Our Scandinavian Summer Fairy Tale

Before this trip, we told our four-year-old that we were going to visit Elsa and Anna’s home.

That was probably all the introduction she needed to Norway. Mountains, waterfalls, wooden houses, mysterious forests and trolls. In her mind, this was absolutely where Frozen could have happened.

We started and ended the trip in Copenhagen, with Norway in between. This time, our little princess started her very first travel journal in her favourite fluffy plush notebook. She loved the colourful houses, city libraries and museums, ferris wheels and public transportation, and also recorded our family’s version of Scandinavia: a new playground almost every day, water in Flåm, trolls and horned goats in a Bergen forest, Dad pedalling a cargo bike through Copenhagen, and a little girl discovering that she could climb much farther than any of us expected.

It really did feel a little like our Scandinavian summer fairy tale.

A First Afternoon in Copenhagen

We landed in Copenhagen with only half a day before heading to Norway, so we didn't try to do too much. After dropping off our luggage, we went into the city and walked along Nyhavn, with its colourful houses, boats and busy waterfront. It was one of those places I had seen so many times in photos that it felt immediately familiar, but still lovely to finally see in person.

We wandered without much of an agenda, stopped at Studio Arhoj to see the creative glasswork, and eventually made our way to the Round Tower. The spiral walk up was much more fun than climbing endless stairs would have been, and on the top floor, besides the observation deck, we found the astrology display and, of course, had to find ours.

We finished the afternoon wandering around Torvehallerne, enjoying organic homemade gelato and the iconic roast pork sandwich. At this point, Copenhagen was only a preview. We would return for a few more days after Norway.

Oslo, Starting at the Airport

As someone who works in the aviation industry, I have an appreciation for a good airport experience. Airports are such a big part of how a trip begins and ends. They give travellers their first impression of a country, while creating a little community and ecosystem of their own.

Oslo Airport immediately made a good impression on me. It felt calm, which is not a word I use very often to describe airports. We noticed strollers available to borrow around the terminal, modern art throughout the airport and even a foldable seat inside the elevator. There was a playground right in the arrivals area, which gave her somewhere to play while we were figuring out public transportation into the city. These thoughtful little details make family travel so much easier.

Copenhagen Airport later gave me a completely different kind of appreciation. It is busier and more commercial, but the compact “shopping street” makes last-minute souvenirs dangerously easy. Between the two, Oslo won for calm and thoughtful accessibility; Copenhagen won for giving me an all-in-one stop to taste more open sandwiches and pick up things to bring home.

Finding Our Oslo

Oslo continued that same feeling. We spent time around the Opera House, MUNCH and Deichman Bjørvika. Of course, like always, some of our favourite discoveries weren't necessarily the things we had planned.

One of the themes of this trip became playgrounds. Somehow, almost every day, we found a different one, and the Nordic playgrounds were often interesting enough that the adults didn't mind stopping either. Some were beautifully designed, some were built mostly from wood and blended into their beautiful natural surroundings, and some simply appeared exactly when little legs needed a break.

I stopped thinking of children's outdoor playtime as something we needed to squeeze between sightseeing. It became part of seeing the city. We could visit the places we wanted to see while she had her own discoveries along the way.

The Deichman library was another place I really liked. We often visit libraries when travelling now, especially since becoming parents. You get a glimpse of everyday local life rather than only the version of a city designed for visitors, and children are free to touch things, read, explore and just exist.

Here, I started to understand why locals can speak multiple languages and appreciate modern art and culture so naturally. They start young. Children's books with clear language labels are displayed in high-traffic areas. Artworks show up everywhere, in every format you could imagine.

The following day, we met with a local friend. He took us on a food and coffee experience and introduced us to the flower-shaped Norwegian waffle, topped with the unique caramel-flavoured brown cheese. What a treat! From then on, we picked up brown cheese at almost every grocery store we stopped at in Norway.

People who know me know that I cannot survive without a good cup of coffee. At Tim Wendelboe, I had the most amazing Cold Geisha that I could probably keep talking about for a lifetime.

