May 12
Today was our trip back to Oslo via the Norway in a Nutshell tour. As advertised, it was incredible. We started on the 8:45 train from Bergin to Voss. The scenery on the trip was beautiful, but nothing like what was to come. At Voss, we had 10 minutes to make our way to the busses for our 60-minute drive to Gudvangen. The majority of the people from the train were on this tour so there were about 175 of us in four buses. The scenery on this part of the trip was spectacular. There was one section, about 1.5km long, that were hairpin turns down a steep section of road. The driver told us that this was the steepest road in Norway. Peter wasn’t thrilled but it was over in just a few minutes.
Once we arrived, we walked just a short way to where the ferry was docked. This leg of the trip was a 2-hour ride on two of the deepest fjords in Norway. Once again, the scenery amazing. The ride ended in the small village of Flam where we had 2 ½ hours before the next train. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and warm so we enjoyed sitting outside for lunch and taking a walk around the harbor area.
The Flam Railroad, or Flamsbana, was the next leg of the journey. The railroad started construction in the early 20s and was completed in 1940. The original trains were pulled by steam engines but switched to electric in 1947. The cars are old-fashioned rail cars and since this is a tourist attraction, there was narration along the way pointing out highlights. It’s probably redundant to say this, but the scenery was truly spectacular. It’s easy to see why this is the #1 tourist attraction in Norway. Shortly before arriving in Myrdal, the train stopped for 5 minutes to give us the opportunity to take pictures of the Kjosfossen Waterfall. It freefalls over 350 feet and was awesome.
Once in Myrdal, quick a few folks took the train back to Bergen while the rest of us waited about an hour for the train to Oslo. That’s what we’re on now. It’s about 7:30pm and we still have another 3 hours to go. Ironically, the weather has clouded now that we’re coming out of the mountains and the scenery, while still very nice, isn’t quite as spectacular as it was earlier. Or maybe our eyes have just become immune to it. There was a beautiful sunset, though. We significantly further south again so the sun was down by about 10:30pm.
We probably won’t get this posted tonight as we don’t seem to have an internet connection on the train, and we get in too late tonight to mess with it. Hopefully we’ll post in the morning before we leave for Stockholm. We’re having difficulty with our phone chargers and neither one of them is connecting to the computer anymore to download pictures. So, we have to upload them to the blog one at a time from the phones…. very time consuming. Our train doesn’t leave, though, until almost 2pm so we should have time in the morning. Lynn’s going to the laundromat in the morning but that shouldn’t take too long. First item on our to-do list in Stockholm is to search out new phone chargers. Hopefully we can find the ones that just have USB ports on the end instead of plugs so we can use them when we get home. But we’re pretty desperate right now so we’ll take what we can get.
Today is our last full day in Norway and we’ve really enjoyed our stay. For the most part it was quite relaxing and, except for one day, the weather was beautiful, even in Bergen which is the rainiest city in Europe with over 300 rainy days a year. We have only about 80 kronor left (about $10) but luckily most places prefer credit, even the laundromat, so we should be fine until we get to Sweden.
We’ll talk with you again soon.