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UK to Norway without flying...
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R I P... The DFDS cruise-ferry to Norway
was sadly withdrawn for good in September 2008, ending
over 120 years of direct ferry links between the UK
and Norway... Photo courtesy of DFDS |
It's easy to travel from London to Norway by train, although
sadly the direct DFDS ferry between Newcastle & Bergen in
Norway was withdrawn as of 1 September 2008. To go by
train, you take Eurostar
to Brussels, a connecting train to Cologne and the
excellent City
Night Line sleeper overnight to Copenhagen with onward connections for
Oslo arriving in the evening that day. Departures are daily.
On this page...
London to Oslo by train:
Times, fares, how to buy tickets
Onward trains within Norway -
Buying Norwegian train tickets
Sponsored links:
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This is the fastest way to travel from London to Oslo
without flying. It's also comfortable and affordable.
Departures are daily.
Train times London ► Oslo
-
Travel
from London to Brussels by
Eurostar,
leaving London St Pancras at 13:20, arriving in Brussels at 16:40.
-
Travel from Brussels to Cologne by high-speed
Thalys
train, leaving Brussels at 17:25 and arriving in
Cologne (Hauptbahnhof) at 19:45.
-
Travel from Cologne to
Copenhagen on the City Night Line sleeper train
'Borealis', leaving Cologne at 22:28 and arriving in
Copenhagen at 09:59 next morning. This train has
seats, couchettes (6-berth & 4-berth) and a modern
sleeping-car with 1, 2 & 3-bed compartments, either
standard with washbasin or deluxe with shower & toilet.
See the photos below.
-
Travel from Copenhagen to Oslo
by train,
leaving Copenhagen at 12:23, changing trains at
Gothenburg and
arriving Oslo at 20:45 on Saturdays or 21:45 on other
days. You can confirm train times for
your date of travel at
http://bahn.hafas.de.
-
Alternatively, spend a day in Copenhagen (left luggage
lockers are available at the station) and sail overnight
from Copenhagen to Oslo by direct cruise ferry with
DFDS Seaways. The ship (either the 'Crown of
Scandinavia' or 'Pearl of Scandinavia') sails from
Copenhagen's International Ferry Terminal
in Dampfærgevej daily at 17:00, arriving in Oslo at
09:30 next day. All passengers travel in
comfortable cabins with private toilet & shower.
To travel in luxury, treat yourself to one of DFDS's
famous Commodore Class cabins, some with private
balconies with sea view. The
ship has bars & restaurants for dinner & breakfast on
board, you can pre-book dinner & breakfast with your
ticket. The ferry terminal is about 3km (1.9 miles)
from Copenhagen's main station in the city centre, taxis
& free DFDS shuttle buses are available. See
www.dfds.co.uk.
Train times Oslo ► London
-
Travel from Oslo to Copenhagen
by train. On Mon-Fri, leave Oslo 07:00, change at
Gothenburg, arriving
Copenhagen 15:37. On Saturdays, depart Oslo 09:00,
change at Gothenburg
arriving Copenhagen 17:01. No service on Sundays. Check train times for
your own date of travel at
http://bahn.hafas.de. -
Alternatively, sail from Oslo to Copenhagen by direct
overnight cruise ferry with
DFDS Seaways. The ship sails from Oslo's
Vippetangen ferry terminal daily at 17:00, arriving in
Oslo at 09:30 next morning. You can now spend the
day in Copenhagen. The ship has comfortable
cabins, bars & restaurants for dinner & breakfast on
board. You can walk from central Oslo to the ferry
terminal in15-20 minutes, or take a taxi. See
www.dfds.co.uk.
-
Travel from Copenhagen to
Cologne by City Night Line sleeper train 'Borealis', leaving Copenhagen
at 18:53 and arriving Cologne at 06:14 next
morning. This train has couchettes (4-berth & 6-berth) and a
modern sleeping-car
(1, 2 & 3-bed rooms, standard with washbasin or
deluxe with private shower & toilet). -
On
Mondays-Saturdays, a high-speed
Thalys
train leaves Cologne at 07:14, arriving Brussels at
09:35. On Sundays, a high-speed
Thalys
train leaves Cologne at 07:40, arriving Brussels at
10:01.
-
A
Eurostar
leaves Brussels daily at 11:50
and arrives London St Pancras at 13:08.
