Norwegian Travel

I found my travels around Norway to be relatively easy as they have a good network of roads which I used when I had access to a car and on the odd occasion I would take the bus. Norwegians drive on the right side of the road like most of Europe. The only real times I used the bus was the Flybussen from Gardemoen airport each time I visited the country.

When I moved to Norway I bought a Transit van in the UK, then drove to Newcastle, got a ferry over to Kristiansand, then drove along the South of Norway to Oslo and finally down to Langhus.

I had never driven on the right side of the road before and at my first roundabout I almost went the wrong way around and the constant screaming of my girlfriend made for an interesting drive!

Also, I had never driven a left hand drive car before and when I got the opportunity to do this I ended up banging my left gear changing hand into the driver door over and over again. Otherwise, you cant really go wrong driving on the left as the roads are designed to keep you on that side and you get used to it.

Trains

The Norwegian train system is good, however I found that information was hard to come by at smaller stations and I had to rely on train times from a booklet. In the UK there are tv screens or information boards which keep you updated as to when the next train is due and what its destination is, but this is only really available in the larger city stations in Norway. There were the odd smaller stations which had information boards, but these rarely worked especially in winter.

Train carriages are usually split into cash, or prepaid coupon cards. I used to buy a "kuponkort" which you stamp yourself in a machine before you set off, stamping the correct amount of slots for the destination. This was easier than carrying around cash or having to chat to the ticket inspector in the pay carriages.

The good thing about the trains in Norway is that they usually have kiosks at the stations which sell pølser.

I used the trains and underground or "T-Bane Metro" in Oslo the most during my time in Norway as it was the only real way to get from where I lived to the city, unless you owned a car.

The Weather

The weather of course affects everything, especially the winter. As I have said before, when winter hits the Norwegians are generally not prepared for the first snowfall and end up skidding off roads on the ice and there are lots of accidents.

There is now a custom of Norwegians to carry their snow tyres which have metal studs, in the boot of the car. They then change the tyres in middle of roads and on motorways when the snow hits, rather than the more sensible way of just doing it a week or so before the forecast.

Roads surfaces are constantly moving and cracking due to climate and are always under repair, however once to fill a crack in Kolbotn, they just dumped a load of tarmac in the hole and just got the cars to drive over to flatten the hump (very unprofessional).

Trains could be delayed or only part services can be running in winter due to the weather and this coupled with the information boards not working, I had to guess sometimes as what train I got on and hope it took me to Oslo.

The best form of transport is definitely the car as then you can experience the nature as you drive along. On my trip to Trondheim I traveled via an internal flight, but I wish I had driven up there and seen the sights instead.