Norwegian Cruising Adventure 2022
Our trip to Iceland in 2021 gave us an interest in cruising the fjords of Scandinavia. We immediately booked a Tauck cruise around southern and western Norway. There will also be a stop over in Sweden.
This will be our third cruise on the same small ship Le Dumont D’Urville. We cruised on her on our Panama Canal passage in 2020 and Iceland cruise in 2021 and now we will board her in Oslo, Norway and cruise the fjords of Norway and Sweden. The ship is part of the Poinant fleet from France. She carry’s a maximum of 180 passengers so we can go many places the large cruise ships cannot go.
Norway will be interesting because according to Ancestry.com my DNA is 45% Norwegian. I always thought my Olson ancestors were Swedish but it turns out they lived just over the boarder in Norway. I am going home.
Our flight took us from Chicago to Reykjavik, Iceland with a connecting flight on to Oslo, Norway. The first leg is 6.5 hours with a one hour layover and a 2.5 hour flight to our final destination in Norway. We are flying Iceland Air. This is a much shorter trip than flying on other airlines that connect through Europe.
Although it occupies almost the same degrees of latitude as Alaska, Norway owes its warmer climate to the Norwegian Current (the northeastern extension of the Gulf Stream), which carries four to five million tons of tropical water per second into the surrounding seas. This current usually keeps the fjords from freezing, even in the Arctic Finnmark region. Even more important are the southerly air currents brought in above these warm waters, especially during the winter.
Norway is not a member of the EU. Her neighbors Sweden and Finland are members of the EU. The currency in not the Euro it is the Norwegian Krone or Kroner for plural. The exchange rate is approximately .099 or 10 cents per $USD. An item listed for sale for 50 NOK is $5.00 USD. Few if any businesses accept cash. The entire economy is based on credit card transactions.
We had a bit of a thrill upon landing in Reykjavik. We thought we would have an easy connection from our Iceland Air flight to our connecting Iceland Air flight. Perhaps it would even be on the same concourse. We checked the monitor to find our next gate. It was 6:50 am and our connecting flight departs at 7:50 am. Plenty of time to make a connection. The monitor does not list the gate for our flight. It states gate location will be provided at 7:00 am. Now it is 7:00 am and the monitor reveals our gate is C28 and we are on the D concourse. Off we go following the signs for the C concourse until we are engulfed by a mass of humanity backed up and down the stairways. The line is not moving. Why is there a line? Then we learn this is the line for passport control. It is not customs. The Icelanders just want to know who is passing through their airport. A dozen international flights had landed almost simultaneously. Now we have 20 minutes to make our connection. Miraculously the mass of humanity starts to move. Now we have to select the passport agent line that is the fastest. We did get though passport control quickly and trotted off to our gate. Oh, our plane is on the tarmac and we must take a bus to the plane. The line for the bus snakes round and round. We checked with the gate agent to make sure we were getting on the right bus. At that moment Priscilla saw the first class lane and we skipped to the front of the masses. We were on the bus and on our plane with minutes to spare. All good. On our return flight we have a 2.5 hour layover which we are now glad to have.
By contrast when we arrived in Oslo where there was no immigration inspection and customs was on the honor system. If you have nothing to declare just walk out the green door. Aside for waiting 45 minutes for our luggage it was smooth as can be.
Norway has a “right to roam” law. It allows citizens and tourists to use all land and waterways as their playground. There are no restrictions of use on public or private property. The only limitation is you cannot camp with 500 feet of a building. This unique approach has been around since the time of the Vikings.
This is the flag of Norway.
Our taxi ride from the airport to downtown Oslo took 35 minutes. We were in a car with two people that claimed were on our Iceland cruise. Glad they recognized us.
Our hotel is just a few blocks from the waterfront. There are lots of parks and open spaces. We will stay the Grand Hotel for two nights. We arrived a day early to get over our jet lag. There is a six hour time zone difference compared to Chicago.
The Grand Hotel is truly grand.
Tomorrow is Thursday and we have the day to our own for sight-seeing. There are several harbor cruises available. We need to take a COVID test 24 hours before we board the ship. Anyone that tests positive will be denied boarding.
Stay tuned. The adventure has just begun.