Day 12: fjords

It was an early wake up day since we had to catch the fjord cruise at 8am . . . you know the early bird gets the best seats . . . after seeing the massive chaos at the breakfast area we decided to grab something at 7-11; yes a real 7-11 . . . and a yummy mozzarella and tomato panini at 7am! We were the first to arrive at the ferry terminal . . . so hoped to have the pick of the seats. Of course you know how Europeans can be when it comes to these types of things . . . we boarded first and picked seats on the bottom level in the front . . . headed upstairs and found an even better view so staked claim on our space. One last shot as we parted Bergen . . . can you tell how much I loved this row of colorful houses?
So Bergen is proud to only have 60 days of sunshine a year . . . so you can guess how the weather was as we took off . . . raining! The travel book said that Bergen towns people cheerfully remind tourist, "There's no such thing as bad weather -- just inappropriate clothing." Well, so true but we were inside for the cruise so things were fine . . . of course there was no way I was staying inside because I wanted to get outside and see the fjords without staring through glass and smell the fresh air too. So while I spent a lot of time viewing the fjords from this view . . .
. . . nothing compared to being outside and seeing it like this . . . yes, the weather was just like that but you know when you travel and have limited time to see things . . . well the show must go on!
One of the weirdest parts of the trip was doing a transfer in the middle of the fjord . . . our ferry literally pulled up next to a waiting ferry . . . tossed the bags across and the people walked a small bridge . . . we were so close you could almost touch the other people.

The fjords are something that I have always wanted to see and now that I have had a small taste, well it is something I want to explore more . . . Norway is the most beautiful place I have seen . . . not to mention the most expensive too . . . so have not even looked at my online banking because I just know it will shock me, LOL! Oh well, it was vacation and one that I thoroughly enjoyed so I can always make more money.

As the ferry ended in Flam we caught the Flamsbana (train) to Myrdal. By this time the weather had cleared a bit and the views were again amazing . . . really it was that beautiful. This section of the trip was pretty interesting. It was only a 12 mile trip but took an hour . . . we started in Flam at sea level (0) and ended in Myrdal which is 2,800 feet above sea level. At one point the train stopped so we could get off and take photos of this waterfall . . .

At another point we had to stop so the reverse route train could pass . . . only one section has double tracks. We noticed a girl jump off the train and manually switch the tracks so the other train could pass . . . notice the waterfall above us . . . a lot of that in Norway and tons of bridges too.


Hmmmmm, the thought of a train full of several hundred tourist getting off to snap a photo and get back on in 5 minutes sounded sort of nightmarish but surprisingly it worked.

It was time to head back to Oslo so we could catch our flight back to Germany in the morning . . . hard to believe the trip was coming to an end. Glad I went and have no regrets!