Scandinavian Sampler – 2 weeks
Denmark & Norway
This trip is full in 2010.  Sign up early for 2011  :-)

On this page, you'll find...

• ...a presentation of the trip,
• a thumbnail itinerary with links to detailed descriptions of the itineraries that we follow in each of the regions visited, and...
• ...trip prices and departure dates.

Scandinavians are friendly, relaxed, secure folk. You’d feel secure too, if all your friends drove Volvos and your health club was a government program.

This is an unusual part of the world, full of cultural surprises & breathtaking scenery.  Those who think Tolkien was writing fiction may find it all a bit unnerving.  Hobbit houses in Denmark and Rohan horsemen in Norway will have you looking for elves and goblins in no time.  Maybe they’re Swedish.

Denmark has a nationwide system of interstate... bike paths, and a crime rate so low that people often leave their bikes unlocked in downtown Copenhagen.  Sparsely-populated Norway (the people of Los Angeles on the land area of California) mandates public access to private land, operates more daily passenger trains than Amtrak, and makes Lutheran pastors employees of the state.

As for the scenery:  scenic Denmark has zero in common with scenic Norway.  On the one hand, the hospitable comfort of wood-paneled pubs, and thatch-roofed cottages on trim farms.  On the other, mountains and fjords that once demanded time to reach and effort to visit, and still demand imagination to grasp.

Heather-covered moors, rolling fields and endless Baltic skies frame Denmark’s industrious ports and fairy tale villages.  In Norway, the miracle seems to be that humans are present at all, and often they aren’t.  Try to imagine the stillness of a fjord at dusk, mountains vanishing into the depths of a glass ocean in a sheer drop.  OK, give up now.  You can’t.

The similarities are in history and culture.  Norway was long a Danish possession; the languages are close, and the economies interdependent.  Travellers to both are surprised at the modernity of human intervention.  The rapid development of these civilizations roughly coincides with the advent of central heating:  easy to grasp once you have been snowed on in August (August snow bonus available in Norway only).

Beyond the scenery, you’ll discover surprising social organization (public services in places where the public is mostly sheep), and a tender concern for the beautiful surroundings, for the greater pleasure of us all.

As the Norway portion is not a road-bike trip, other equipment and clothing is recommended.  Please see the “Norway Packing List” for Norway-specific stuff to bring.