Norwegian Summer 2026 – Day 3: Oslo to Sjusjøen

Eight solid hours of sleep, and only this morning did it really sink in how lucky we’d been yesterday. I could have dropped that passport just about anywhere, and instead it turned up in pretty much the best place possible. Our friend Jennie called it a miracle, and honestly I’m not inclined to argue.

We started the day with a huge breakfast buffet at the hotel. Not cheap, but worth it for a proper sendoff we’d not had any time to shop.

Before anything else, we went and scouted the train station, found the elevators for the bikes, and even watched a train pull in so we’d know what the bicycle car looked like. Easy cheesy. Then we loaded up the bikes, dropped all our bags in the hotel’s baggage storage, and headed out. A quick shakedown ride on the bike trail that provided a access to the airport, then a 180 right back to the airport station to wait for our 11:00 train to Lillehammer.

Loaded up and waiting on the 11:00 to Lillehammer

The trip to Lillehammer was 1 hour 45 minutes on the RE10.

Liz and the bikes settled into the RE10

The conductor came through to check tickets and just waved us off with a smile when we tried to buy the bike add-on. Smooth, smooth tracks and a very calm ride.

We didn’t have a particularly big day planned, so after rolling off the train we dropped down to Mjøsa, the largest lake in Norway by a long way, and the one Lillehammer happens to sit on. The gravel path along it was lovely, with a natural buffer area carved out alongside.

First pedal strokes, down along Mjøsa

We still had a couple of sandwiches saved from yesterday’s last leg, so we parked for a little late lunch. After poking around a bit, we made our first proper stop in a Norwegian grocery store, a REMA 1000. Nice digs, and we walked out with a pile of fun snacks, some potato lefse, and a bag of dried peaches from Thailand. That last one got us; we’d never seen a non-US peach before, dried or wetted. It’s also always fun to scope out the vegan options.

Vegan skinke recon, go’ vegan indeed

By about 2:00 it was time to get serious. We had roughly fifteen miles to cover, but some 900m of climbing to go with it, call it 4x up Blue Mound for the folks back home, so it would take the next three hours at a leisurely pace with gradients swinging between 4 and 12%. (Yes, miles and meters in the same breath. That’s apparently just how this trip is going to go.) Right as we set out, we rolled past a very long cyclist and pedestrian bridge. We might bump into that tomorrow?

The bike and that very long bridge

The first twenty minutes had us looping back past the train station and through the bustling sentrum. From there the route climbed past the cross-country ski venues from the 1994 Olympics, an ice arena, and a ski jump. Not much happening at any of them, but we did spot a pile of dyed snow melting on the ground, which I’m pretty sure was whatever the Zamboni scraped off the ice. We saw cyclists of every stripe, e-bikes, MTB guys, road riders, mostly down at the lower elevations.

Looking back over everywhere we’d just been

We also crossed into sheep country and made a few new friends.

Faintly suspicious of us

Higher up we broke into what I’ll probably wrongly call alpine woods, with wild geranium and buttercups taking over from the lupine that ruled lower down. We came to the town of Nordseter first, then did a little side-saddle hop with a few steep bonus ramps over to our destination of Sjusjøen. There we found a perfectly appointed winter flat doing its level best to fit in during the summer. Geir had stashed a six pack of excellent N/A beer for us. There was a Kiwi grocery and beautiful mountain views, and the neighbors were clearly intrigued by whatever was going on across the way. We may well have been the most exciting thing to happen in that little alley all day.

Turf roof and a flag, very Norway

Liz toasting Geir’s stashed N/A beer

Liz on our walk to Kiwi

We walked down to Kiwi for dinner and morning supplies (various rolls, vegan cheese, some juice and fresh whole grain pasta and red pepper pesto, and delicious Norwegian strawberries, if you’re keeping track) and then caught the end of a World Cup match. We did laundry, and still had a little energy left to sit on our phones. Not much, though!