Toddler Travels: Mt. Floyen’s Playground in Bergen, Norway

In light of yesterday’s post about the Norway articles, I thought I’d follow up with a share of our tot’s favorite playgrounds in Bergen, Norway!Exploring playgrounds, trolls, and a forest hike with toddlers and children in Bergen, Norway

One of the top things to do in Bergen is of course, the funicular ride up to the top of Mt. Floyen, where you can then choose to either ride the car back or you can walk down which is an easy hike down and completely doable with kids (as in our Troll Forest article over on Outdoor Families Magazine!).  But the best part is that before you get going on the actual hike part, you can get the kids warmed up a bit with the mountain top playground. As a side note, I’m not sure if you can tell in this pic, but it was raining pretty hard – didn’t much stop these kids though!Exploring playgrounds, trolls, and a forest hike with toddlers and children in Bergen, NorwayExploring playgrounds, trolls, and a forest hike with toddlers and children in Bergen, Norway

If you have a younger set in tow, there’s a smaller scale playground right next too it with many of the same structures but in a “mini” format…

Exploring playgrounds, trolls, and a forest hike with toddlers and children in Bergen, Norway

For the older set, climbing structures are the name of the game…ropes, poles and walls with punch outs.  I have to say, I really do commend how quickly children are able to find their way up and down things.  Even in places where I thought surely they would never reach that pole or that rope or anything, they find a way to make it work.  It’s something quite common to most Scandinavian playgrounds, and I wonder whether we’ll see as much of it when we return home to the US.

Exploring playgrounds, trolls, and a forest hike with toddlers and children in Bergen, Norway Exploring playgrounds, trolls, and a forest hike with toddlers and children in Bergen, Norway

The slide looks pretty standard…but then you realize that the plastic rain suits, plus the water coated metal, and the colossal puddle at the end of it practically turns this whole think into a makeshift high speed bobsled track that can only end in soaked clothes and shoes…fantastic when you haven’t even started your hike yet.  But forest school has made our daughter kind of oblivious to these things anyway and has taught me not to leave home without a change of clothes !  As my mother likes to say, we’re not made of sugar and we won’t melt.  Of all the things that have changed after our time in Scandinavia, I’d say complete disregard for whether is raining or not is high on that list.

Exploring playgrounds, trolls, and a forest hike with toddlers and children in Bergen, Norway

All in all, a playground is a great way to start a day when you’ll be asking a lot of your children  – kind of makes me think that there should be more of them anywhere!

Exploring playgrounds, trolls, and a forest hike with toddlers and children in Bergen, Norway

Toddler Travels: A Few Articles on Bergen!

While I still have to get a proper write-up about our toddler travels to Bergen, Norway, I thought I’d share a few pieces that I’ve contributed elsewhere around the web that could help those looking to do a trip to Norway with littles in tow!

A few articles around the web about traveling and hiking with small children and toddlers to Bergen, Norway,

The first was a piece for Outdoor Families Magazine about Bergen’s Whimsical Troll Forest and why you shouldn’t miss the hike.  It’s a perfect outdoors activity, even with little ones in tow (plus, they’ll get a huge kick of both the hike AND the trolls!).

The second was a piece for Travelettes about traveling to Bergen in the Off-Season.  We ended up going last year both in the peak of peak season in August as well as in the low of low season in December.  Both were great trips but if I had to do it again, I’d give off-season travel another try – especially with little ones in tow!