Author: Chloe Kirk

The last leg of our Europe trip was visiting some friends in Norway! It was a relaxing time and we spent half of the time with our friends and the other half in Oslo.

Since it was pretty low key, we didn’t explore too many sites. With our friends, we visited a fortress in Halden called Fredriksten and a huge candy store called Gottebitten! In Oslo, we visited the Viking museum and did a trip around the fjords.

Southern Norway

Fredriksten Fortress

This fortress was built in the mid-17th century and has impressive views over the fjords. This is the only fortress in Norway that has been preserved and was originally commissioned by Dano-Norwegian King Frederick II. It has some good hikes but be warned it is VERY windy! We tried taking pictures but since we could barely stay standing, the best representation I thought would be by a video.

Gottebitten

The other mention worthy stop we made was to a famous candy store: Gottebitten. This place is filled with endless chocolate and candy! I was in heaven!

Oslo, Norway

Viking Museum

We only spent a day in Oslo but honestly there wasn’t much more to do than that. We had a wander around downtown but it was rather cold. Then we figured out how to get to the Viking museum, which is a trek in of itself because you have to take a bus instead of any train. I noticed most people at the Viking museum came from tour busses, which I suppose makes sense because taking the bus took an awfully long time.

This place is incredible, with the most intact Viking ships in the world!

The wood carving on them is exquisite and makes you appreciate Viking culture. They also have other Viking artifacts like carts and human remains.

the Oslo Fjords

The activity I was most excited about in Norway was to see the Fjords! The fjords are all over Norway, but if you think Norway is expensive normally, the prices of boat tours to see the most impressive fjords on the East of the country are astronomical. Most of them are multi-day trips where you get on a bus in Oslo that takes you through Norway and then a cruise through the fjords.

We didn’t have time (or honestly the money) to spend to visit the biggest fjords, but there are also the Oslo Fjords that have tours right here in Oslo! We took an hour long cruise around the Oslo fjords and it’s definitely a great alternative to those looking for a shorter and cheaper way to see fjords!

Our tour guide was very informative, telling us about all the different islands and noteworthy buildings. The coolest thing I thought was all of these little bathhouses on the front of every house. These were originally designed for residents to bathe, but during Norwegian alcohol prohibition they were used as a way to smuggle alcohol.

As a word of warning, Norway is by far the most expensive European country. A medium Dominos 2-topping pizza carry-out costs the equivalent of $20 and a bunk bed hostel costs $80 per person a night! We spent almost half the money we saved for the entire trip across 6 cities just in Norway. So be prepared to spend a lot of money if you want to travel here.

I loved Norway. The landscape was very similar to Sweden and I can see why a lot of Northern European immigrants settled in the Midwest of America because they are quite similar landscapes of rolling hills and fields with a comparable climate. However unless you have a lot of money to be able to spend on traveling Norway, I wouldn’t recommend coming here. On a budget like I was, it was difficult to see much and most of the attractions in Norway are rural which means you either need a local to show you or need to be willing to pay the big bucks for your own car or tour.

I had a short 2 day trip in Sweden that just so happened to coincide with National Sweden Day!

Day 1 – Gamla Stan

Navigating the trains

We arrived in Sweden in the early morning of June 6th excited to make the most of our 2 days in Stockholm! The airport is a little ways away from Stockholm city centre and you can either take a 60 minute bus ride for $10 or 18 minute ride for the equivalent of $32. (It goes 120mph!) Because we were crunched for time, we took the train.

Once we got off the train and were looking for our Airbnb, everywhere was so crowded! We had to take another local train to get to our Airbnb and they do not make figuring out local transportation easy for visitors! There are different types of tickets you can buy such as a 2-hour ticket, and you can use them unlimited times for the duration of their validity. However, you can buy 24, 72 hour, or 30-day tickets but they make this very difficult for a tourist to figure out. You cannot buy these day or multi-day tickets at the electronic ticket kiosks and we only discovered by asking around enough you have to go to the ticket gate keeper to physically buy a pass from them.

After you have any ticket you can ride all their trains and busses, which are very clean and fast! In addition, the Stockholm trains are all underground, and the walkways are carved through huge rocks that have been painted. It is really pretty!

Stockholm Palace

We checked into our accommodations and went off to explore downtown Stockholm!

All the tour book and blogs about Stockholm tell you to do two things when here: Visit Gamla Stan (old Stockholm) and kayak. We started off heading to the small island where Gamla Stan is located and it was teaming with people!

Gamla stan was beautiful and looked exactly as I imagine it looked centuries ago. Once once we reached the Stockholm Palace did we find out why there were so many people out: it was National Sweden Day!

Luckily enough for us, this also meant free entrance into the Stockholm Palace!

Everything in the palace was incredibly ornate! Unfortunately, it was so packed it was unbearably hot inside the palace and we all shuffled along slowly through all the rooms.

