Bergen to Flam and back....

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Thursday 17th August - Bergen to Flam and back...



We left on the 09.59 local train to Myrdal - stopping at 10 stations and going through tunnels between each town. The train went fast enough in the tunnels for my ears to pop, but it was a fairly slow trip around the edge of the fjord. The scenery was fantastic wth sheer cliffs down to the water and houses built on the mountain sides... some with a small farm - no animals outside, but paddocks cut for hay, stored in wrapped bales. Some parts reminded me of Queenstown - lake and mountains. It was very cold at Myrdal, and we had lunch in the cafe while waiting for the excursion train down to Flam. This train goes from 866 m above sea level to 2 m asl in 20 kms, so one of the steepest in the world, and most picturesque. We stopped for 5 mins at a spectacular waterfall - Kjos - which flows from the mountain top lake and through a power station to the river below. It takes an hour to get down (or up) and the road built for access to build the railway - now a cycleway - could be seen zig-zagging up the mountainside. The train was full, as they all are at this time of year - 10 trains each way per day. We thought Myrdal was busy, with the cafe and souvenir shop full of people, but that was nothing compared with Flam at the bottom. There was a huge cruise ship moored at the wharf in the fjord - Aurlandsfjord, an arm off Songefjord, the longest and deepest fjord in Norway, and 10 tourist buses parked there too, so plenty of tourists around.

There were other smaller boats which did cruises on the fjord, but having just been on a boat for 3 days, we opted not to do this. We wandered around and had a look at the museum, which outlined the building of the railway, firstly for access to the fjord from the Oslo to Bergen railwayline, back in the early 1900s. The souvenir shop was the largest I've ever seen - like a small supermarket, and it was packed full of tourists. It was really warm at Flam, quite a contrast from up the mountain.

We took a local bus back to Voss - firstly going through 2 tunnels - one 5kms and the 2nd 11kms long, under the mountain to Gudvangen, then followed the river valley to Voss. The bus stopped many times and I was surprised at how many young people used cash to pay - usually shops etc prefer payment by card over here. We haven't taken any Norwegian krona out - just used our Visa card all the time. It arrived at Voss about 10 mins late, and we had to run for the train back to Bergen. It was a Regional train from Oslo and pretty full. We were told we didn't need to book seats, and it took us a while to find some spare ones.

It was raining when we arrived in Bergen (no surprise) and we found a shopping centre next to the Railway Station and had dinner at a cafe there. On the way back to the hotel, we saw and heard the end of the Bergen Symphony Orchestra's outdoor concert, with a sea of umbrellas over the audience. There was a covered stage for the orchestra, and a large screen behind it, so that they could be seen. The music was all film music.

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