Bergen.

Fjords, fog and Glog.

It snowed whilst waiting for the plane to Bergen, Norway's second largest city. I watched the big fat flakes slowly swirl to the ground and up in the plane, the clouds were all rainbow hued, maybe that was the northern lights.

I caught the light rail into the centre to the Basic Hotel, which turns out to be the new breed of Poshpackers. It's a beautiful room in a lovely old building with a heated bathroom floor! Then on the way to the harbour, I found a cute, quirky cafe/gallery, Pygmalion Okocafe and stop for a hot chocolate with the works.

There are a lot of gremlins, gnomes and fairy folk on walls, in shops, hanging around everywhere. I think of Grimms fairytales and the slightly scared child in me remembers the tales.

The harbour is beautiful with it's brightly painted wooden buildings that were once warehouses and are now galleries and shops. I buy a Viking ship painting and wander up into the hills, passing the perfect gingerbread looking houses. When night arrives early as it does in the north, I go to the newly refurbished Old Bergen Stock Exchange, built in 1862. They serve at any time. Lots of lovely cafes and restaurants, beautifully renovated. Ended the night with Lava cake and gelato.

I awake to dense fog and a booked Fjord cruise. You have to weigh the fact that in winter there are far less tourists but also issues with sightseeing but even so, the wild wintry snowscapes and coloured houses nestling along the fjord make it worthwhile and returning the sky blues and I have a wonderful bowl of fish soup on the harbour.

Later that night, I dine at the American Rock and Roll Diner! I have a Glog, a traditional warmed alcoholic drink with red wine, bourbon, orange zest, cardamon, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, raisins and almonds! The girls there are chatty and from Lithuania. They also love Norway and want to stay forever.

Ps. Supposedly I'm sitting in the boot of an Elvis Presley Cadillac.

Spent the next day a wandering far, and wandering wide. Past churches and lots of knitting shops, up into the hills and passing by all the beautiful Xmas shops.

Tomorrow I'm off yet again. Copenhagen here I come!

Trondheim

You're in my blood - literally.

Another plane, otherwise a 7 hour train trip and then a bus to my hotel. On the trip, big flakes of snow begin to fall. The hotel is modern and encased in a beautiful gothic building. Lovely staff, first snow of the season she tells me. I tell her of my excitement and she says she grew up here but never gets sick of the snow. Everyone seems to speak English and everyone so friendly. The men are tall, blonde and well dressed ( I may have mentioned that before). I drop my bag off and head out to get a better look.

It's a bit precarious with icy patches which makes me walk slowly down to the fjord/harbour in the hope of seeing the northern lights, as you sometimes can I've been informed but not this time. I walk back into the centre, my lips and even my teeth feel frozen, the wind nearly blows me over as I search for a place for lunch. I don't usually feel the cold, usually menopause keeps me warm. I have finally met my match here. Lovely shops and cafes. The snow flakes have stopped falling as I head home for a rest and later, dinner at the hotel. Very Norwegian: fish cakes, smoked salmon, potato salad, all apart of the hotel price, breakfast and dinner included.

I keep waking and looking out the window to see it snowing again, the sky is like day, white throughout the night. I'm hopeful for tomorrow and when I finally wake, there's a deep crust of snow everywhere. Breakfast is amazing. Baby chia puddings, healthy shakes in tiny milk bottles, different mueslis, cooked berries, vege and fruit juice shots, a wheel of camembert warmed with nuts, scrambled eggs with fragrant mushrooms, frittata, smoked fish and salmon, caramel slices, croissants, waffles that you make. I tried as much as I could and had a couple of coffees to wake me up after my restless snow detection sleepless night and then I'm off to the old bridge.

So much easier to walk on the deep fresh snow! Again I feel I am in a fantasy realm of fairytales read to me as a child, of snow, lamp posts, witches and fairies. I can't stop taking photos and then I come to the bridge and look over and am stunned. The river is almost still and a perfect mirror for the different coloured wooden houses huddled along the edge.

It's starting to snow again, tiny balls of white flicking over the scenery. I cross the bridge to car-less streets, covered in Xmas street lights with a church on the hill that looks like the one I was given as a child. A tiny snow encrusted mountain with a little train going up to a church with red cellophane windows that lit up. The whole thing turned to a Xmas carol. It was one of the most beautiful gifts I ever had and I have no idea what happened to it but here it has come to life. I am walking up the hill to the church. On my way, I stop for another coffee to warm up. The snow is falling in big flakes, settling on my gloves, my hat. I enter inside for warmth.

After that I walk along the riverside as far as I can, watching the ducks. Beautiful arty shops line the streets as I walk over to the church and cemetery and then find the famous Baklandet Skydsstation for spinach soup, thick wholemeal bread and cultured butter. It's so warm and inviting, everywhere you look is colourful and textured.

I don't want to stop walking through this frozen landscape, backlit by colourful buildings, ochres, reds, teal blues. The whiteness makes the colours pop. I look up to see the Norwegian men in coats, hats and on the odd occasion, Santa Claus hats.