Chokladkoppen

After the palace, we were very hot and bothered so decided to look for a much talked about cafe in Old Stockholm: Chokladkoppen.

We sat here and got some coffee, hot chocolate, and a famous Swedish cinnamon roll. Everything was very expensive but that is something we are coming to terms with is that everything in Northern Europe is very expensive. This was a great spot to unwind in the shade while still enjoying the picturesque Gamla Stan!

Day 2 – Kayaking, Big Ships, and more Palaces

Kayaking

Like I mentioned earlier, one of the main attractions recommended to do in Stockholm during the summer is go kayaking through the city. You can find a number of kayak rental shops in the city, and so it was quite simple to locate the closest one and rent our kayaks.

This was an unforgettable experience and no wonder everyone recommends kayaking Stockholm because it is a fantastic way to see the city!

We only rented the kayaks for an hour, and at first I thought this wouldn’t be enough time to be out on the water. But I have not built up my kayaking muscles and was dead tired by the end of the hour!

Drottingholm Palace

After the morning work out, we took a long lunch break. The next stop in the afternoon was to visit the more rural Drottingholm Palace, an UNESCO World Heritage site and private residence to the Swedish royal family.

We had to travel by bus because the trains don’t come this far, but it was worth the trip! It is idyllically located next to a gorgeous lake that has boat tours of the lake if you are interested. We decided not to go inside because it was quite expensive to get the official tour. Instead, we wandered around the lake taking in the views and eating some ice cream.

The Vasa Museum

Our final stop was in the museum area containing both the Vasa museum and the ABBA Museum! I grew up listening to ABBA so I was so excited to visit this museum, however they charge an astronomical price for tickets (I believe it was $27) and most of the reviews said it is mainly for kids.

On that bombshell, we decided to spend more time at the Vasa museum. My dad talked nonstop about this place before I came to Sweden and so of course I had to check it out. The Vasa is an impressive Swedish Warship that was constructed in the early 17th century, however on its maiden voyage in 1628 immediately sunk into the bay. No one is completely sure why it sank so quickly, but archaeologists theorize that the ship is so large and narrow that it likely could not have floated. And then if you add in all the cannons the warship contained, it seems inevitable the ship would have sank.

The ship remained untouched and forgotten about until 1950 when efforts were made to remove it from the bay and bring it back to its former glory! In addition to seeing the fully preserved ship, many artifacts and human remains trapped in the ship shed light into 17th century Sweden.

It is very impressive and a must-see in Stockholm!

And with that we finished our tour of Stockholm!

Off to Norway tomorrow!

The next stop in the whirlwind post-graduation tour around Europe was Berlin for 2 days. We arrived late in the afternoon from the train and decided to spend the evening relaxing before the first full day. We picked up some more local beers to try.

Day 1

We started the morning bright and early at the Berlin Cathedral! This place was huge and filled with the most beautiful architecture and fantastic views.

We next headed to the museum complex and started with the Neus museum. The Neus museum is famous for its Egyptian and early civilization history and all for only 9 euros, including a headset!

We took a break at McDonalds for lunch nearby which was along a big tourist road which has the world clock, red city building, and St. Mary’s church. After this brief diversion, we went back to the museum complex to visit the famous Pergamon Museum.

After these museums, we did a slow walk through Bebel Platz, a famous square where a large book-burning occurred during the Nazi regime, and Gendarmenmarkt. It was extremely hot outside, so we stopped for some icecream and Jack needed a coffee pick-me-up.

We had an afternoon history and beer tour we scheduled through Airbnb. Nils, the guide, was fantastic! He is from Ireland, but he knows so much about beer and the history surrounding World War II. We would never have visited most of the places he brought us simply because we didn’t know the importance of them; I highly recommend the tour! We began at the Brandenburg gate followed by the controversy leading to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The controversy was that the artist who ended up building the memorial had many people saying the memorial did not capture the voices of the Jewish people. In order to make both parties happy, a museum underneath the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe has been created which features stories from different Jewish individuals who endured the Holocaust.

From there we went into what was the old Nazi street and visited the old nazi headquarters, where Hitler’s bunker used to be, as well as where Hitler’s body was buried. Most of this I would have never known about if it wasn’t for this tour!

The Old Nazi headquarters turned into the Soviet Union’s headquarters after the war because it was one of the only intact Nazi buildings. When the Soviet Union occupied it, they commissioned a large mural of everyone working together happily. Interestingly, only weeks after the mural was finished, the first protest in East Berlin began in front of this very mural, and the now-erected reflection pool below the mural shows a picture of the protest before it was dispersed by the Soviet Union.

Along the main street of the old Nazi operation was this art that I would not have realized symbolized the closest attempt of someone trying to kill Hitler. Just as Hitler was gaining momentum, he held a yearly event in a barn for his close friends. A watchmaker who didn’t like what Hitler was doing and knew when Hitler was going to speak on stage, planned a bomb to go off in the middle of Hitler’s speech under the stairs. Unfortunately, Hitler bumped up when he was going to give his speech last second and the bomb went off after Hitler left.

