If you’ve been on our Instagram, Facebook or Twitter lately, then you already know about our#Nordics48h challenge. If you haven’t then here’s the lowdown – Scandic hotels invited us on a bit of a challenge to explore the Nordics in 48 hours.
We had no clue where we would be going to, what we would be doing or even what to pack (although, thankfully, they clarified the latter just before we left).
All we knew was that we would get told where we would go to shortly before we had to leave. We knew we were going to Norway but we only found out where specifically in Norway about a day or so before leaving. This would be the most notice we would have before any other activity on this trip. And so, teeming with excitement, we made our merry way to Heathrow airport for a flight bound for… STAVANGER!
Which reminds me! Before I go on, on the Scandic website, you can also win your very own #Nordics48h experience! Click here to enter by telling Scandic which two destinations you would like to visit the most in the Nordics and why. Pretty simple but hurry up, it closes in a few days!
Now, where was I? Right! So we arrived in Stavanger – made a quick dash to the hotel (we stayed at the Scandic City Hotel Stavanger which as you’ll find out in the next post – is such a convenient location for visiting Stavanger and seeing the sights here). I pretty much chucked all my stuff into the room and was out of the door (in a surprisingly efficient manner) and on time for our very first challenge.
I love the little Rudolph towel by the way!
…and the Norwegian chocolates! The subsequent sugar high was very much welcome.
The hotel even has a cute kids play area. Turns out this is quite the norm for Scandic hotels and they have kids play areas in quite a few hotels – which is always a welcome relief for travelling parents.
We hopped into the car driving through Stavanger on this rather beautifully sunny day, with still no clue what we would be doing.
Finally, we arrived in a little seaside village called Tananger. Finally, we were told what our very first challenge would be. We would be heading out into the seas to live the true albeit rustic Norwegian life and going cod fishing. Norway has such a strong fishing heritage and exports fish to all around the world so, it was a great experience to get some insight into this part of Norwegian life. Plus (and this is a big plus), the boat ride would prove for great photos of the village and as you know, I do like to take lots of a photos when we travel so this was a big ‘un for me. 🙂
The mission was to see who would catch the most fish – Me or Lloyd. People were apparently already trying to make educated guesses on who would win this mission so the pressure was on. (I love competitions waaaaay too much. 🙂 )
We watched eagerly as out boat pulled on shore. (At this point, we still had no clue we would actually be going out fishing).
And before you knew it, we were off to try our hands at fishing for the very first time…
We went out on the boat for about an hour before we finally stopped (amidst huge waves – hence the lopsided photos a-times) to try out hands at fishing. Before I go any further, I will just come out and say it – we caught nothing! 🙂 Zilch! Diddly-squat. 🙂 But that was fine by us, fishing turned out to be a lot more fun than we realised – especially due to one big revelation by the boat’s captain. He said “If you try for about 5 – 10 minutes and you don’t get any bites, then there’s no point sticking around in the same place. Just move on somewhere else.” Up until that point, I just assumed when people went fishing in the sea, they just waited for hours on end until they got a bite. Trying for a few minutes and moving around meant there would be no boring waiting around – and you get a tour of the different islands and inlets all around the coast…
We changed positions every so often to try our luck in different places…
There was even ample time for photo ops (or rather, proof to friends and family that we did actually go fishing)…
There were a couple of false alarms when we thought we’d hooked something… Turns out, if you think you caught something, you probably didn’t. When you do catch a fish, you’ll definitely know! 🙂
Slowly, we started to make our way back to the harbour (while not giving up on finding the seemingly elusive fish)…
I may have been distracted by the seagulls as well at some point…
All in all, despite the lack of fish, we had such a great time fishing. It was a great boat trip and we got to see a different side of Norway that I would probably have missed on otherwise. Plus, I did learn a lot about fishing despite the lack of results.
On arrival, we set about exploring this cute little fishing village…
Some of the houses here are several centuries old – which was quite surprising to me as they’re made of wood and I could be wrong here but you never really expect wooden houses to last that long do you? Well, as it turns out, the Norwegians have this down to a fine art!
Several selfies may or may not have been taken… 🙂
And with that, we headed back to the hotel for a quick meal and to get ready for our next mahoosive challenge! The next challenge was also a personal first and I would be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous about it once I found out what it was – but more on that later. 🙂
I know I’m repeating myself but don’t forget to let Scandic know where you would like to go on your very own trip across the Nordics with a friend or family member and you could very soon get to play out your very own Nordics 48 hour challenge! Click here for the deets.
Catch ya soon… 🙂
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