That night I go to see the comedian Michael McIntyre. It feels strange having to pay to leave our coats in a special coat room and then wait to collect it at the end. The laughter is wonderful, he's fantastic and when we get out, it's snowing again and hard to find a taxi but not for the Norwegians who have come by bike! I chat with an English couple in front of me and they offer to let me join them in their taxi and then refuse to take money as I'm dropped off at my hotel

The snow has set in, I awake to another huge breakfast and a wintry landscape. I spend the day taking photos, having coffee at Dromedar and walking up the hill to the old fort for a beautiful view of the town.

Tiny little colourful wooden cottages line the roads with cute mail boxes, brightly coloured fences, I am transported to another realm of beauty.

On the way back I have apple cake for lunch, because I can.

Trondheim, you are in my blood now. When I return to the hotel, I look up my ancestry that I did through my DNA a few years ago. I'm 70% northern and western European. It all makes sense.

Norway.

Ice bars and Vikings.

A couple of reasons for my trip to Norway, one perfectly normal - the Xmas markets! The second, was to see a favourite English comedian, as you do when everything in Europe is fairly close. I find out when booking travel that Norway isn't the easiest place to navigate. I leave Venice by plane to Amsterdam, then another plane to Oslo and a train into the centre so arrive at my very modern cool hotel quite late. It was one of the cheaper ones but Norway is expensive. I have to settle for a tiny room and single bed but it's right near the Xmas markets. I am so excited!

I dine on expensive Chinese near the market and then head through for a quick look before exhaustion takes hold. It's fairyland, a talking moose head welcomes us in and there are beautiful stalls full of handmade gifts, chocolates and goodies that line a park strung with a myriad of lights.

I sleep in as the sun didn't come up till 8.40! I wander through the markets again, there's fires hanging from tripods throughout the market, seats to sit around and drink the hot spiced wine and shops full of Kokosboller - plump mounds of meringue on a biscuit, covered in chocolate with different flavourings inside, which are delicious. Xmas decorations are everywhere, it's absolutely magical. I see what I think is a statue of a Viking in the distance only to discover it is a very tall man in a fur coat! There's a ferris wheel and a skating rink playing Xmas music. There's beautiful fresh wreaths for your door and Xmas trees to buy, my breath mists in front of me as I walk. This is what a white Xmas feels like and it feels strangely right, more so than the hot and bothered Xmas's in Australia.

I go to the Grand Cafe which unfortunately they've modernised but it's still an Oslo institution. I have coffee and eat the famed Norwegian Freia chocolate that comes in retro packaging and after I go to Tullins for lunch. It's quaint and colourful with very healthy food. Hoping for snow but so far, none.

Next day I wake at eight to darkness. After a hearty breakfast served across the road, I go to Drobak, a beautiful seaside Xmas village where supposedly Santa resides. The bus trip is beautiful, snow everywhere, the wooden houses with intricate carvings are like gingerbread structures strung along the edges of the lake. The bus driver is Polish and he's going to work in New Zealand next year. He loves to travel, don't we all? Drobak is small but full of beautiful shops and a shop that is full of Xmas decorations and nothing else. A child's dream, also an adult's. I buy a bauble for my tiny Xmas tree.

I return to Oslo for lunch at Bacchus, it's a restaurant in an old part of a church, it's so beautiful. I have an amazing seafood soup, rye bread with whipped butter and then just keep walking. If you get a chance, go to Indiska, an interior design shop that I could have bought a lot of beautiful things from.

That night, I head down to the port where more beautiful shops line the waterfront and the Xmas decorations are beyond imagining. I dine on Italian food and study the very slim, beautiful Norwegian men and women that are out and about, chic and glamorous.

The next day I'm on a bus to Bygdoy, to the Viking ship museum and Folkesmuseum. There's more snow out this way. I wander through the museum and am amazed at the beauty and intricacy of the Viking artwork and the magnificence of the ships that they would use for burials, dug deep into the earth, covered and preserved by the soil. Outside there's a soft dusting of snow that I walk through as I wander around the village that shows the different houses through the ages. The soft fall of snow on my face is beautiful.

Lunch is back in Oslo at the Engrebret cafe that dates back to 1857. They are famed for the sandwich buffet lunch. The restaurant itself is beautiful, warm and cosy. Outside, the temperature has dropped and I find another place for a dessert, a cake made of layers of raspberries, chocolate and cream. I have walked more than 19,000 steps today, I can afford the calories.

That night I head to the famous Magic Ice bar because that's what you do in Oslo. I pay at the door and they hand me gloves and warm coat and I head into the iced cave-like bar for a couple of drinks served in ice glasses, sitting on an ice seat at an iced table at minus 6 degrees. Around me are ice sculptures of the famed Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch, the Scream being one of his most famous. Surprisingly not, my visit is short as the cold is beginning to bite. Dinner is at a warmly decorated retro style pub. Loving the Norwegian lifestyle, the food is healthy, I have vegetarian tacos, the wine is expensive but necessary with the cold, the people friendly and welcoming. Tomorrow I'm off to Trondheim to see Michael McIntyre.