I don’t know how long this link will stay live for now the holiday is over, but it gives full details of the holiday from Ffestiniog Travel. click HERE
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Day 3 Train to Trondheim
Bit of an early start as we had to walk to the railway station so we met in the hotel lobby at 0730 hrs and made our way to the station as a group. Most of the route was either over high level walkways crossing the busy roads or covered ways into the station. Norway is almost a cashless society even buying a coffee on the train is done by credit card. The train journey was about six and a half hours, thankfully there was a buffet car on the train, they have a strange system where by you can top your coffee or tea mug up at a discount after buying the first at full price. The train was very smooth and quiet and the first 20 minutes of the journey was spent mainly in a tunnel. All seats are pre booked although one or two people were trying it on. I don’t think I would fancy caravanning in these conditions but as you will see from some of the photos below taken from the train some people do.
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We arrived in Trondheim in fine weather, it was only a short Minibus and taxi ride to our hotel. We had to have two vehicles as there were 19 of us each with a case. After checking in to our room we went for a walk round this pretty little waterside town. Unfortunately we had not been out long when it started to snow with a very wet snow so we beetled into a café for coffee and cake before returning down a very wet and slushy road to our hotel. The evening meal in this hotel was a bit cheaper at only £88 for the two of us.
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Day 4 Bodø
Today was an even earlier start and those of you that know my habits will know what a shock this is to my system. The hotel put an early breakfast on for us at 6-30 am. and we were away at 0710 hrs. by Taxi and minibus back to the railway station. Today’s journey to Bodø would take almost 10 hours by train, much of the route is single line so we often stopped in a station waiting for a train coming in the opposite direction. 
Our journey involved crossing the Arctic Circle, everywhere north of this point has the sun above the horizon for 24 hours on at least one day of the year. The line is marked by “Trig points” but we failed to spot them.
All the photographs today were taken from the train so unfortunately some will suffer from window reflections.
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We arrived in Bodø about 5 30 pm. and made our way to the Clarion Collection Hotel Grand where we also had dinner, this was paid for by Hurtigruten owners of the cruise boat MS Polarlys. The reason being that we were supposed to have a 6 hr cruise on it the next day, but the boat was in dry dock so this was part of their compensation.
The Clarion Collection Hotel Grand stands on the site of the old Grand Hotel that was hit by a bomb during the second world war. Over 50% of the properties in Bodø where destroyed by the Luftwaffe on 27 May 1940. A fragment from the bombing hit the very bottom corner of this antique wall mirror cracking it. They kept that mirror and it is now on display in the lounge of the hotel along with many other artefacts including engraved silver tea service etc.
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