Changing Travel From Slow to S..L..O..W

[artnbarb]

Our most recent trips - A small group tour to Mexico in February, then a trip to London and Paris, combined with a Seine River cruise - confirmed what Art has been trying to ignore for a while now - we simply aren't able to keep up with the group. Literally. Art's neuropathy is only getting worse. Luckily for him he doesn't have pain in his feet, but says it feels like he's walking on marbles. As a result, his balance isn't great, his walking speed is slow and slower, and his stamina isn't as good as it used to be. When doing city tours Art was always the very last one, and often couldn't even see or hear the guide if they rounded a corner. I had to walk in the middle of the group, keeping one eye on the guide and the other eye on Art. Obviously it wasn't an ideal situation for anyone, and it took quite a while for Art to make peace with this. He still wants to travel, and I thought small group tours and river cruises would be a good thing once we got 'older', but I was wrong. So now we're wondering what our options are.

We've cancelled the Balkans tour we had scheduled for September of this year, and have now booked a trip in Norway for next July. We will have two days of walking tours, but one will be on/off a bus, and the other we'll just have to figure out when we get there. The next part of the trip is a 6 night cruise up the coast of Norway on a working ship - lots of 15 minute stops to drop off mail, goods and passengers, and a few longer stops where we hope we can wander into town on our own without worrying about holding up an entire group of people. After the cruise we fly back to Oslo for the flight home. OR......

I'm looking for ideas to extend this trip! Obviously staying in Norway for only 2 weeks is against everything we love about Slow Travel! Should we rent a car and drive into Sweden? Take a flight to somewhere else for a for a week or two? I'm looking for places where we have plenty to do, but can easily get around on foot, public transport or Uber. We did this most recently in London, where we usually had 2 things planned per day, one for the morning, followed by lunch, then a second activity. And to complicate things only slightly, we'll be doing this additional travel in mid-to-late July, so a very busy time! We'd love to see Porto, for example, but July in Portugal seems like a bad idea for several reasons.

Please throw your suggestions out there! I'm sort of overwhelmed at this point, and still trying to figure out what we can reasonably do. TIA

 

[Eleanor]

"6 night cruise up the coast of Norway on a working ship - lots of 15 minute stops to drop off mail, goods and passengers, and a few longer stops where we hope we can wander into town on our own without worrying about holding up an entire group of people."

I'm assuming that is part of the Hurtigruten - the coastal express that leaves daily from Bergan travelling up the coast of Norway to Kirenes up near rthe Russian Border and then back to Bergan.

Is there any possiblity of extending this to the full 11 day round trip?round trip as places you miss on the outward journey during the night you visit on the return journey in daylight. Some stops are very short - often around half an hour, others are longer. Most stops are close to the centre of the town so you can explore at your own speed. For longer stops tours are arranged from the boat and many of these are fairly easy and non taxing. There also some longer trips by coach between ports.

It is a wonderful trip through fantastic scenery and visiting some very different places - big places like Trondheim or Tromso to tiny settlements of only a few houses. The food on board is also excellent.

Plan to start (or end) with at least 2-3 full days to explore Began, and another day for the Flam Railway on 'Norway in a Nutshell'. Then allow another 2-3 days to explore Oslo before flying home

 

[artnbarb]

Thanks @Eleanor ! We will arrive in Oslo a few days before our tour begins, and will also have time in Bergen, and we'll also take the Flam Railway. Sadly, we're unable to complete the cruise circuit, since we'll be flying back to Oslo from Kirkenes. (As I wrote in my initial post, we chose this tour in order to preserve the deposit we'd put down for our Romania trip, and this is the only one I found with limited walking!) Your input confirms that this trip will be both doable and enjoyable!

 

[artnbarb]

As I do more research, here's what I think I'd like to do: travel round-trip Oslo -Stockholm. At first I was leaning towards the train, but now I realize a car would allow us to stop along the way. Maybe stopping at 1 or 2 places both coming and going, then spending 2-3 days in Stockholm. Which raises my first concern:

I'd have 2 choices with a rental car: either do 2 one-way rentals (which I've read is pricey!), OR garage the car while we're in Stockholm, which may be just as expensive as the one-way rentals.

Taking the train and stopping along the way may be more challenging than we want - more walking, more schlepping luggage. Ugh!

Or we could just train it to Stockholm and skip the additional stops along the way, which seems like a missed opportunity! Or am I being unrealistic/greedy?