Scandinavia is a region of northern Europe that includes the countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, which is characterised by their common heritage and language (I'll bang on about that in a bit). Some folk throw Finland and Iceland and so forth into the "Scandinavia" bag as well, but they're wrong :) The term "Nordic Countries" is more appropriate for all that, but I digress and no one gives a shit. The moral of the story is that the term Scandinavia comprises those three countries only, and they just so happened to be the countries Kristina and I took in on this two-week jaunt. We learnt a lot about the history of Scandinavia while we were there through cycle tours and reading guide books and so forth and, much like everywhere else I guess, the Scandinavian borders have changed shape several times over the last millennia. For example, Denmark was once much larger than it is today before Sweden started claiming bits of it for itself over time, and Norway and Sweden were once a single country before Norway had enough of that arrangement and declared independence last century. As such, the Scandinavian countries share many similarities. Each have their own individual language but they're all closely related and for the most part easily understood by each other (and not understood at all by us, though most Scandinavian's speak English so we rarely had any problems). Denmark and Norway are welfare states, so their population is taxed to hell but they get cradle-to-grave care from the government. All three are known for being inhabited by folk with blonde hair and blue eyes (though recent increases in immigration are threatening that) and having super hot women ;) Above all, all three are incredibly fucking expensive for tourists! This is why Scandinavia was left to the very tail-end of my European travels hehe. We tried to mitigate that expense as much as possible by staying in hostels and refraining from eating out too much. Even so, you need to be prepared to part with a lot of moolah if you come here, but be that as it may I'd say it's worth it overall as I'll hopefully show in the next ten pages.

So then, our plan was to fly into Copenhagen, Denmark for three days. From there a train and a day in Gothenburg, Sweden followed by another train and two days in Oslo, Norway. We picked up a hire car in Oslo and spent the next week and a bit road-tripping around - nice! Two days across the south of Norway to Stavanger on the west coast for two days, finishing off with four days in Bergen. While Stavanger and Bergen contain little of interest, they serve as a gateway to Norway's spectacular fjords and therefore make for a good base. And when you have a car at your disposal, the whole place is your oyster :)