06-24 Norway in a Nutshell Part 1

Today is one of those days that you look forward to on your vacation - kind of like the Pulpit Rock hike. You read and read about it and you decide that that would really be a cool thing to do. The Norway in a Nutshell Tour will take us from Oslo to Bergen on day 1 and then back the next day.

The route consists of a 4 ½ hour train ride to Myrdal, a 1 hour train ride to Flam, a 2 hour boat ride to Gudvangen, a 75 minute bus ride to Voss, and finally a 75 minute train ride to Bergen.

Up early this morning and we pack one backpack with stuff for overnight for the both of us, bringing both of our pillows. We check out of our room and put our luggage in the locked storage room at the Thon Hotel Astoria and then head to the hotel's breakfast. Same stuff here. Why do they eat beans and wieners for breakfast??

On to the train station. We find an open grocery store and after checking out the first one, the second one has some sandwiches for us. After getting two sandwiches and two cokes, we check to see which track we are on - track four. OK, 5 minutes and our train will be here.

We have reserved seats and there are a lot of people boarding this train. Most of the trains we travel on have 6 cars: Engine, 2 passenger cars, a café car, and then 2 more passenger cars. The Oslo to Bergen run has 1 more passenger car at each end for a total of 8 cars. We did not upgrade to Komfort class this time, but we were assigned a seat number which is wonderful, considering how many people are standing on the platform to board.

Here is something amazing to think about. The train enters the station about 10 minutes before it is scheduled to depart and hundreds of people are able to store their luggage and find their seat before the train departs ON TIME. Tickets are checked by the conductor AFTER the train is underway. This whole scenario happens 10’s of times per hour in these busy train stations. Why can’t we do that on airplanes?

We are traveling through lots of trees and farms. There are so many trees and so much water that it feels like we are in Western Washington.

Eventually we hit 4,000’ and there are no trees and still snow on the ground.

It is 46 degrees out when we reach Myrdal at 2,840’ elevation at 1pm. The train arrives from Flam and it’s a scramble to get a seat with your loved ones even though there are plenty of seats when everyone is settled.

The ride down to Flam at sea level is wonderful. The stop at the Kjosfossen waterfall was thrilling. The train stops for 5 minutes and everyone scampers out of the train to take a picture and then the whistle blows and back into their holes the mice scurry.

The train continues to descend through the Flåmsdalen valley.

We passed another Flam train going up the hill to Myrdal.

There are waterfalls falling off the mountains and waterfalls falling over rocks in the river. It’s as lovely as we wanted/imagined it to be.

We arrived in Flam. Then got onto a boat to cruise a couple of fjords to Gudvangen. It’s a beautiful sunny day and a rain storm struck us and then THIS happened! A rainbow on the water.

Buses were waiting for us in Gudvangen to take us up over the mountain to Voss. Along the way there were spectacular waterfalls that were posing for us.

From Voss we got back on a train going into Bergen. The neon sign inside the Bergen train station was pretty nice looking.

It’s 9pm and it has been a long day. Fortunately, the Thon Hotel Bristol is only a half mile walk and since we only have the one backpack it’s easy – so was getting to sleep.