Introducing the Cologne-Copenhagen City Night Line sleeper
train...
The
Cologne-Copenhagen overnight train 'Borealis' is one of the German
Railway's excellent City Night Line sleeper trains. It
has a modern sleeping-car (1, 2 & 3-berth deluxe rooms with
private shower and toilet, 1, 2 & 3-berth standard rooms
with washbasin, there's a shower at the end of the corridor
and all rooms have power-points for laptop computers), modern
air-conditioned couchettes (choose between a berth in a 4-
or 6-berth compartment), and ordinary seats (not
recommended for an overnight journey). Inclusive fares are charged covering travel
plus sleeping accommodation. Click for more pictures and information about this train.
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1, 2 or 3 bed sleeper:
The most comfortable & civilised option, standard with
washbasin or deluxe with shower & toilet. |
|
4-berth couchettes:
Ideal for families, much more space per person than
6-berth couchettes. |
|
6-berth couchettes:
A very economical option, far better than a seat for
just a few euros more... |
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Above: One of the new
'Comfortline' sleeping-cars used on the Cologne-Copenhagen City Night Line sleeper train.
More pictures... |
How much
does it cost?
|
1. London to
Cologne
by Eurostar
+ Thalys: |
London to
Cologne by Eurostar+ Thalys or ICE starts at £79
return.
Book in advance to get the cheapest fares, as the
fare rises as cheaper seats are sold. One-way
fares will probably be more than a return, so check
return fares and throw away the return half if
necessary. |
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2. Cologne
to Copenhagen:
by sleeper
train: |
In a
seat |
In
a couchette |
In
the sleeping-car (standard room *) |
|
6-berth |
4-berth |
3-berth |
2-berth |
single berth |
|
Savings fare one-way: |
£21 |
£36 |
£44 |
£51 |
£59 |
£103 |
|
Savings fare return: |
£42 |
£72 |
£88 |
£102 |
£118 |
£206 |
|
Normal
fare one-way: |
£88 |
£99 |
£107 |
£114 |
£127 |
£159 |
|
Normal
fare return: |
£176 |
£198 |
£214 |
£228 |
£254 |
£318 |
|
Child
0-13 with own berth: |
£8 |
£15 |
£22 |
£29 |
£37 |
£76 |
|
Child 0-5: |
Child 0-5 (inclusive) sharing berth travels free... |
|
Savings fare =
cheap fare, limited availability,
no refunds, no changes to travel plans.
Normal fare =
fully flexible, refundable, buy any time.
* A deluxe sleeper
with shower & toilet is 10-25% more than standard sleeper.
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3. Copenhagen
to Oslo |
By
train, booked
with
www.raileurope.co.uk,
fixed price, £83 one-way, £166 return.
By
train, booked
with
www.bokatag.se,
price varies from £40 to £83 one-way, £80 to £166 return.
By overnight
cruise ferry with
www.dfds.co.uk,
fares start at £45 per person each way for 2
people travelling
together, £82 each way for a solo passenger, including
private en suite cabin. |
How to buy
tickets online...
The cheapest
way to book train travel from London to Copenhagen is
online. You will need to use two or three separate
websites, but it's not difficult. Do a dry run to check availability and fares
on both sites before starting to book. Remember you
can't book until 60 days before departure.
-
Step 1, book
the Cologne-Copenhagen sleeper train: Go to the German
Railways night train site,
www.bahn.de/citynightline, select 'English' top right.
Book a sleeper or couchette ticket from Cologne (Köln Hbf)
to Copenhagen (Koebenhvn H) and
back, looking for the cheap 'Savings' fares. You pay
online and print out your own ticket in .PDF format on your
own PC printer. Easy!
-
Step 2, book
your London-Cologne ticket: Now go to
www.raileurope.co.uk
and book a London-Cologne Eurostar+Thalys
ticket, using the train times on this page as a guide. On the
Rail Europe home page,
you simply select 'London' and 'Cologne' from the drop-down
lists and enter your dates of travel. Book early to see
the cheapest fares, bookings open 90 days in advance. One-way fares can be higher than returns, and
if so, just buy a return and throw away the return portion
after using the outward. Make sure you allow plenty of
time for the connection in Cologne, preferably between 1½
& 2 hours when connecting with a sleeper train.
It's obvious, but remember that your return departure date from Cologne will
be the day after your departure date from Copenhagen!
