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We are going to take a walk down memory lane and write a few posts from some of our past experiences so you can get a further glimpse into how we’ve been living our life.  The first of these posts is going to cover how we spent our honeymoon back in 2015 in Norway and Iceland.

A little background:

2015 was one hell of a year for us.  A LOT happened this year.

  • We got married
  • We quit our jobs with nothing else lined up
  • We sold all of our belongings except for ~3 bags each
  • We rented out our home in Florida to a lovely family
  • We traveled around the world for 6 months
  • We moved to Canada

Yea, that all happened in one year.  Maybe it was our mid-life crisis?

During this 6 months of travel, we spent 1 week in Norway and 3 weeks in Iceland as our honeymoon. This was before early retirement was a thing for us.  Our goal/passion in life has always been travelling so we were saving up at this point to be able to travel around the world for a year with no job lined up to return to.

The intention was to travel for a full year but I ended up getting a job so the travels were shortened to 6 months (poor us, I know) and we spent a majority of that time throughout the US and Canada visiting different friends and family and attending a few weddings.  It was such a welcomed reset from the working world but I’m not going to lie, I could have kept travelling for at least 6 more months so I kind of begrudgingly accepted this job.

Backstory on why I was looking for a job anyways if the original intention was to travel for 6 more months: In 2015 oil prices tanked, causing hiring freezes and lay offs in Calgary which is where we wanted to end up. Even though I don’t work in the oil & gas field, energy is all intertwined in a sense and there were tons of people in the energy industry looking for jobs.  When speaking to Nic’s friends and family up in the Calgary area, they all told me good luck getting a job these days.  I started looking for jobs periodically on Indeed, there weren’t many, so when I saw one for a posting of what I had been doing for the past 5 years, I applied.  The interview I went to was incredibly hard (because they could be super selective) – I definitely left thinking I didn’t get the job and we were on our way to Japan and Thailand.  I got the job… The economy was so bad that it would have been foolish for me to turn a job down.

Ok back to the honeymoon. We had been planning this portion of the trip for awhile.  We had been wanting to go to Iceland for years at this point and thanks to United’s open-jaw and stop-over rules, we were able to add another city to the flight (covered by points of course) so Bergen, Norway was added as well.  Today’s post will be focused on the Norway portion of the trip, followed by another post on Iceland, a third post detailing the costs associated to a month long honeymoon in Norway and Iceland (hint, it’s likely less than you think), and to wrap up the honeymoon series, we’ll provide some insider tips on how we managed to stay under budget.

Norway August 2015

If you’ve ever done a Spartan Race or Tough Mudder or any adventure obstacle course races, you know that you feel sore afterwards in places you didn’t even know existed.

I’m going to suggest, out of the following personal experience, not to do one of these races the day before any trans-continental flights.

Picture adding to this feeling of sore muscles, a full 16 hours of flying and airport transit, followed by driving 4 hours in a car, and then sleeping in a tent in the middle of the Norwegian countryside – we were good and sore. Who doesn’t want to kick off their honeymoon this way?! Seems totally normal right?

After peeling ourselves off the ground and packing up our tent we found ourselves at the base of a trail leading up the side of a fjord, with the expectation that we were going to climb this grueling, albeit beautiful, mountain.

At this point, you have a pretty good idea of our situation on the first day of our Norwegian and Icelandic honeymoon – romantic, right?

Sore muscles and travel woes aside, we were still overly excited, ambitious and ready to get our adventure on!

Trolltunga and Odda, Norway

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Sturdy crossing? Doubtful.

troll2 We had to follow the inuksuk’s and small red “T’s” on rocks along the way to remain on the trail. Can you spot the red T?  Yea, let’s just say it was tough to stay on trail for part of it.

