Spring settles in around Lofoten

PHOTO FEATURE: A long winter is slowly releasing its grip even in northern Norway, where the days are getting long and the early summer tourism season looms. The scenery is spectacular at any time of the year, with these photos highlighting the approach of springtime above the Arctic Circle. ALL PHOTOS: newsinenglish.no Please support our [...]

German tourist caught free-loading

A German tourist in his 50s committed a serious offense in Norway by violating the honor system at the country’s vast network of self-service hytter (cabins) in the mountains. He’s since been arrested, fined and deported. The cabins are owned and maintained by the national trekking association Den Norske Turisforeningen (DNT), and open to all members [...]

Norwegian hostage freed in Sinai

A Norwegian doctor and an Israeli man, kidnapped when the taxi they were sharing was ambushed between two tourist areas on the southern Sinai Peninsula late last week, were set free by their Bedouin captors during the night. It was the latest in a string of kidnappings in the area that’s long been popular with [...]

Classic ‘Lofoten’ calls at Lofoten

PHOTO FEATURE: As the Easter holidays settled in, there was no break for the “Hurtigruten” vessels that sail up and down the Norwegian coast. We spotted several calling at Svolvær in Lofoten over the weekend, including the classic old ‘MS Lofoten,’ which still plies the route between Bergen and Kirkenes and berthed once again in [...]

Norwegian tourist kidnapped in Egypt

Norway’s foreign ministry confirmed on Friday that a Norwegian woman was one of two tourists kidnapped in the southern portion of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The kidnapping is the latest of several such incidents carried out by armed bandits in the area. The foreign ministry hasn’t issued a warning against travel to Egypt, following [...]

Hotel star system fades away

Business and Trade Minister Trond Giske has been spending millions on a plan to rate Norwegian hotels through a national star system, but the hotels themselves have been resistant from the beginning. Only a handful of hotels are now cooperating, and the whole plan looks likely to be scrapped. Giske took over the star system [...]

Restaurants keep their Michelin stars

The three Norwegian restaurants that won stars in the prestigious Michelin Guide last year have won them again in the guide’s latest edition. Maaemo, the innovative Oslo restaurant that won two stars last year, kept both of them. Two other Oslo restaurants, Bagatelle and Statholdergaarden, retained their single stars. A fourth Oslo restaurant, Osgarsgate, had [...]

Hiking boss hits a new trail

Kristin Krohn Devold, a former defense minister who’s headed the national mountain trekking organization DNT (Den Norske Turistforeningen) for the past eight years, is setting off on a new career path this autumn. That’s when she’ll take over as head of the tourism division at national employers’ organization NHO. “This will be very exciting,” Devold [...]

Airports aim to relieve congestion

Avinor, the state agency in charge of Norway’s airports, confirmed on Tuesday that it plans to lease more air traffic controllers from a Swedish aviation consulting agency, in the hopes of avoiding another shortage of staff in the tower this summer. Airline passengers, meanwhile, face doing more of the tasks on the ground themselves. A [...]

Northern Lights keep drawing crowds

Tourists from all over the world continue to travel to both Northern Norway and Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard in the hopes of seeing the Northern Lights (Nordlys, or Aurora Borealis). Tromsø also been attracting hundreds of performers lately for its annual Northern Lights festival. Around 400 artists from 14 different countries have been gathering [...]

Ship tunnel plan sails forward

Plans for a huge tunnel for ships at Norway’s stormy West Cape might finally be given the go-ahead this spring. It would be the first such tunnel in the world and could become a major tourist attraction, but critics blast the project as being a fantasy without social merit. If approved, reports newspaper Aftenposten, the [...]

Norwegian Air loses bid for cheaper crews, for now

The Norwegian government has rejected a proposal that would allow Norway’s low-fare carrier Norwegian Air and other airlines to employ Asian residents on Norwegian-registed aircraft and compensate them with Asian-level pay and benefits, which generally are much lower than Norwegian levels. The decision is a blow to Norwegian Air’s plans for low-cost global expansion. Norwegian [...]

Airline soars on global expansion

Bjørn Kjos, the entrepreneurial fighter jet pilot behind high-flying Norwegian Air, has peered into the future and sees global expansion as the key to continuing his airline’s success. Long-haul routes are his next frontier, and he’s ready to fight for the right to run them with “a good product” at low cost no matter what [...]

Another hotel chain dumps big website

Rica Hotels, one of Norway’s largest hotel chains, has become the latest to stop selling its rooms over the large hotel website Expedia/Hotels.com. That means all the large Scandinavian hotel chains have now broken ties with the US-based web giant. Rica Chairman Ole-Jacob Wold confirmed that Rica’s earlier agreement with Hotels.com ran out on December [...]

NRK’s ‘slow TV’ won more viewers

Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) made television history with its record-breaking “minute-by-minute” coverage of a coastal voyage on a Hurtigruten vessel two summers ago. It’s since made similar “slow TV” shows, and the latest coverage of a trip on Norway’s northernmost train line was another big hit over the holidays. More than a million Norwegians, or roughly [...]

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