In the afternoon, our friend drove us to Gol Stave Church. Walking among the old wooden buildings and grass roofs made our Frozne story increasingly convincing. At four, she didn't need us to explain centuries of Norwegian history. Old houses, dark wooden doors and paths to explore were enough.

The Train Into Our Imaginary Arendelle

Leaving Oslo for Flåm was when Norway started looking like the place we had imagined and seen on YouTube before the trip. We travelled toward Myrdal and then took the Flåm Railway down into the valley, with mountains, waterfalls and tiny houses appearing outside the windows.

This was one of the journeys Dad had been most excited about, and thankfully it lived up to it. During the entire trip, he couldn't put his camera down and took so many photos that he might regret doing so during the editing phase.

The five-hour train journey also worked surprisingly well for our little princess. There was scenery outside, room to move around and read, and the journey itself felt like part of the day rather than simply transportation.

By this point, our story had become established family fact: Oslo and Bergen were where Elsa and Anna lived, and we were travelling through their country. I am not sure how many more years we will be able to get away with explanations like this, so I am enjoying them while we can.

Flåm, Where the Fjord Was Her Playground

Flåm is tiny, especially compared with the scale of everything surrounding it. The mountains rise almost straight up around the village and the water seems to be everywhere. It is very easy to arrive and immediately start thinking about viewpoints, trains, cruises and what you are supposed to see next.

With all the calming surroundings, our little princess turned herself into an excited little frog and jumped into the water right away to play with seaweed and stones while searching for tiny sea creatures.

So we spent almost the entire afternoon by the edge of the fjord, touching the cold water and watching what happened when little hands disturbed the surface. There were huge mountains behind her that adults had travelled across the world to photograph, and she was completely absorbed by the few centimetres of water directly in front of her.

She was not prepared. Neither was I. Without putting her swimsuit on, she got her cotton T-shirt and pants completely wet, but she had fun. I loved that.

Through Nærøyfjord to Bergen

The next morning, we took the e-boat from Flåm through Nærøyfjord to Gudvangen. This was the Norway from postcards: steep mountains rising directly from the water, waterfalls coming down the cliffs and tiny farms appearing in places where I started to picture Elsa riding her horse through the shining water, leaving her magic behind.

From Gudvangen, we caught the local bus to Voss and then the train into Bergen. Boat, bus and train in one day sounds like the kind of itinerary I might have avoided when travelling with a preschooler, but it worked well. Each change of transportation became something new, and Norway made the connections fairly painless. Most of the time, the rides felt more like sightseeing than boring transportation from Point A to Point B.

There has been a gradual shift in the way we travel as a family. A few years ago, so much of a trip revolved around naps and how to coordinate them with manageable hikes and golden hours for photos. Those things haven't disappeared, but now there is a little person beside us who knows she is travelling. She remembers where we have been, asks where we are going next and has very definite opinions about what counts as a good day.

Bergen, and the Mountain She Climbed Herself

Dragging a suitcase and pushing a stroller with a 35 lb kiddo inside from the train station to our Airbnb, over cobblestone uphill streets, was not fun at all. I have to admit that at one point in the beginning, I wondered why I had gotten myself into this situation.

However, it only takes one pleasant moment to make the entire trip worth every drop of sweat.

Before the trip, Dad and I had been working out diligently to build up our arm muscles for an obvious reason: our kiddo enjoys a good view and has always loved being carried for that cozy, snuggly, safe feeling.

On Ulriken, the highest of Bergen's seven mountains, she climbed to the top all by herself! We expected the usual point where she would ask to be carried, but it didn't come. Those little legs just kept moving until she made it all the way to the top herself.

I don't remember exactly when we realized she was actually going to do the whole thing, but by then none of us wanted to interrupt her. She was determined, and when she reached the top, she knew she had done something difficult. She was over the moon and felt so accomplished, maybe like the biggest person on Earth.

As parents, we photograph all her obvious milestones, like birthdays, first days, first this and first that. I didn't know that “climbed a mountain in Norway by herself” would become one of mine.

We started teasing that maybe the reason she always wanted to be carried before was simply because “she was not feeling challenged enough to show off her skills.” Time flies. In four years, she has grown from a crying newborn into a surprisingly independent little person.