We saw the remaining parts of the Berlin wall that are kept up throughout the city, as well as the numerous other memorials to those who were prosecuted during the Nazi regime.

Something I had never heard before this tour was of the Soviet Union’s memorial they erected themselves immediately after arriving to liberate Berlin. While it looks impressive, it is quite controversial because the Soviet Union Army treated the Berlin locals very poorly when they occupied Berlin and Berliners want the monument to be removed. However, when Berlin was first divided one of the agreements the allies had to sign to the Soviet Union was to not remove the monument unless the head of the Soviet Union agreed.

The last stop on our walking tour was in front of the Reichstag building, the center of Germany’s modern government. Here is where we had the beer portion of our tour, and we sat on picnic blankets, talked with the other guests and the guide, and tried different beers including a Pilsner and a Helsinki.

Day 2

In order to see the Reichstag building, the famous renovated German government headquarters with a glass dome, you need to book tickets in advance either online or outside the Reichstag building (if you book closer than a month you can only reserve tickets with the in-person option). We had booked ours for 9 Sunday morning and decided to stop again at the Brandenburg gate, just on the other side of the park from the Reichstag, beforehand. It was worth going to the Brandenburg gate early because there was almost no one there! We also came after our tour, around 10:30AM, and the area was again packed.

There is a lot of security to get into the Reichstag building, understandably, because it is an official government building. What we learned on our tour the day before is that all the new government buildings are designed as open concept with as much glass as possible, such as the glass dome, to illustrate to their people and the world they won’t hide anything in the future. There is a free audio tour and going in the morning is ideal because it wasn’t crowded and it hadn’t gotten too hot inside (apparently it can get really hot in the dome mid-afternoon because all the glass acts like a greenhouse).

We decided to spend the rest of the morning at Charlottenburg palace, a little bit of a train ride away. We were split between going to the closest concentration camp to Berlin and this palace, but the concentration camp is really a day trip (if we had a third day I would’ve gone there as well). Unfortunately, this is the only picture we were allowed to take because no photos were allowed inside.

We went back home for lunch and to get out of the heat for a little before we were off to the east side gallery! The purpose of the gallery is to showcase the berlin wall and all these artists that are commissioned to create masterpieces everyone can enjoy. It was ridiculously hot out and if we had more time it would have been better to go in the morning when it was cooler.

For dinner, we met up at a brewery with one of Jack’s friends who lives in Berlin with his girlfriend. We stayed all evening drinking and eating good food and chatting.

Now, off to Copenhagen!

We arrived late in the afternoon to the place we had booked in the heart of Prague. It was very central in Old Town and right next to a large shopping mall which was perfect because there was a grocery store on the bottom floor that we could get groceries from!

We decided to cook an easy chicken alfredo because we were both tired from traveling but, despite using google translate, we messed up a few translations from Czech to English and ended up getting Turkey instead of chicken and sour cream instead of heavy cream. We also picked up some local Czech beers because they were very cheap! Everything in Prague was very cheap!

The next morning we headed out bright and early to do a walking tour of the city. Prague old town is quite small and it is quite manageable to go around by foot is you don’t mind walking!

We were from the north edge of Old town, and so we walked south towards the central square.

All the streets in Prague are beautiful and the buildings immaculately kept because it is all considered a UNESCO world heritage site and required to keep its same style from hundreds of years ago.

After walking around lesser town, we made our way over St. Charles Bridge. It was packed but so beautiful; I can definitely tell why it’s the most popular site in Prague.

We walked up towards Prague Castle that has St. Vitus Cathedral and, while it was a lot of stairs, the views up were stunning.

Security inside the castle compounds was long but the cathedral inside was worth waiting for.

As we exited Prague castle we realized we had come in the back and the front had stairs leading to a ramp-up to the castle that the king used to take!

We did all this by noon and were very hungry so stopped at the base of Letna park to eat our packed lunch.

Our afternoon schedule was to do an E-bike tour of Prague through Airbnb. This was by far one of the best experiences I have ever done. We were able to see so much and the guide was very informative.

Our first stop on the E-bike tour was around Petrin Park, which is at the top of a hill so it made having E-bikes very useful.

Petrin park is famous for it’s Eiffel tower replica.

We next visited so many palaces, the church Mozart loved that was also a spy tower for the communist party, and Lennon wall. Lennon wall was painted opposite the French embassy when the Communist Party ran Prague and was to tell every Lennon had died. Now it is a place to highlight freedom of speech!

We also visited the front of Prague castle before biking to Letna park for a beer

The last stop of the tour was a stunning view of St. Charles Bridge!

After our E-bike tour, we were exhausted and starving so we scoped out all the food in Lesser town and found some Prague Hot Dogs and Chimney cakes with icecream! Chimney cakes are cinnamon flavored doughnuts in a cone shape.

Day in Prague well spent!