Wednesday 28 May 2008

Ferry to Bergen axed - last voyage 01 Sept 2008

The Titanic, sinking
Top story on the UK BBC website today concerns the closure by DFDS of my route back to the UK, just a week or so after I was planning to use it to get home. This is going to be a disaster for people wanting to make a similar trip in the future, particularly since the Shetland-Faroe-Bergen route closed last autumn, and the UK-Gothenburg route closed in the spring of 2007.

This basically seems to make the journey to Norway with my bike this summer a swansong, unless I can find a way next year to get from Holland to Norway by public transport, or by Smart car with the bike strapped to the back.

What a disaster!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jerry

We're going from Holland to Norway by public transport this summer. It goes like this;

1) Train from Utrecht 19:31 (starts in Amsterdam I think) to Odense in Denmark.

2) Arrive the following morning 08:20 after breakfast and a shower in Odense Train up to Hirtshals departs 09:12. I think we might have two changes at Alborg and then Hjoerring. If the weather is nice we plan to cycle to Hirtshals from Hjoerring.

3) Arrive Hirtshals 15:54 and take the ferry to Kristiansand dept 20:45 arrive 24:00.

The return is the same route except that we will take the ferry back from Larvik to Hirthals.

Total cost for the two of us including bike reservations and a cosy two person cabin in the train and two ferry trips is around Eur 800.

It works out a fair bit cheaper using reclining seats in the train instead of taking a cabin but much less fun.

If the Harwich-Esbjerg ferry is still running you could cross from Kristiansand or Larvik to Hirthals, take the train down to Esbjerg. It can be done with only two changes. You also don't need to travel via Holland.

A good place to plan transcontinental train journies is the DB website
http://www.db.de/site/bahn/en/start.html

We booked our train/ferry journey via http://www.treinreiswinkel.nl

HTH
Stan

Anonymous said...

Remember that Smyril Line (ex Shetland to Bergen) still calls at Scrabster during the summer.