A weekend in Trysil – Road trip and Bolleland

Trysil is only a couple of hours drive from Oslo, so in the winter months, it’s a popular destination for the ski-crazy people in Oslo. You usually go with a group of friends and rent a big cabin to share for the weekend. Most Norwegians have their own skis and equipment, so a weekend in the mountains doesn’t have to be expensive.

My Swedish friend AC lives in Oslo, and about a month ago she asked me, if I wanted to join her and her friends for a weekend trip to Trysil. I had to think about it, because even though I worked one season at another ski resort in Norway, it was more than 16 years ago, and I haven’t been skiing since then. Though after a while, I said yes, and last Friday, we drove up to Trysil.

AC had made a playlist with after ski music, including Markoolio’s hit “Vi drar till fjällen” which dates all the way back to the last time I went skiing. We also listened to the Swedish and Norwegian version of Freddy Kalas’ “En pinne for landet”, which is after ski techno at its very best. If you’re going skiing, you must add those two tracks to your playlist.

The first stop was Bolleland at the gas station in Espa, some 100km north of Oslo, where we went to purchase some of the famous Espa Boller. The freshly baked wheat buns are only sold at Bolleland, and they have become a local attraction. In 2017, Bolleland’s  goal is to sell more than 1.7 million buns, and according to the Bolleteller (bun counter) on their website, they’ve already sold 320,000 so far, so I’m sure they’ll reach their target.

You can choose among a number of different flavors, and 10 buns are 89 NOK, which is cheap for Norway. I liked the ones with chocolate the best, but the ones with caramel were also very nice.

An hour’s drive from Trysil, we also stopped at a grocery store to buy food for the weekend, because food in Trysil is really expensive. By the time we were done with the shopping, we managed to hit the rush hour traffic from Oslo to the mountains, so the last part of the trip went very slow.