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Avoiding the heat EU tour

September 2023 - January 2024
A 127-day adventure by Bec & Phill
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  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    Day 1

    Departure day

    September 4 in Australia ⋅ 🌧 10 °C
    1

    Today is the day!

    We spent the day packing and cleaning, and handed over the keys to a friend Amy who will be staying in our humble abode while we're galavanting across countries.

    The goodbye to the cats was bittersweet, but I only shed a tear or two before our lovely Uber (Aidan) drove us to the airport.

    Dropping off our bags was simple and quick; my bag came into a whooping 8.8kilos and Phills was 8.1kilos.

    We then had the luxury of spending 3 hours in the Emirates business lounge. Where we ate, drank and had a merry time away from the poor general population.

    Waiting for boarding now...

    Seeya in Dubai 👋    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    Day 2

    Flight to Dubai

    September 5 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    Emirates has ruined Budget airlines for us both. Supplying a blanket and a pillow? Jetstar would never. And the food 👌

    We were lucky enough to book emergency exit seats, so we had leg space for days. We partook in a Bolognese dinner at 11:40pm (melb time) and popped antihistamines to help us sleep. Phill slept for about 4-5 hours and I got about 3. The 4:30am snack was a chicken and leek calzone which Phill missed as he was sleeping. Breakfast was served at and was very good - you can never go wrong with banana bread.

    Dubai airport is quite large, we enjoyed the introduction to a range of different cultures and takeout options!

    Seeya in Oslo    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    Day 2

    The adventure begins

    September 5 in Norway ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    24 hours of transportation, and almost 46 hours with minimal sleep we have reached out first stop. The Wonderful Oslo.

    The plane ride was 6.5 hours and uneventful, but it was all worth it when we landed.

    We arrived midday local time with a sunny temperature of 24°, we caught a train from the airport straight into Oslo S the main station of the city. We checked into our accommodation at Citybox Oslo and enjoyed well deserved showers.

    Not letting the fact it was only early afternoon get us down we went on a walk and enjoyed the architecture and scenery of the cityscape. We watched a changing of the guards at the Norwegian Royal palace and Phill got yelled at for standing too close to the gate.

    Dinner was (Svinekoteletter) Pork chops with sauerkraut and Karbonademiddag (Steak of minced meat). At an interesting hole in the wall bar where the lady behind the bar gave off an intimidating scary Grandma vibes but was very accommodating at the same time.

    The night wrapped up with our first load of washing (our airplane clothes) and brainstorming our first full day.

    Step count for day 1:
    Bec: 22,800
    Phill: 22,800    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    Day 3

    Big Boat Bonanza

    September 6 in Norway ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    The day started slow, with the realization that Norwegians don't really have breakfast and a good chunk of cafes don't open up until 10am.

    We headed towards City hall and boarded a ferry to Bygdøy for a day of exploring some museums. First stop was Norsk Folkemuseum, which is one of Europe's largest open air museums and consists of a range of historical Norwegian buildings from the 1100s to the 1960s.
    My favorite building was the Gol stave church, Phills was the historical farmsteads and all the wood carvings on the buildings. After spending a few hours walking around we headed to a cafe to finally have a bite to eat and a well earned coffee: only to be disappointed that the coffee (that we paid almost $5aud each) came out of a machine and was tepid, the pastries weren't a letdown and were thoroughly enjoyed.

    Our next stop the Flam museum. We saw 2 very impressive boats that were used in Arctic exploration and learnt alot about their travels. This museum was more interesting than I expected, the building itself was actually constructed around the boat!

    The final museum of the day was the Norwegian Maritime Museum where we saw a viking boat from 900ad as well as Norway's oldest boat - which was just a hollowed out tree stump.

    The day concluded with more exploration of the city and pizza for dinner.

    Seeya in Flåm.

    PS. the seagulls seem to be bigger here?

    Bec steps: 24,000
    Phill steps: 23,000    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    Day 4

    Flåm bam thank you ma'am

    September 7 in Norway ⋅ 🌙 15 °C
    122

    Today began by catching a train outta Oslo at 6:00am. On this train journey we went along Flåmsbana which was a 60 minute train ride known for being one of the most beautiful in the world. The claim did not disappoint, puffing billy will never be the same in our eyes after what we saw today.

    After getting off our 6 hour train journey of beautiful views and interesting conversations with Americans, we arrived in the town of Flåm. The small townstead was filled to the brim with tourists, but we got to try whale, reindeer and Moose salami.

    We then took a 25 minute electric bus ride to Stegastein viewpoint which is a 30 meter long and 4-meter wide platform 650 meters above sea level, with panoramic views of the Aurlandsfjord, Aurlandsvangen, and the mountains. Our lovely tour guide Peter gave us some interesting facts about the living situation in Norway and talked about the amount of crashes he's seen on the road we were taking.

    The night ended with a beer tasting tray in Ægir brewery and a pizza while taking in our stunning surroundings, and piggy pats back at our quaint accomodation.

    Seeya tomorrow Flåm!

    A modest walking day with 15,000 travelled each    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    Day 5

    The raid of Gudvangen

    September 8 in Norway ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C
    1
    2

    Today was a calm and slow paced day. We started it off by catching a bus through an 11km tunnel to a nearby town of Gudvangen.