Trolls, Goats and a Playground in the Forest

Fløyen and Trollskogen might have been the most perfectly designed day of the trip for a little one. There were trolls hiding among the trees, horned goats wandering nearby, forest paths to follow and a wonderful wooden playground that felt like it belonged there rather than having been dropped into the landscape.

She disappeared into it happily while we slowed down for a while. This was probably my favourite thing about the playgrounds we found during this trip. They often didn't feel like fenced-off children's zones where parents waited for playtime to finish. They were simply part of the park, forest, neighbourhood or public space.

A forest could be a hike for us, a troll story for her, a place to meet animals and a playground, all at the same time.

Back to Copenhagen, This Time on Three Wheels

After Bergen, we flew back to Copenhagen and picked up a family cargo e-bike. This completely changed how we experienced the city.

Dad did the hard work. Our little passenger sat in the front and thoroughly enjoyed being driven around Copenhagen while I got to appreciate a city that has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about how bicycles fit into everyday life.

We rode through residential neighbourhoods and between places we wanted to visit: Grundtvig's Church, Hans Christian Andersen's gravesite, the Little Mermaid, Amalienborg and Rosenborg. The bike meant we could stop when something caught our attention without calculating another metro ride or deciding whether small legs could manage another 20-minute walk.

There is something nice about seeing a city at bicycle speed. It is fast enough to cover ground but slow enough to notice people's gardens, bakeries and ordinary neighbourhood streets. Copenhagen started to feel less like a collection of attractions and more like somewhere people actually live.

A Little Andersen Fairy Tale at Tivoli

Tivoli was our big Copenhagen treat, and it was as charming as I hoped it would be. I liked that it still feels slightly old-fashioned, with gardens and lights mixed in among the rides rather than trying to overwhelm you with bigger and louder attractions.

Our favourite was The Flying Trunk, the ride through Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. We grew up reading them and had visited Andersen's gravesite earlier, so there was something sweet and magical about ending up inside his stories later that day.

Being a passionate little reader, she quickly learned that Andersen, as a fairy-tale magician, had written many of the classic stories she would love to hear. As a result, our bedtime story time was extended to a record length.

Maybe one day she will read those stories on her own and tell us she was once on a ride with Andersen through his imaginary world in Copenhagen. I am really looking forward to that day. It would mean the world to me to share some of the classic stories we loved growing up.

We ended our day with Tivoli's light show on the water and felt we could have spent much more time there. We will be back.

A Museum Day That Didn't Feel Like a Compromise

Our last full day took us north of Copenhagen to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. The museum has the advantage of not feeling contained inside a building. We could look at art, go outside, wander through the sculpture garden, look at the sea and find ice cream when museum patience was running low.

We may still not be ready to visit a museum without a children's area, so this place was perfect. We learned about a few artists' inspirations and life stories while spending a good chunk of time creating art with our little creative mind: drawing faces, connecting sculpture friends and dressing up for a play.

The Scandinavia I Want to Remember

When I look through the photos, the big Scandinavian moments are all there: fjords, mountains, colourful Copenhagen houses, bikes, modern architecture and art. But there is another version of the trip running quietly beside it.

There was almost one new playground every day. There was cold water in Flåm and a mountain climbed without being carried. There were trolls hiding in the woods, horned goats and a wooden playground in a forest. There was Dad pedalling through Copenhagen with very happy passengers in front, and an old amusement park where we travelled through fairy tales.

Those are the things I suspect childhood will keep.

One of the reasons I started recording our family travels was because children change so quickly between trips. The places matter, but I also want to remember who we were when we went there.

On this trip, she was four. Old enough to have her own idea of what makes a good adventure, but still young enough to believe us when we said we were going to Elsa and Anna's home, Ariel's family lived under the Little Mermaid statue, and the trolls would wake up at midnight to play in the forest.

I know that window won't stay open forever.

For this summer, Denmark and Norway had princesses somewhere beyond the mountains and sea, trolls still lived in the forest, every new city might contain an amazing playground, and Dad's cargo bike could be the best ride in the whole wide world.

That was our Scandinavian summer fairy tale.