Almost two full weeks back in Canada. We’ve adjusted our bodies back to this timezone and celebrated Christmas with all of our family. We woke early the first morning back and went for a walk to the local bakery to get some pastries to continue all the coffee time traditions of the many countries we have visited. For the next couple months, we’ll be doing as much cross country skiing as we can.

Stockholm, Sweden

Last we left off, We were boarding a train in Copenhagen, Denmark, headed to Stockholm, Sweden.

My step sister in law, Katie, lives in Stockholm with her partner, Hugo, and we had planned to meet some of Jeremy’s family there and then explore Stockholm for 4 days, then go by van to Oslo, Norway for 4 more days. Then, we would continue north in Norway, while they returned to Sweden for more time with Katie and Hugo. Over the next 4 days, we were busy. We tobogganed, explored christmas markets, the Vasa Museum (where a huge 17th century ship is preserved inside a building after being recovered), went for an amazing dinner at Hugo’s family’s house nearby, and visited the Skansen Zoo, which had an indoor children’s animal area, an outdoor zoo area and another great Christmas Market, as well as a bonus little train shuttle up to the zoo (called a funicular - super fun word to say).

Arrival night with family. Vasa Museum. Wandering at night in Stockholm. Christmas Market. Skansen Christmas fiddle tunes.

Start them biking young.

Oslo, Norway

In Oslo, we walked around on top of the Opera House, which has a unique design so that you can walk up, over and around the sloped roof overlooking the water. We explored the library in Oslo, which is right next to the Opera House on the water. It was incredible. They had 3D printers, calming videos and music you could enjoy in comfy chairs with head phones to relax, at least 10 sewing machines, t-shirt presses, tons of seating area with people studying and working throughout the library, a café and a bar (yes in the library). You could lounge and eat and drink while enjoying the books in the library. It was really a hub for so many learning and creating activities.

Christmas wanderings in Norway. The library in Oslo (I did not take enough pictures!). Wandering on the Opera House in Oslo.

While in Oslo, we also rented time in a floating sauna which looks out over the Opera House and Library. The company was called KOK, and you could reserve a time block for your group. They had it at 90 degrees when you arrived, and kept the fire stoked. You could purchase beer, listen to music on the bluetooth sound system, and get in the water in whatever way you wanted. We started with the ladder, then we jumped in, then we jumped in off the roof. This was definitely a highlight and we’d recommend it if you are visiting Oslo.

Skating?? Skiing??

Before coming to Europe, a main goal was to try “wild skating” or “nordic skating” using long skates. These are blades attached to ski bindings, that you clip into ski boots. They are long and straight to allow for a lot of speed, but have a curved front so that you won’t catch on imperfections in the ice. We had seen a video that inspired us to want to try this: (https://youtu.be/2hvdvsEn7KI?si=4vGMPqMYgi1WSIQI ).

We had also talked about trying to do some nordic skiing while in Norway. We had heard of great trails that connected mountain huts throughout the country, and although we knew we would not have much time, loved the idea of exploring these trails at least a bit. And so with both skiing and skating in our brains, we were searching for a place to try at least one or both. We weren’t sure whether we would have enough ice at this time in the season to try it, and we kept going back and forth about where we should take the train for the last week of our trip.

As naturally happens with lots of circle discussions, a plan started to take form. We found that the train ride to Lillehammer, site of the 1994 Olympics was only a couple of hours North and looked beautiful. Just north of there was a little town called Øyer, which was home to the Hafjell Ski Resort, host to incredible nordic AND alpine skiing. We went to checkout a nearby thrift store, Fretex, just outside of Oslo, and found that they had a huge amount or nordic ski gear there. We were able to buy skis, boots, poles and even ski jackets for all four of us for just over $200 TOTAL!

*Our big purchase at Fretex (with our Fretex new acquaintance who worked there and gave us lots of skiing advice in the area).*

Øyer, Norway

We found an airbnb in Øyer which I would HIGHLY recommend. It was a two bedroom ground floor unit on the property beside our hosts house. It was clean, comfortable, warm and in such a great location. Steps outside the door, we could look up to the mountains and see the Lillehammer Olympics Torch Carrying figure cut out in the trees. Our host offered to pick us up from the train station since he was driving his kids to the train station at around the same time we arrived - so unexpected and appreciated!!

Once we arrived, our host introduced us to a Spark (or kick sled), of which they had many we could use. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kicksled). These things are so cool. The sidewalks get pretty hard packed with snow and people use them to go get groceries, tour around town, and just to play on. It was so cool to see a 65 ish year old woman with a grocery bag on the front, standing up on both skis and sliding down the hill for a regular grocery run. With the same expression on her face as if she had been driving a car. Ho hum run of the mill activity. Then, presumably, once she had her grocery bags filled, she would kick the sled back up to her place (we didn’t see that part).

We had access to the back yard, the Sparks, Toboggans and our host even encouraged us to wax our newly purchased used nordic skiis with his iron and stand in his garage! He even offered (enough times that we accepted one day), to drive us up the mountain so that we could cross country ski all over on the trails up top and then take the Gondola back down for free! If you want to find a place to stay to do this kind of activity, it is the spot. https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/47738786?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=d7565b76-1821-46f7-8bbe-04d39fcea802

The driveway view.

