Norway....
....for four days we visited this beautiful country and enjoyed our time immensely!
Our knowledge of the history, culture and geography of Norway was quite limited....
....but we quickly learned that Norway is a land of diversity....
....and beauty!
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
The flight to Oslo on Norwegian Airlines departed Warsaw at 10pm on Wednesday evening.
After arriving in Oslo at close to midnight....
....we rode a regional train into the center of town, and then took a taxi to our hotel.
The taxi driver got lost for a few minutes but got us there close to 1am.
The next day, we found out it was only a 15-minute walk from the train station to the hotel....but at 1am, who wants to bother with figuring that out?
Thursday, May 22, 2014
After breakfast we walked back to the central train station to pick up our tickets that would take us across Norway from Oslo on the east to Bergen on the west.
The two-day journey was called "Norway in a Nutshell", and took us across the country by two trains, a ferry boat, a bus, and a final train ride.
Before our first train ride we had a couple of hours to walk a few streets, relax, and get a feel for Oslo....
....but we saw only a very small portion of Norway's capital.
From what did see, we thought Oslo to be a pretty city.
Old buildings, streets for pedestrians only, lovely flowers and new construction were some of the things we saw.
One of the symbols of Norway are trolls....important characters from Scandinavian folklore.
In Oslo we saw the first of many trolls that we saw in Norway.
Leaving the hotel after a very short visit....less than 12 hours....
....we walked back to the central train station.
This was perhaps the cleanest, brightest and most inviting train station that we have been to in Europe.
I took a few minutes to study our two-day travel plan....
....and found the map below in our brochure. The first leg of the journey would be a 5-hour train ride on the Bergen Railway from Oslo to Myrdal. Then a 1-hour ride north on the Flåm Railway to....Flåm....where else?
We would spend the night in Flåm, and the next day board a ferry for a 2-hour trip on a fjord to Gudvangen. From Gudvangen a bus took 1 hour to get us to Voss, where we got back on the Bergen Railway for the final leg of the journey into Bergen.
The initial leg on the Bergen Railway would begin around noon.
The initial leg on the Bergen Railway would begin around noon.
After the train arrived we boarded and settled into our seats.
Leaving Oslo, we soon passed beautiful waters and countrysides.
The scenes often reminded us of Oregon, Washington, Utah and Colorado in the U.S....
....with acres and acres of evergreen trees, lakes and streams.
Passing beautiful streams and rivers...
....and many red buildings.
I had read that many of the buildings in Norway are red....
....and when we asked someone about it, we were told that the three traditional colors for buildings in Norway were a strong red, yellow or white. The color of any particular building traditionally depended on one's profession, financial situation, or geographic location. Red was the least expensive paint color to produce, and so it was used most often.
The farmlands....
The farmlands....
Traveling by train for five hours was not at all boring....the countryside was beautiful and the view was always changing.
The lush green vegetation covering the hillsides was amazing.
Also amazing was how the weather changed during the trip.
Since our breakfast was late, we had planned to have lunch on the train. The menu was in both Norwegian and English....
....and we are always grateful when there is an English translation.
Many, perhaps most Norwegians also spoke English....lucky for us!
There were a number of stops on the 5-hour journey on the Bergen Railway....
One stop was called "Finse". It is a mountain village centered around the railway station.
It is 1,222 meters (4,009 feet) above sea level....the highest station on the entire Norwegian railway system....and a very different landscape than the lush countryside we had seen on the way here.
Interesting facts about Finse....there are no public roads to this village...it is a popular place for cross country skiing....and because of its chilling landscape, Finse was chosen to be the location for filming the ice planet "Hoth" in "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back".
Though cold and almost barren, Finse was not the bleakest place we saw. Further on from Finse, more and more snow and ice covered the ground....until there was no vegetation of any kind at all!
Frozen lands....in springtime in Norway!
Looks quite bleak and lifeless....a whole different world!
Myrdal, Norway
After five hours riding across the Norwegian countryside, we came to Myrdal....and disembarked from the Bergen Railway to wait 15 minutes to board the Flåm Railway to the little town of....Flåm.
Like Finse....
....there are no road connections to Myrdal....
In the background of the photo above, the train to Bergen from which we had just left is passing into the tunnel to continue its journey.
So instead of traveling from east to west....
The train soon arrived, and the passengers from Flåm disembarked in Myrdal.
That was lucky because there are no assigned seats on the Flåm Railway. So with few passengers in our car, we could sit anywhere we wanted.
The reason there were few passengers might have been because earlier in the day there had been a rock slide somewhere along the line, and the railway was closed for much of the day. During the closure, people traveling to Flåm had to go by bus instead of the railway. We didn't find this out until later, so didn't know how lucky we were to have been able to board the first train going to Flåm that day.
I am looking at the map of the route we would be traveling.
Only a few minutes after the journey began....
Waterfalls are always beautiful to see and capture in picture....
....but never have we seen so many waterfalls as we saw during our 4 days in Norway!
We took turns shooting pictures with both our iPad and camera.
Too many waterfalls to count....
....that we got our pick of windows to hang out of when taking pictures.
The Flåm Railway took 16 years to build because of the rugged terrain through which it passes. There are 20 tunnels through granite mountains.
The main supply road for building the railway can be seen in the picture above....a dirt road with 21 sharp turns. Today the road is used for hiking and cycling.
The Flåm Railway is the third-most visited tourist attraction in Norway, and one can see why....
....there are magnificent mountains, valley and waterfalls.
One of my favorite scenes....approaching the village of Flåm, Norway.
It was such a beautiful sight approaching this little town.
Flåm is located in a typical Norwegian valley....a valley carved by ancient glaciers, and featuring gorgeous mountains, fjords and waterfalls!
The train passed homes and barns....
After arriving in Flåm at 6 p.m....
....we disembarked and stood on the train platform for a few minutes, soaking in the astounding beauty of the valley.
The walk from the train to the hotel was short, as this area of Flåm is laid out for the tourists. Our hotel was the Fretheim, one of only two hotels in this little town.
....where the Fretheim Hotel sits today is the former site of Christen Fretheim's farm!
At about 7 p.m. it took a while to find an open restaurant....it was either too early or too late for dinner, we weren't sure which.
Perhaps it was because we were there a week before the "high season" of tourists was to begin on June 1....but we were still surprised at how quiet the town was, so early in the evening.
....here are just two of the drawings.
Mark and I shared a Viking platter...I. liked the foods a little and Mark liked them all a lot!
From right to left on the platter....local lobster (more like a large crawfish), smoked reindeer (we ate Rudolph!), fish soup (shrimp, mussels, etc.), roast goat, and apple cake (a Norwegian tradition).
It was after 9 p.m., and there was so much daylight still. Sunset was at 10:15 p.m., and it stayed light until after 11:00 p.m. There was plenty of time to explore, but it had been a long day and we were tired.
This sign was on a shop window and we couldn't agree more....
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