Leaving Your Trip in VOSS

This page offers help (concrete or informational) on leaving your trip. Topics include...

1. Where you Leave Your Trip (see immediately below)
2. Our “Access Packages,” designed to help you to do so.
3. Suggestions on how to time your ongoing travel, whether you are having us arrange it, or doing it yourself.
4. Service information regarding train travel from your trip end location.
5. Suggested post-trip visits, especially when these are not geographically obvious, but are rendered economical and convenient by direct rail connections.
6. Hopefully helpful hints for those setting up their own travel from the trip.

If you wish to arrange some or all of your travel through us, please tell us what by means of this response questionnaire, designed to collect all the information we need to be able to book your travel.

1. WHERE and WHEN Do You Leave Your Trip?

Your trip disbands upon arrival in Voss, at midday on Sunday.

If you wish to arrange your own ongoing travel (in other words, you do not want to set up any ongoing travel arrangements through us), a couple of hints regarding ongoing travel are offered at the bottom of this page. Otherwise...


2. Our ACCESS PACKAGES
as of February 1, 2008

Our “Access Package” takes you into Bergen for an interesting afternoon in one of Europe’s oldest cities, and then offers a berth on the overnight “Hotel Train” to Oslo, in a 2-person sleeping car cabin with ensuite shower and WC (upgrades to private cabins available).

Base (Starting) Access Package Price: 139 €.
If you are a North American traveller, the $ price (US or Canadian) on your price chart applies until 35 days prior to trip departure. Otherwise euro prices are transcribed to your invoice in its currency, converted at the exchange rate of the day on which the package is requested (rounded to the nearest whole dollar). Current “mid-market” rates can be consulted from the site we use for conversion. We use the mid-market rate on the day of conversion, and add 2% to cover currency broker exchange commissions (our conversion rates are thus as good as, or better than, any you could obtain, including via your credit card, unless you are a professional currency trader).

Availability is normally guaranteed until 35 days prior to trip start (payment received by us). Within 35 days, availability must be confirmed, and costs may be slightly higher. Some extra-cost options also have higher prices if ordered w/in 35 days.

Included:

• Train from Voss to Bergen.
• Our “Route Guide to Bergen,” to help you navigate the city in the afternoon given to you.
• A berth on the overnight train from Bergen to Oslo. Included berth is in a single-sex, double cabin, with ensuite shower and WC.
  Couples may, of course, share a private double cabin.
  This train also carries private single cabins: see below for upgrade price.

Options Offered at an Extra Cost (subject to availability)
Prices are in addition to the “Base” Access Package Price. For a general discussion of train upgrades, see here. Topics include the relative comfort of first versus second class, and different types of accommodation available on overnight trains.

• Upgrade to private single cabin on overnight train from Bergen to Oslo: 59 €.
  Cabin offers ensuite shower & WC.
  
• Hotel in Oslo. We offer good value hotels in Oslo: a pleasant pension (2* in our vernacular), inexpensive by local standards, or a business quality hotel in the center of the commercial district. Prices vary with room size / type, but range from 55€ to 150€ per room, weeknight rates.
• Connecting train to other points.
  - Stockholm or Copenhagen: 79€ 2nd class, 129€ 1st class (1st class available to Stockholm only).
  If you would like to spend the day in Oslo, and continue by overnight train, add 40€ to the 2nd class fare (price includes a couchette on board, sleeping car upgrades available).
  - Berlin: 115€ 2nd class, 179€ 1st class, 139€ 1st class discount rate.
  - All points south: overnight trains available via a connection in Copenhagen or Hamburg: 169€ to any destination in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, the Benelux countries, Milan or Barcelona (229€ through to London via Brussels). Stopover charge = 50€ per stopover.
  Price includes a couchette on board, sleeping car upgrades available.

Alternate Arrangements, in lieu of our usual packages (subject to availability)
Prices are complete (in other words, they are not in addition to the “Base” Access Package Price)

• If you are not interested in visiting Bergen (which would be too bad: it is an interesting place), you can instead travel directly to Oslo via an afternoon train from Voss, departing 4p, arriving 10p. Cost is 79€ 2nd class, 92€ “Comfort” service.
  “Comfort Service” is not really “1st class.” It is a special car which, as far as we can tell, offers a thermos of coffee as its only supplementary comfort. But maybe it is less crowded....
• Train to Bergen, without any ongoing train to Oslo: 25€.
  

3. TIMING Your Trip

We recommend a visit to Bergen, and plan for it in our “Access Package” arrangement, but it is a small town, and can be toured in an afternoon.


4. Service Information
Schedules are approximate – exact timetables can be consulted at http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fares_schedules/index.htm.
Best trains are mentioned. Others are slower or have multiple connections.

For ongoing travel from Oslo.

• To Stockholm. Travel time is 6 hrs., trains run at 7:30a, 1:30p (with a connection), and 4p. There is also a night train at 10:30p, arriving Stockholm at 7:15a.
• To Copenhagen. Depart Oslo 7a or 1p, with 1 connection (trip time is 8.5 hours). Overnight train departs 8:30p, arrives 7:30a.
• To Berlin: depart Oslo at 1p, arrive Berlin 6a Tuesday morning. Or, depart Oslo 8:30p, arrive Berlin 2:30p Tuesday afternoon.
• To points south. Sleeper trains run from Copenhagen south to the rest of Europe, connecting with the morning train from Oslo. Following morning arrivals are available in Munich, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, and Switzerland. Further connections to Austria, northern Italy, etc.

5. Suggested POST-TRIP VISITS

Apart from our Bergen package, Oslo. Worth at least a day, and you can enjoy a longer visit. And, we love Copenhagen, if you didn’t come from there....


6. Hints on TRAVELLING INDEPENDENTLY After the Trip
Guests subscribing to an “Access Package” need not read this section.

See also “Timing Your Trip” and “Service Information,” above, as either of these may additionally help.

We gladly provide travel consulting (schedule or routing information) concerning post-trip individual travel. In particular, we have invested a great deal to become railway experts. Our service fees are reasonable: a 20€ charge for all but the most complex projects – or the most simple (for instance, only a 10€ charge applies if the service is limited to the preparation of a routine rail ticket). You will generally find them well-justified by the time they will save you in research, standing on line, overpaying for your tickets, or all three.

But, for some, this type of research is fun. So, here are some hints, intended to start off hardened “do-it-yourselfers.”

Trains. Schedules for all routes can be consulted on this web site:
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fares_schedules/index.htm

Bergen offers trains to and from Oslo, and nowhere else. Boats run up and down the coast, or to Newcastle, but the days of the week of the Newcastle sailing do not fit our trip arrival. There is also a new ferry to northern Denmark, but we haven't figured it out yet.

Planes. Bergen has a small airport, with essentially Scandinavian flights, though there are a few intra-European services.

Ryanair serves a bizarre airport in Haugesund, a few hours by bus from Bergen.

Oslo Gardermoen is the nearest intercontinental airport, with direct service to North America. It will generally be necessary to make a connection within Europe if flying to another continent.

There are actually two Oslo airports. The main one, Gardermoen, 20 minutes from the city center by fast train, and a smaller one called “Torp.” Torp is quite a ways from town (an hour plus by bus), but the night train from Bergen actually passes close by, were you trying to catch an early flight from there.


If you wish to arrange some or all of your travel through us, please tell us what by means of this response questionnaire, designed to collect all the information we need to be able to book your travel.