The story continues - part 2 - The Fjords

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Hello All!

Many apologies for not being in touch for so long, it´s been so hot that we simply haven´t been able to stand staying in an internet cafe long enough to write a blog!!! Anyway, we´ll have a go now. I´ll put this into a number of blogs so that you cn read through them at your leisure, pretend you got them a few days apart!

So part 2 - The fjords.

If you´ve ever seen a picture of the Norwegian fjords on a cruise brochure or holiday programme it is as beautiful as it is portrayed.

We decided to enter the fjords by boat and so hopped on board a ferry from Bergen to the small village of Fläm (pron. Flom, website for more pics here http://www.visitflam.com/default.asp) at the foot of the Sognefjord.

The weather as we left Bergen was not exactly promising however as we wound our way through inlets and bays along the coast of Norway it perked up substantially. The scenery along the coastline is one of fairly large villages with lots of houses having a jetty or boathouse, occassionally there´s a small factory for boat building or processing fish but there is so little industry that we did rather wonder what all the locals did for a living! Things became more clear however when we rounded a headland into a large channel with huge oil tankers as far as the eye could see, heading to and from the largest oil refinery in Europe. Norway, like ourselves, has lots of North Sea oil platforms (many of which appear to be refurbished at large boat building establishments along the coast) and all their oil appears to be processed next to the gorgeous fjords.

The trip through the fjords themselves can only be described as immensely scenic with beautiful blue water, high cliffs, narrow gorges and powerful waterfalls even in summer (at least the rain is useful for something!). I think the only way to properly describe them is with pictures of which this is a very small selection!

On arrival in the picturesque Fläm we discovered that there were no rooms available and so we went back along the fjord by coach (lots of tunnels and a bit of heading inland) to Aurland, a less touristy viallge which did have a room (with a fjord view - well we could see the water!) available and was infinitely quieter than Fläm. Here we spent a lovely relaxed afternoon and evening before heading off back to Fläm in the morning.

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