Royal Palace – unique in that the grounds are completely open to the public during the day

Leaving Copenhagen, we had a long journey ahead of us to meet my parents. There were two trains to Oslo, then a planned 6 hour evening layover, followed by an overnight train to Bergen. While looking at possible stops to make on our way north, we learned that Oslo is considered the most expensive city in the world so we figured a layover was the only way for us to experience it on our budget. In fact it seems like all of Scandinavia is surprisingly expensive. During our short visit I made a short video about how we toured Oslo without going broke:

Oslo on a Budget Video:

Back on the night train from Oslo to Bergen, Sara and I tried to get comfortable in the seats and sleep during the seven hour ride. On the Norwegian State Railway (NSB) the sleeper cabins were out of our price range at over €100 so we were stuck with normal seats. Sara had a hard time getting comfortable and I was too excited to see my parents, so neither of us slept well. For some reason, it felt like we slept better on our bench seats in Thailand. It didn’t help that it started getting light at 2:30 in the morning. Since I was up, I was able to enjoy beautiful views as the train wound through mountains (always looking on the bright side of things). As the journey went on, the landscape got more and more dramatic. We passed through towns that were little more than a train station and a couple of buildings nestled in a valley. Our train would stretch through the valley from one tunnel to the next. It was worth getting little sleep to see the beauty.

In Bergen, our good luck with weather finally ran out. We donned our rain jackets and drudged our way to the hotel to meet my parents for breakfast…