On this trip, too, things went differently than planned.
Eva and I wanted to visit Norway together again. We had chosen Bodø and Trondheim as our destinations. I wanted to visit Bodø and Eva wanted to visit friends in Trondheim. When planning the trip, we discovered that the Hurtigruten ship KONG HARALD would have a 3-hour stopover in Trondheim. So this would be a good opportunity to have a coffee with all my friends from the KONG HARALD.
When she asked, it turned out that they all had time off during the planned travel period and so the coffee round fell through.
One week before the start of the trip, Eva also had to cancel for urgent private reasons.
So I decided to fly to Norway alone and only to Bodø. I wanted to see Bodø and the surrounding area. During my first and last stay in Bodø, it rained so hard that not even the guide wanted to get off the bus.
Since on the last trip Eva had taken care of everything organisationally, such as flights, car, accommodation, etc., I asked her to let me in on the “secrets” of planning the trip. 😊
We sat down together one evening and she showed me how, where and what to book. I benefited from her experience of which provider was good, which was less good and what I had to look out for.
When booking the flight back to Switzerland, we realised that it was cheaper to fly back on Monday than on Sunday. So I decided to add another day.
At the end of the evening, my travel plans looked like this:
Outbound flight to Bodø on 05.09.2022
Return flight to Zurich on 12.09.2022
Overnight stay in Bodø from 05.09.2022 to 07.09.2022 (outward journey)
Overnight stay in Bodø from 11.09.2022 to 12.09.2022 (return journey)
I did not plan the days from 07.09.2022 to 11.09.2022. I just wanted to decide spontaneously on the spot. Since it was not the high season, it should not be difficult to find a place to stay.
So I travelled the whole day on 05.09.2022. Train to the airport, then two flights. The first to Oslo and then on to Bodø.
At the airport in Zurich, they told me to take my luggage in Oslo, then just go through customs with it (not go out) and then check it in again. I must have looked very strange, because I thought the luggage would go through. Anyway, I was supposed to ask for it on the plane when I arrived in Oslo, just to be on the safe side. So I got my passport back with the baggage check and went to the security check. This went without a hitch.
In the duty free shop I was spoilt for choice. I wanted to buy a thank-you gift for one of my Norwegian friends, because he helped me a lot. I’ll tell you what he did later 😊. A Swiss Army knife would have been cool, but it probably wouldn’t survive the next security check. So I decided to buy a big stick of Toblerone. That’s also something typically Swiss. 😊
The flight to Oslo went smoothly. On disembarking, I asked twice about the conversation. Both the steward and the stewardess agreed that my luggage would go through to Bodø.
I decided to trust them both. When I arrived in Bodø, I stood at the baggage carousel with hope, and lo and behold, my suitcase did indeed arrive. I picked up the car and went to my accommodation (booked via Airbnb). It was not far from the airport and everything was as described.
As it had been a long day and it was already after 10 pm, I went to sleep and postponed everything else until tomorrow.