    In this sleepy town they have the Viking town of Njardarheim which is an authentic village that shows how the Vikings lived 1,000 years ago. The workers weren't in 'dress up', they live and trade in the village according to history and all things sold at the village are made by hand and according to traditional ways.

    Lots of things were learnt about Scandinavian history and the career that was Vikings.

    Bec stumbled and fell into a chair where she received a historical Scandinavian stick and poke hand tattoo and Phill wowed the village ladies with his ace throwing skills.

    The day ended with packet soup and end of day rolls in preparation for an exciting cruise of the fjords tomorrow.

    Seeya in Voss!

    Phill steps: 13,000
    Bec: unknown    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    Day 6

    From the bottom to the top

    September 9 in Norway ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C
    23

    This morning we said goodbye to Flåm and our friend Shadow the pig.

    The morning started off with a mini hike around the area and by us visiting a very riveting train museum, which outlined the history of the railroad.

    We then boarded an electric cruise boat for a 2 hour tour through the Nærøyfjorden Fjord that links Flåm and Gudvangen. This cruise was absolutely stunning, we both can still not comprehend the scale and beauty of this country.

    We then had 3 hours to kill before our bus to Voss, we wandered around the town, partook in a tasty lunch and aimlessly walked around multiple souvenir shops even if we had no room to buy anything.

    The bus ride to Voss was also very scenic, which made the hour trip pass by quite quickly. Once we arrived at our destination we checked into our first 6 bunk shared hostel room - which has been an experience...

    We then took an electric gondola 818 meters up onto a mountain and explored what felt like a completely different country in itself.

    Dinner was a supermarket salad and a shared roll, let's see how we sleep tonight..

    Goodnight, hope the bed buds don't bite..

    Step count:
    Phill: 18.6k
    Bec: 18.4k    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    Day 7

    Breakfast included

    September 10 in Norway ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    I know we left yesterday on a cliffhanger - no bed bugs bit us while we slept, but we did share a room with 2 middle aged men who snored a symphony.

    We had our first included breakfast; so as you can imagine we both had 4 pieces of toast and plenty of meat cuts, cheeses and fruits so we could save money and skip lunch.

    After checking out we had a 3 hour wait until our train to Bergen. We made quick video calls to our respective families and ventured further into this sleepy ski town. We made the discovery that nowhere is open on Sundays, including most of the convenience stores - so lucky we gorged ourselves at breakfast.

    We had a slight hiccup with our train, so we had to buy new tickets, but it worked out as we were able to catch an earlier train rather than sitting around waiting. We boarded and caught the 1.5 hour train to Bergen, our last new Norwegian town.

    Once we arrived and checked into our hostel, we caught up on laundry and went for an initial expository walk, it started to rain so some snacks were acquired and we ventured back into the hostel to snack and lounge around for a bit.

    After eating too many chocolates and chips we went for a dusk walk to see this beautiful town at night, we ended up getting distracted with every new street we found (including stumbling across the shortest street in Bergen - Phill was excited about that) and ended up walking for almost 2 hours, before we decided to head back to rest for a historical walking day tomorrow.

    Step count
    Both: 24,400    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    Day 8

    More then we Bergened for

    September 11 in Norway ⋅ 🌧 14 °C
    222

    Today started with a sleep in, both of us getting out of bed at 8am 😮 we wrangled ourselves over to Godt brød (good bread) a cafe franchise we'd been seeing for the past week and enjoyed some fresh pastries and coffee before we set off on a site seeing adventure.

    First stop was Berganhus fortress, which is when the rain began. We had a fun time frolicking the cobblestone paths and exploring these buildings from the 1700s while it was slightly spitting before we moved to the Bryggen Hanseatic wharf, which has more buildings from the 1700s that looked like a colourful Diagon alley.

    Then came lunch, we ventured into the fish market so Phill could finally enjoy his Bergen soup - a creamy fish soup, plus a side of fish cakes. Considering this is a coastal town this soup cost us a house down payment, but was indeed creamy and delicious.

    We continued to explore and stopped in at a shopping center - here we made the executive decision to buy a brolly. Let me tell you, this was the best decision to date.

    We continued frolicking all over the town when it started to bucket down with rain, we didn't let this stop us though - we pushed through the squelching of our shoes and saw the sites we wanted.

    As soon as we arrived back at our dry and warm hostel we threw our clothes in the dryer. While that was drying we ran to the closet co-op and bought snacks for our 7 hour train ride tomorrow.

    The laundry was then done so we ventured into the kitchen to cook up our pasta. The kitchen was full so Phill stayed there to cook and made friends with a Belgium man who gave Phill a bowl of his curry.

    We sat down to eat with our new friend and got talking to another lady who was from the Netherlands. The main topic was national foods. According to the internet Australia's national foods are Pav (sorry Michelle), avacado toast and meat pies.

    After the very important discussions concluded we faced the rain again in search for a cocktail and an ice cream before getting back to hairdryer our shoes in hopes they dry before tomorrow.

    Seeya back in Oslo,

    Step count
    Both: 25k    Read more

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