Trolltunga, in Odda, Norway, is stop number one. If you google it, the search results will quickly show you why we were so excited about visiting.
What the google search DOESN’T show you though, is that it’s one hell of a hike to reach this crazy jutting rock.  And this is coming from a couple that enjoys going for 5-10 km hikes regularly in the Canadian Rockies.
It was about 0.5 km into the straight uphill battle where I seriously questioned Court, while I guzzled half a water bottle. Did she really feel like it was completely necessary to do this 22 km round trip hike that we traveled around the world to do in a day?
She continued to insist and continued upwards, as persistent as my complaints were. I will admit, though it was a STRUGGLE, it was a once in a lifetime experience. The views from not only from the top, but the cliffs and look outs along the way, made it all worth it, BIG TIME.  It also helped that we had amazing weather.
My one saving grace was that the water in the streams we passed as we climbed was clear and pure glacier runoff, so I could fill up my water bottle as frequently as I wanted to keep myself going. And man did we re-fill those water bottles up.
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Can’t complain when the sun is shining!
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Seriously insane fjords along the hike.
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Yes, we had to walk on ice.  No, we did not have to swim in it.  No polar plunge for us this trip!
Norway is picturesque, there is no better way to say it. If you ever have the chance to visit, not just a stop over in one of the big cities, but truly a chance to explore the western fjords, lakes and villages, you will not regret it.
On that note, careful of renting a car.. The windy roads through the fjords are narrower than a single lane road in North America, with a drop off on one side and a mountain on the other, and semi-trucks cruising through them like there’s all the room in the world. I pulled to a stop as far to the side of the road as I could each time one came to pass us, and we closed our eyes and hoped to live… Silly tourists.
We would pass by fruit stands along the countryside roads that had a variety of fruit for sale.  The odd thing was these were totally unmanned.  It was completely on the honor system.  I loved the concept and we felt so safe here.
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Countryside stop off to enjoy the views and plan out the next day.

Bergen, Norway

We did eventually make our way to city tourism, in the beautiful coastal city of Bergen.
In Bergen, it seemed the adventure wasn’t necessarily in the city itself, but our attempt to get into the city, downtown the city and around the city once we’d arrived.  It proved to be more difficult then we felt it should have been to find the city center. For anyone who knows me, they know that my sense of direction is worse then non-existent, but when there are three or four exits that start with the letter P and Court is trying to pronounce it in Norwegian… Give a girl some credit, it wasn’t all my fault that we hit 5-6 toll roads accidentally on our way to the hotel (a grand total of $60 in tolls – all you budget travelers, I’d suggest mapping out your route before arrival).
Bergen itself was an amazing city, the original Bryggen – Norweigian for “Wharf” – had beautifully colored historic buildings, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. Our days in Bergen were spent right along the Wharf, starting off with a complementary Norwegian breakfast from our hotel (rolls, jellies, cheese, deli meats, and Nespresso – ah Nespresso), and we would slowly wander throughout the narrow streets and alleys discovering all the little boutique shops that lined the city.
We soaked up the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the city. We tried reindeer hotdogs, strolled through the world famous fish market on the harbor, admired all of the architecture, and our combined favorite… people watched! The harbor itself, had hundreds of personal boats and yachts docked right in the downtown, most were 4 boats deep, tethered together just to get a piece of that prime real estate. There were so many boat parties occurring on those docked boats it was pretty insane. Some very interesting people also flocked to the city center to attend a Metallica concert at a historic fortress that happened our second night there – lots and lots of leather.
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The outdoor seafood market.  Tons of fresh paella were being made daily here.
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Many fires have destroyed the original houses of Bergen.  Only 62 of the traditional buildings remain.
As much as we enjoyed our time in Norway, we still couldn’t stop talking about and planning, the bits and pieces that were left to plan, for Iceland. We’re EXCITED!!! (and still in love even after that epic hike!)
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Can you spot us? Do we look like tiny ants?
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The view at the top!
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Pretty sure Court just fell here, what else is new.
Stay tuned for the next post of this series that digs into the Iceland part of the honeymoon.
For those of you who are married, did you go on a honeymoon, and if so, where?  Was it an adventure trip or a relaxing get away?  Any highlights?

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4 thoughts on “Our Honeymoon – Part 1: Exploring The Norwegian Fjords”

  1. Chris @ Mindful Explorer

    One of these days I will make it to Europe, myself I really want to see the century old villages and farms etc. As for trips though, Canada is so amazing and I’ve barely scratched the surface so not sure I will ever get out of here 🙂
    Thanks for sharing

    Reply
    1. Court and Nic

      Europe is my favourite continent, I’ve been 11 different times now. I’ve love to live there some day, it’s so picturesque (to me at least). But you sure are right, Canada is definitely amazing and has so much to explore and offer!! We have so many places within Canada on our to do list, not sure when we will be able to tick them all off!

      Reply

  2. Pingback: Our Honeymoon Part 4: Insider Guide - How To Budget For Iceland and Norway | Modern FImily

  3. Pingback: Our Honeymoon - Part 2: Circling Iceland | Modern FImily

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