A Norwegian Sceneryathon

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On the 22nd of May at 6:45 AM, Dick and I started what can only be described as a “sceneryathon”. It involved….(and read this slowly for the full impact) taking a taxi to a train, to another train, to a boat, to a bus, to a train, to another train, to yet another train, would you believe another train and finally to a plane…..all in 26 hours! It is officially called “Norway in a Nutshell” but it was more like shear insanity.

As we walked around the Oslo train station supermarket looking to fill our travel larder, we ran into our friend Marit with whom we had dinner a few nights before and knew she would be on the this particular train to Bergen. By 11:00 AM, our train table was resplendent with smoked salmon, ham, hard boiled eggs, cucumber, jam, bread and nectarines. Passengers near us looked like they were salivating as we enjoyed our feast.

We got off the train at Myrdal (and Marit continued on to Bergen) and immediately connected to the Flam Railway which was to bring us from some 3,000 ft. via series of switchbacks and excellent brakes all the way down to sea level at Flam. Suddenly the train stopped and we were invited to disembark to have a look at a magnificent waterfall. While taking photos of the cascading waters, epic type music began playing and two Viking goddesses appeared and starting singing Viking sagas!!!! We then got back on the train and viewed scene after scene of verdant valleys and more waterfalls until we arrived at Flam. After a quick lunch, we boarded the boat for a 2 hour trip down the fjord to the small, small town of Gudvangen. There, we boarded a bus which was to take us back up to the main railway line in Voss. The driver started off on a nice normal highway and a few minutes later made a right turn and shifted down into ultra low gear and set off on a switchback road that would have stopped a donkey or a mountain goat. Dick’s “hanging on” hand was turning blue and I simply could not look down hundreds of feet to the valleys below. And, oh yeah, we saw waterfall #237 (?) which rivaled the one with the Viking goddesses!!!! The driver got a round of applause when we arrived safely in Voss.

At around 7:30 PM we got on the train to Bergen then…..oops, we had a mechanical so we had to change trains at the Ole Olsen (or something) station to finally arrive at Bergen. That was OK, tho because we still had time for a typical Norwegian-Vietnamese dinner, a short walk around old town for some daylight at 10 PM photos and then boarded the night train for the 10:58 PM night train back to Bergen. The seats reclined nicely, they gave us each a blow up pillow, eye shades, ear plugs and a tiny blanket.
We went back thru the same snow and ice fields above the tree line which we had seen on the day train as I tried to get some sleep. At one point, I looked at my watch and it read 7:30 AM and we seemed to be in a tunnel instead of being back in Oslo at 6:26 AM. We still had to take a connecting train from Oslo to the airport and our flight to Berlin left at 9:11 AM ….but the conducter made an announcement that he had no idea what time we would arrive at Oslo because there were switching problems and track blockage ahead!!! We finally arrived in Oslo 1.5 hours late and quickly ran to get our luggage out of the lockers and ran to the Airport Express Train. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we apologize for a 5 to 10 minute delay……….unbe#$%^inglieveable!!!! That train finally got us to the airport and we breathlessly put ourselves in front of the check in counter at the Norwegian Shuttle….with me fully prepared to start my browbeaten senior citizen routine…..until the young lady said that the flight had been delayed until 9:30 and we had time to buy a cup of coffee before going to the gate!!!!!

Now, you’d think that those 26 hours were more than enough for one day, but after the plane landed in Berlin and we got to the location of the apartment we had rented, we had another 1.5 hours of drama. I think I will save that story for another day and simply go to bed………enough is enough !!!!!!!

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