Scandic Nidelven, Trondheim, Norway: Go for the Breakfast
November 5, 2022
More post-COVID business travel in 2022. Trondheim, Norway is well north of Bergen and Oslo, situated on a Fjord, and is the home of NTNU where NPS was participating as adversary for a Ph.D. defense. That meant travel was dictated by university policy. Fortunately, breakfast was included.
In case you have forgotten what Norway is like, here is a video. About the same geographic size as California, Norway has only 5.4 million people. It is a gorgeous country.
Flying in to Trondheim is always an adventure, as you have to stop off in Oslo for customs and then brave the winds at the Trondheim airport. One poor old lady on my flight was literally screaming in fright as we made our approach and landing.
The great news is some of our good Norwegian friends were in town to greet us. Our first committee meeting was a very nice dinner out at the cozy Fagn bistrot.
The Scandic chain has done nothing to improve post COVID. A middle tier hotel chain on par with Marriott in the US or maybe Hyatt, Scandic pays more attention to their common areas and meeting rooms than they do to their actual rooms.
The Scandic Nidelven does boast the “best breakfast in Norway.” And the spread is actually quite good (and equally crowded). So go for the breakfast! I got two breakfasts in while in town.
The shower in my room (423 I think) looked something like this. Distinctly uninspired, yet functional and not plastic.
Views from the breakfast room over the Nidelva canals are very pretty.
In one minor wrinkle, my suitcases followed me into town by a day. That meant borrowing a coat and a dress shirt from friends just to stay warm and presentable.
The defense itself was interesting and fun. We minted a new doctor!
After which it was time to celebrate. First with a large dinner at Rive Gauche a droite (LOL) and then for some late night cocktails at the Britannia. The hotel has undergone major renovations and now has a world class cocktail lounge fittingly reminiscent of its London cousins.
We had to sort a major travel SNAFU on the way to the cocktail bar (NPS does sometimes drop packets, but we also bring along our credit card to buy entirely new packets…and sometimes a router.)
The next day a public talk at the university on Machine Learning Security was in order.
After lunch with the faculty (deeply interested in MLsec), there was a very short window for some tourism in Trondheim. The Rockheim museum is almost worth a visit..if you go with the right attitude it can be silly and fun.
The Trondheim sense of humor is even visible in the cafe signs. “probably the best espresso in the world” (more LOL).
After a parting Negroni at the Scandic bar (inundated with business types having a cocktail before their conference dinner), it was off to the airport to wait several hours for a quick flight to Bergen?
All in all, three showerheads for the Scandic Nidelven. Like the headline says, go for the breakfast.
Scandic Hotel, Lillehammer, Norway
August 26, 2019
It’s conference time at NPS, and you know what that means…conference hotel time.
The grounds of the Lillehammer Scandic are very nice
The Scandic chain seems to be one of those hotel chains that focuses lots of attention on its common areas and not so much on its rooms. This is a common hotel failure condition that older properties seem to suffer from more often than newer ones do.
That said, the staff is professional, courteous and helpful. Also the bar has Zacapa 23…so there’s that.
But you can have hamster cage 542. Good thing there is the back lawn to relax and hang out in and an excellent balcony for late night fun!
Welcome fruit and a personal note. Very nice.
Veneer abounds
The good news is that in the tiny bathroom, there is a glass shower.
The bad news is there is hardly room to turn around in the tiny bathroom.
Then again, the grounds.
Vietnamese food in Lillehammer is pretty not bad (at B&T Kafe og Mat), especially after a glass of wine by the river.
Lillehammer water pic.twitter.com/veAzfdNUOE
— noplasticshower (@noplasticshower) August 25, 2019
Two showerheads and a sincere wish that the rooms lived up to the rest of the property.
Scandic City Hotel Bergen, Norway
March 12, 2014
Bergen is a beautiful city of 250,000 surrounded by mountains and water. It’s a fantastic place to visit.
Bergen in the morning
Unlike Bergen, the Scandic hotel in the city (there is one at the airport too) is a bit generic for our tastes on this blog. I suppose Scandic is the Marriott of Scandenavia. Marriotts are something we avoid.
The bed has strange Norwegian bed fittings. Fun.
I am in 757, which according to the map on the door seems to be a representative room. The room is clean and nice, but worn. Think beautiful lines with pockmarks and cracks. There are some nice features, including free decent wifi and power by the bed. But there are things that need repair and/or replacement. For example there is a broken tile in the bathroom on the tub and a lingering mildew smell in the air.
Work pod with plenty of power.
A candy welcome amenity falls squarely in the Marriott category. It’s nice that they stopped by 7-11 so you don’t have to. But candy bar? OK.
Amentity?
Euro-shower = non-plastic. The most interesting feature is the security disaster that is generic shared soap dispensers. Nair? Poison? Ink? Norwegians just don’t think that way.
However, such a trusting nature does lead to real hangers (of which we approve).
The hangers trust you.
All in all a very low four showerheads for the Scandic. I’ve been here before mostly because it is a conference hotel in the city. There have got to be better places to stay in Bergen though.
Then again, the barman at the Scandic introduced us to Tesseron Extreme Cognac, a pricey but delicious elixer whose oldest components hail from 1906–>1858 range.
A late dinner at Sumo was workaday. Fine sushi, but nothing to write home about.
We will throw in an absolute gem in Bergen to round things out and end on a high note. The No Stress bar is super fantastic. Expert bartender Tessa Ostervold caused us to have a delightful evening after the noisy conference dinner. Thanks Tessa. Among other shenanigans, we concocted the OK Glass Cocktail as follows:
5 cl Blanton’s bourbon
2 cl Dolin’s red
1 sugarcube soaked in Peychaud’s and Angostura bitters
2 t of fernet branca
Shake. Serve up. Garnish with an orange peel expressed.
Tessa
There was pappy 20.
Pappy van Winkle 20 bourbon
Did I say super fantastic? I’ll be back. (And rumor has it that Tessa may open her own place in Bergen one day.)
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