March 14, 2015
It has been 3 years since our last international trip. It feels great to explore a new portion of this amazing world that we live in. As a refresher our last trip was in 2012 when we went to the 2012 Olympics in London and Eastern Europe with our niece Abbey. Mark was given a great opportunity through work to attend a conference in Berlin for a week. We decided to end our international dry spell by taking advantage of Mark being in Europe. But the question was where do we go... There was no clear destination front runner so we let the airfare deals help determine our starting point. The best airfare deal was traveling on Norwegian airlines to Oslo from JFK.
Flying Norwegian airlines wasn't bad; they practice a minimalist approach (BYOS- bring your own seat; other than that it was fine) A plus was that Jen had her first experience with a Boeing Dreamliner 787. It's a fairly swanky airplane. Jen arrived at 10:30 and checked into the hotel. Mark flew to Oslo from Berlin and arrived an hour and a half later. We stayed at the Park Inn at the Oslo airport. This was planned based upon what we had hoped to do while in Norway. The first adventure for this trip was exploring the Norwegian country side as well as the western portion of Sweden. Our vehicle of choice was a Tesla Model S 85. Given our convenient location staying at the airport we walked over to Hertz and picked up our chariot for the day.
Flying Norwegian airlines wasn't bad; they practice a minimalist approach (BYOS- bring your own seat; other than that it was fine) A plus was that Jen had her first experience with a Boeing Dreamliner 787. It's a fairly swanky airplane. Jen arrived at 10:30 and checked into the hotel. Mark flew to Oslo from Berlin and arrived an hour and a half later. We stayed at the Park Inn at the Oslo airport. This was planned based upon what we had hoped to do while in Norway. The first adventure for this trip was exploring the Norwegian country side as well as the western portion of Sweden. Our vehicle of choice was a Tesla Model S 85. Given our convenient location staying at the airport we walked over to Hertz and picked up our chariot for the day.
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| 2015 Tesla Model S Kosterhavet National Park, Sweden |
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| Jen in the Front Trunk Kosterhavet National Park, Sweden |
The weather for Saturday was very pretty. The sun was out and there was not a cloud to be seen. Temperatures topped out at 55 however it never quite felt that warm. The best way to describe the Scandinavian country side we drove through would be to imagine a mix of: Western New York and coastal Maine, with the smells and foliage of the Pacific Northwest.
We arrived at our final destination, Kosterhavet National Park in Sweden, just before sunset. Upon arrival we took a sunset hike along the shore and did a photo shoot of our chariot. On the way back to Oslo all of us (including the car) stopped for some juice. Dinner was schnitzel with spuds and a salad and Swedish meatballs with cabbage and potatoes with ice cream cones for dessert. It seems that Norwegians like their raspberries and trust me we are not complaining!!! An evening drive through Oslo was the final piece to our first day in Norway.
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| Saltö, Sweden |
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| Kosterhavet National Park, Sweden |
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| Hättebäck, Sweden |