Over the course of the 4 days we had there, we nordic skiied 3 days and then rented alpine ski gear for the last day and spent the day enjoying the huge (for us) resort. After we purchased our nordic skis, we called to see how much trail passes would be and found out that all the nordic trails are free. The have a “Right to Roam” code in Norway that is similar to Scotlandn’s Free Access Code. The access to nature and this '“right to roam” is protected by law and those we spoke with were passionate about it. Although the alpine ski runs and nordic trails were groomed, they were ALL free to access. You had to pay for a lift pass for Alpine skiing, but the access to the groomed runs was free. With the Nordic skiing, in the area we were in, you would either drive (we didn’t have a car) or pay for a single pass on the Gondola ($15) and ski and then come back on the Gondola for free. If you got a lift up to the top (which we did one day from our host), you could bring the Gondola down for with your nordic skiis at the end of the day). My impression from looking at maps is that if we had wanted to, we could have skied on groomed nordic trails for days and days and stayed in huts or towns along the way. Much as you would bike touring. We had heard about the Norwegian Trekking Association, which anyone can join, that maintains a series of huts throughout the country. They range from huts where you bring your own supplies to full serve places where someone cooks for you. This is definitely on my list to return to do one day. An app allows you to see trails across the country and when the last time they were groomed. We enjoyed vast landscapes, snow covered trees in every direction, seemingly endless gradual downhills (and with them uphills). And we crossed through some of the timing points from nordic ski races. It was so cool.

Lots of nordic ski pics! First one is in town on the ski trail loop looking up at the bottom section of the ski resort. Then the gondola. Some trail pics and finally the map of the trails we skied (in progress).

Mosetertoppen! (Moe-Zet-Ehr-Toppen). I think this ended each of our ski routes as it was right near the Gondola.

Then - downhill skiing! With each run lasting close to 35mins round trip, we were only able to fit in about 8 runs during the short daylight hours! From what we understand, they have not in their memory had that quality of conditions or that amount of snow so early in the season. We were so lucky. We rented our gear from a shop across the road from the resort. They were super great - if you’re going to rent gear there go see these guys: https://www.skibuahafjell.no/

And there was almost no one on the hills. Every time we arrived at the bottom there was literally not a soul to get on the gondola. On the heated seat/fully covered chairlifts that started partway up, sometimes there were up to 8 people in front of us. Tops. It was unforgettable. With our ski tags in our gloves we’d fly down, flag our gloves at the scanner to have it open up, and up we’d go again.

Downhill day! Didn’t get many pictures, we were having too much fun!

Okay - one more thing about the little town of Øyer and probably my favourite part. Maybe this is not even that cool for those that live in Norway, but for me it was SO COOL. They had a groomed ski track that went in a loop that was close to 1km right in the centre of town circling a playground, skating rink, many groomed jumps for skis or toboggans and other courts. It included another 500m uphill trail that was lit at night and you could ski up, turn around and then fly back down. It was so amazing. We did not meet anyone that didn’t both nordic and downhill ski it seemed. It was not even a question of what kind of skiing someone did, they grew up doing it all. If you didn’t ski it would be like not learning to ride a bike.

This was going down the hill on the in town ski trail. I was trying to take a video (but didn’t push the button) but thankfully Jeremy was behind me to capture what it was like!

These were a few little hills they groom right in the middle of the ski loop in town.

To top off our Norway experience, Jeremy’s searching online and messaging paid off to allow us to try Nordic skating in Lillehammer on our LAST day after having checked out and on our way to the airport hotel that night. We had decided that we would stop in at this little outdoor outfitters shop, that was run by a member of the local skating club and happened to be the one who also groomed the 10km skating track and 400m carousel on the lake there. He was feeling a bit under the weather as he had been out a few nights before on the tractor for 5 hours and had gotten too chilled but had wanted to finish getting it cleared after the snow fall (think a Norwegian version of Jeremy). We had great conversations with him about ideas back and forth. This is his facebook profile if you want to check it out! https://www.facebook.com/VandreskoenLillehammer. We rented skates that went with our ski boots that we’d purchased (SO COOL!) and walked across what seemed like the LONGEST EVER bridge ever that was only for walking/skiing/biking and went to test out the skates. They took some getting used to after hockey skates. I loved them. They felt like nordic skate skiis, smooth and fast. I will definitely get a pair at some point and I’m so glad we got to try.

A bit of skating on the 10km track. If we had been there a few days before there would have been only ice and no snow. But we were so thankful they groom this and we got to try it out!

An ice carousel that we are DEFINITELY going to try to recreate on family day weekend!

And now, we are back! Although we were tired from the flight, I do think we have come back refreshed and inspired in so many ways. Everywhere we went there were so many similarities, and so many differences. It was amazing to connect with so many people and so many landcapes and we feel fortunate to return to an equally amazing place where we live. During our trip in Europe, we logged the following:

39 Train trips

37 other means of local public transportation

483.95 kms walked

278.06 kms biked

52.71 kms skied (nordic)

6.16 kms skated (nordic!)

And now, when we finally get some snow, we will work on our own local skating rink at Hanna Park, ski trails and skating at Arrowhead Park, and try to checkout as many winter ski and skate trails as we can in our vicinity over the coming two months!