals got here working again from the parking zone. The seaside was full of admiring “oohs” and “aahs.” The lights ebbed and flowed; they’d calm down for some time, after which explode once more, typically in vivid traces and typically in dramatic neon swirls. It was like being at a Fourth of July present, besides throughout winter. 

We watched in awe, taking within the thriller of the Arctic night time. After some time, I requested my son if he was chilly and steered we head again to the heat of our car. “Are you kidding?” he mentioned. “That is my dream come true.” 

Oslo

Sommerro

A glamorous property housed in a Nineteen Thirties constructing, simply across the nook from the Royal Palace. The cavernous espresso store is nice for people-watching. Don’t miss the heated outside pool on the highest flooring.

Fukuya

A comfy neighborhood Asian restaurant proper off Frogner Park, good for sushi or a Thai curry on a chilly day.

Frogner Park

Expansive lawns, lined with spectacular sculpture, stretch seemingly into the horizon. On weekends, the park teems with households with younger children. 

Flåm

Fretheim Resort

A mixture of previous and new structure, this resort has spectacular views of the encompassing hills and fjords. The dinner buffet is a satisfying possibility after a day of mountaineering.

Ægir Brewpub

A pub and restaurant in a picket constructing. Its Viking-themed menu gives a smorgasbord of conventional dishes.

Flåm Marina Café

A family-run institution hooked up to a small house resort, this place has an enviable location overlooking the fjord and serves pizzas and burgers.

Fjordsafari

The pleasant, skilled guides at this firm can take you on snowshoe hikes or boat rides alongside the fjords. Security is taken significantly, as is safety from the chilly.

Fjorena

Check your braveness as you progress between the nice and cozy sauna inside and the freezing fjord exterior. The sauna gives superb views. 

Flåm Railway

This small practice leads down one of many steepest railway traces on the earth, and cuts by beautiful, craggy surroundings. Attempt to get a seat in one of many entrance carriages for the perfect view.

Bergen

Bergen Børs Resort

Norway’s second-largest metropolis is the gateway to the fjords. This stunning resort, which as soon as housed the inventory change, faces a sq. lined with heritage buildings, only a few blocks from the water. Its restaurant is embellished with beautiful frescoes.

Allmuen 

In a metropolis recognized for its meals scene, Allmuen stands out for the freshness and inventiveness of its delicacies. It makes use of native produce for Mediterranean-inspired menus that change every day.

Tromsø

Vervet House Resort

Fashionable residences in an up-and-coming neighborhood simply exterior the town middle, with a group of eating places and occasional outlets within the neighborhood.

Bardus

This upscale restaurant within the coronary heart of city has an hooked up bar that’s extra relaxed and fewer crowded.

Bengts Bistro

A no-frills place with an genuine vibe. The menu highlights pizza and grilled kebabs.

Tromsø Mikrobryggeri & Balthazar Vinbar

A microbrewery and wine bar set in a comfy Nineteenth-century constructing on one of many primary streets.  

Polar Museum

This small, unassuming museum offers an incredible introduction to life close to the Arctic Circle. It features a historical past of seal searching, artifacts from the dramatic races to the North Pole, and photographic and narrative proof of the hardships generations have endured within the bitter chilly. 

Arctic Information Companies

This firm, certainly one of many offering excursions and excursions, is dependable and staffed with educated guides. It gives northern lights and “midnight solar” experiences, in addition to mountaineering within the surrounding hills.

A model of this story first appeared within the December 2024 / January 2025 difficulty of Journey + Leisure below the headline “Fjord Focus.”