Occasionally, if there are
no affordable London-Cologne through fares shown, it can be worth
splitting the journey into separate London-Brussels and
Brussels-Cologne sections, looking for cheap fares for
each leg at
www.raileurope.co.uk.
Give this a try if you don't see any cheap fares for the
throughout London-Cologne journey. First, ask for 'Brussels'
to 'Cologne' and
your dates of travel. 'Koeln Hbf
(DE)' is the destination you want, if the system
asks you. After booking the Thalys from Brussels to
Cologne, click 'add another ticket' and book a Eurostar
from London to Brussels and back to connect. Note that this system will book Thalys
trains but not (being French!) the German ICE trains
between Brussels and Cologne. Make sure you allow for
the 30 minute Eurostar check-in at Brussels on the return
journey. Step 3,
book your Copenhagen-Oslo ticket: To go by
overnight cruise ferry, book this online at
www.dfds.co.uk
- you can even pre-book dinner & breakfast. To go by train,
there are two ways to book tickets. The easy way is to stay with
www.raileurope.co.uk,
click 'continue shopping' and book a ticket from
Copenhagen to Oslo and back online. Rail Europe
charges a standard fixed price for Copenhagen-Oslo
trains for all dates and departures, this is the
international tariff made available to other European
railway operators by the Swedish Railways. The
second and much cheaper way is to book the Copenhagen-Oslo train
using either the Swedish Railways website
www.sj.se
(no booking fee) or
www.bokatag.se (small booking fee, English button bottom right).
If you can't get your credit card to work, call SJ
telesales on +46 771 75 75 75 (touch tone 6 for English).
The price you pay using
www.sj.se,
www.bokatag.se or SJ telesales is the actual Swedish Railways
price, which varies like budget airline fares. If you
book several months in advance you can find really cheap
fares available, much cheaper than with Rail Europe,
rising to pretty much the same level as Rail Europe closer
to departure. You collect your tickets
from the Swedish Railways (SJ) ticket machines installed at Copenhagen main station. Note that
although
www.raileurope.co.uk sells tickets for the 12:23
departure from Copenhagen easily enough,
www.bokatag.se for
some reason won't sell tickets for this particular
service, but see what it offers you. SJ telesales
can sell all trains on this route.
How to buy
tickets by phone...
You
can book through a number of UK agencies, but for this trip
the best is probably Deutsche
Bahn's UK office on 08718 80 80 66 or www.europeanrail.com
on 020 7619 1083.
Click
here
for a list of agencies and more info on how to book.
Train
connections from Oslo to Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim &
other Norwegian cities...
-
Modern
air-conditioned trains link Oslo with Bergen,
one of Europe's most
scenic train routes, a journey worth doing for its own
sake! Similar trains link Oslo with Stavanger,
Kristiansand, Trondheim and other Norwegian cities. To check train
times within in Norway, see www.nsb.no
or http://bahn.hafas.de.
-
Oslo-Bergen
costs between 199 Kr & 399 Kr (£17-£34) one-way with a
limited-availability minipris fare or 728 Kr (£63) each
way full fare. Return fares are twice the one-way.
Oslo-Stavanger also costs between 199 Kr & 399 Kr (£17-£34) each
way with a limited-availability minipris fare or 846 Kr
(£73) one-way full fare, return fares are twice this.
Anyone over 67 (or married couples where one partner is
over 67) get a 50% discount. Children under 4 free,
children 4-15 (inclusive) half price.
How to buy
Norwegian train tickets at
www.nsb.no...
-
You can buy
Norwegian tickets online at www.nsb.no.
In fact, it pays to pre-book your tickets this way,
because cheap advance-purchase 'minipris' fares are often
available, saving a lot of money over the regular fare
that you will be charged on the day of travel.
Minipris tickets are non-refundable and non-changeable.
-
The 'English'
button is top right.
-
When you reach
the fares page, use the drop-down list of fare types to
see if you can change 'ordinaer' (full fare) to 'minipris'
(cheap advance purchase fare, only appears if there is a
minipris available, either 199Kr, 299Kr or 399Kr depending
on availability).
-
'Okonomi' means standard class,
any fare including the word 'Komfort' means first class
with larger seats, more space, laptop power points and
complimentary tea and coffee.
