We’ve all been a hotel in a major city and been shocked by the prices of items in the minibar and room service like £4 for a coke, £5 for a small tin of Pringles, or £12 for a sandwich.

            We often laugh off the prices and go out and find food that is more suitably priced. But there is one country where every shop is priced like a five-star hotel in a major city — Norway.

            I had heard the rumours that Norway is among the world’s most expensive cities. I figured something was up when the hotel staff in Copenhagen complained that Norway was ridiculously expensive.

            If someone from a Scandinavian country tells you someplace else is expensive, you know it will be expensive.

            Our first experience of this was at the aviation museum in Bodø, Norway. After walking around this magnificent museum, we still had about 45 minutes to kill before our bus ride back to the cruise ship. Not having had anything to eat or drink since a mid-morning snack, we went to the museum’s café and ordered three Coke Zeroes and a Fanta.

            That came out to £16.

            I believe I can buy two cases of 24 cans of coke for that price in Costco.

            This made me look closer at pricing. It is roughly 10 Norwegian Kroner to the pound currently. In one restaurant, an order of toast cost £6.50 while a garden salad cost £16.50. Petrol cost about £1.55 a litre.

            Norway is extremely expensive. Sure, Norwegians are among the highest paid people in the world, but that is offset by a high cost of living.

            The real benefit comes from the socialist benefits of high prices. The majority of the price of anything in Norway is tax which is used to improve the country. The two biggest benefits are the government-paid child care and education programmes. And, the education is paid for for both local and international students from nursery all the way to PhD in university.

            This is one of the few countries with an honest government.

            Our tour guide in Bergen pointed out a bridge that was built in the mid-1990s connecting the city to some suburbs. The Norwegian government put a £25 toll charge to cross the bridge with the promise of removing the toll charge once the cost of building the bridge was paid off. And they did. I can’t see any other western governments removing a tax. Remember, income tax was a war measures act, but someone forgot to tell our governments the war is over.

            A trip around Norway shows how the taxation revenue has benefitted the country: excellent road surfaces, reforestation programmes, education, child care, health care, and more are evident in a country that has one of the highest standards of living with a relatively low crime rate.

            While I wholeheartedly recommend a visit to this beautiful Scandinavian country, I would forewarn you to save up for the high costs ahead.