When you see a fjord in the road, take it

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Today is an off day for cycling, so we decided to take the Norway in a Nutshell tour. It takes you by train to Voss, where you change to a bus and drive up and down the steepest road in Norway, down to Gudvangen and onto a ferry that takes you through the narrowest fjord around to another fjord, on to Flam, and then on a mountain road up to the top of a mountain, before you get on a train back to Bergen - all in a day. It was a scenic day, and today's pictures will tell the story of what we saw. A few highlights though.

Norway in a Nutshell is an unguided tour that is really just a sequence of tickets ... We had a good Rick Steves book that helped us understand how the tour worked, where the best places to sit were, and how to navigate from place to place. Other people didn't seem to have that same help - and we watched multiple couples in multiple languages discuss where they should go next and what they should be doing. One Japanese couple had an extended discussion - and part way though she paused to tell us that they were arguing; it was funny as we had had a similar discussion earlier in the morning, and there were three others conversations going on around us at the at the same time. The universal condition of traveling couples.

The coolest part of today for me was the boat tour of the fjords. The boat was amazing .. quiet and plush, with a pretty good app that had narration from various key points on the route. It was there that we found out that there are places - like farms and houses -that are only accessible by water. That cleared up a question we had on the train ride up, because we never saw a road or car leading to some of the houses. We also learned that way back when, to get mail to these parts, it was moved from farm to farm by the farmers. They were compensated for this service through a relief from taxes. At some point in the late 1800s though, the national post was formed, and the farmers didn't play that role anymore. It puts a new dimension to the saying that neither rain nor sleet nor ice or snow .... The government did build little post roads along the route that were narrow walk ways right down by the water to help out though.

Flam was one stop on our tour today, and in addition to the Mall of Norway, they had a nice railway museum. The museum celebrated building the first railroad that connected Flam to Bergen. It took nearly 20 years to build and tunnel through all the mountains to complete the railroad. It would take a crew of 9 men about one week to tunnel 2 meters. We saw some pictures of the men ... And they were nothing but tough looking.

They also had some of the bikes that fit over the rail tracks that inspectors and other workers would use. There was a motorized model and a bicycle model. The way both worked was to have the bike part over one track, and then an arm like thing that stretched over to the second to stabilize the contraption. We liked the bicycle model, and the story of the man who used it. He died young (47) when he met a train he wasn't expecting while on his train bike.

The Flam railroad was also very pretty ... We didn't see the fjords, but we saw a bunch of waterfalls and mountain valleys. The most spectacular waterfall was the Klosflossen. It was magnificent - and we stopped so that we could go out and listen to it, take pictures and feel the spray - which was quite cool.

Couple of Norwegian trivia points from our travels today

- Knute Rockne was born in Voss

- Voss is the Norwegian winter Olympic training site ... No Olympians seen today however

- Aurland - along our route today is where penny loafers come from

- Dave ate his reindeer hotdog ... I had one bite and just couldn't eat it ... Didn't bother Dave a bit though

- The Mall of Norway is in Flam ... A little smaller than the mall of America in Bloomington, but we still found some things to buy.

We also saw a few intrepid cyclists out and about today, and that got us thinking about what we could do Monday before we head home .... We had already thought about cycling, and now we just have to figure out where. It's back to the races tomorrow though, and we can't wait!

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Photos

At the beginning
Shortly after our discussion of where we needed to be

Closed Yarn Shop
At the train station ... who would have guessed?

Waterfalls
Waterfalls everywhere today

Stunning Scenery
Also everywhere

Fjord Cruise Boat
It was as awesome as it looks

What can I say
Pretty

More Scenery
A little cloudy and rainy today

A working vacation
Downloading the app to listen to the commentary

Dave is obsessed
With trolls and taking pictures of me by them

The train bike
could be fun ....