-
UK credit
cards: It's reported that the site may struggle
with UK-issued credit cards. If so, contact their
telesales by phone on +47 23 15 15 15 and buy
tickets that way. They accept UK cards by phone, and
you might find the price three times cheaper than buying
from a UK agency!
-
Any
feedback
from booking this way and using these trains would be very
welcome!
The scenic
Flåm Railway...
A scenic
tourist line worth mentioning is the famous Flåm
Railway ('Flåmsbana')
from Myrdal (on the Oslo-Bergen line) 900m above sea level
to Flåm on the
Fjord below. Train run daily all year round, 4
departures a day in winter, 10 or so in summer. It can be done as a day trip
from Oslo, as the Myrdal-Flåm
journey itself only takes 40-50 minutes each way. See
www.flaamsbana.no, then see www.nsb.no
for connections from Oslo or Bergen to Myrdal.
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The Thomas Cook European Timetable
|
  The
Thomas Cook European timetable
has train & ferry times for every country in Europe, plus currency
& climate
information. Published since 1873 and costing £13.50, it's essential for any serious traveller
and an inspiration for armchair travellers. More information
on what the Thomas Cook Timetable contains. You can
buy the latest monthly edition online at
www.thomascooktimetables.com with worldwide delivery, or
buy it in person from any UK branch of Thomas Cook (ask at the
bureau de change).
Or
buy the independent traveller's edition from Amazon.co.uk:
Summer 2008 edition (June to December 2008).
The Thomas Cook Rail Map of
Europe is the best and most comprehensive
map of train routes right across Europe, from Portugal in the
west to Istanbul, Moscow & Ukraine in the east, from Finland
in the north to Sicily & Crete in the south. High speed
&
scenic routes are highlighted. Highly recommended!
Buy online
at www.amazon.co.uk
(worldwide delivery).
See an extract from
the map.
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   Make
sure you take a good guidebook.
For independent travel, I think this means either the Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide.
Both guidebooks provide the same excellent
level of practical information and cultural and historical background.
You won't regret buying one..!
Click the images to buy at Amazon.co.uk
Or buy direct from the
Lonely Planet website, with shipping worldwide.
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Hotels
in Oslo, Bergen or elsewhere in
Norway...
It's
easy to book hotels online to go with your train tickets, but
there are almost too many hotel booking websites to choose
from. The answer is to use
www.hotelscombined.com (or use the search box below).
This is not a hotel booking website, but a free search tool
which searches all the main hotel booking sites for you
(Expedia, Travelocity, LateRooms, Opodo, Venere and many
others) to find the cheapest hotel rates on the net. Set
up in 2005, it's an amazing system and probably the best place
to start for booking any hotel online in any country,
worldwide.
Other hotel sites worth trying...
-
Try
www.laterooms.com, which will list a huge number of hotels in
any given town or city on a single page showing price and
availability for your specific dates.
www.laterooms.com gets significant discounts over normal rates
for many hotels, and these discounted prices are shown in orange.
As its name suggests,
www.laterooms.com gets discounts for hotel rooms booked within
3 months of travel, making it ideal for anyone booking train
travel within the normal 90 days booking horizon.
-
www.venere.com Norway hotels is worth a look.
-
www.tripadvisor.com
is a huge resource, and the best place to browse for
independent travellers' reviews of all the main hotels.
Budget backpacker hostels...
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Travel insurance & health card
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Compare
quotes from both Direct Line & Columbus... |
Travel insurance..
Travel insurance is a boring subject, but it's a real necessity, so make sure you
budget for it. Make sure you get adequate cover -
for example, at least £1m or preferably £5m medical cover,
from a reliable insurer. Remember that an annual
multi-trip policy is often cheaper than several single-trip
policies even for just two or three trips
a year. Here are some suggested insurers to try.
Seat61 gets a small commission if you buy after clicking these
links.
If you live in the UK, get quotes from
Direct Line
(whom I've used myself) and
Columbus Direct.
If
you live in
Australia, New Zealand, Ireland or the EU, try
Columbus Direct Australia.
 
If you live in the USA or Canada, try
Travel Guard USA.
EU health card...
UK citizens travelling in Europe should carry a European
Health Insurance Card. This replaces the old E111 forms
as from January 2006. The EHIC card is available free
from
www.ehic.org.uk and entitles you to free or reduced rate
health care if you become ill or get injured in many European
countries, under a reciprocal arrangement with the UK's NHS.
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Back
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general page
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