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Norway countryside
View from the bus on the nutshell tour. The water in the glacial lakes was so perfectly still you can't tell which is up and which is down. Today was almost an entire day of traveling. Contrasted with the previous few days in which we spent almost the entire day on our feet and walking, this was a cake walk. We left Bergen this morning and, as usual, were running to the train station for an 8:40 train. On the way, in the middle of the cobblestone sidewalk (with these incredibly painful gutters breaking up the sidewalk every 15 ft or so) one of the wheels on my suitcase finally gave up the ghost. (I'm still impressed with how far it made it and how much crappy terrain I covered. It's actually some random company called Advantage, not Samsonite like I thought.) One wheel down, I managed to limp to the train and we made it just in time. This time our seats were considerably better than the night train.
The Norway in a Nutshell tour is a package deal that nicely fits a field trip to the famous Norway fjords with a train-window view of the amazing countryside, all with the practicality of receiving transportation between the 2 major cities in Norway: Bergen and Oslo. The first leg was just a regular train to the bus, but
Norway countryside
View from the bus on the nutshell tour. the bus was an adventure. Most of the roads in Norway are still 1 lane, and the tour buses (there was a caravan at that point) all pass each other on this steep, windy road. We actually scraped at one point. We were on the steepest road in Norway...without guardrails. I wonder what the training is for those bus drivers... We had some GREAT views of the countryside from the bus -- very different from the "big cities". We were in the back of the second bus, so by the time we got to the ferry, we were almost the very last ones on. We hiked up to the 3rd floor (top) but there were no seats anywhere. While considering standing up top for the 2 hour cruise (we've done way worse in the past week) we wandered back down to the bottom floor. It was empty except for a couple of people, with a perfect view and tons of room. I spent the journey perched on the bow of the boat with a comfortable recline and unobstructed view (and no pestering sea gulls being fed by the tourists).
When you look at a fjord, you think "wow, a
Norway countryside
View from the bus on the nutshell tour. glacier made this...cool." When you ride through one for 2 hours constantly looking up at the GINORMOUS mountains on either side and the little toy houses sprinkled every once in a while at the bottom, you really feel small. That's when the grandeur and majesty of the fjord really sinks in. 2 hours is a long time to reflect. I don't think I'm coming back a different person after "soul-searching" but it was a cool experience. I would give it 4 stars -- a must in Norway.
We debarked from our tour (after a morning of pefect, almost cloudless skies, not too hot or cold, and sunny weather) in a tiny (TINY) town of Flåm (pronounced Floom). There really is almost nothing there. We had about an hour til the train (or 2 if we took the later one). After a casual stroll through the grocery store (where I finally found the famous Norwegian cheese -- it's brown and sweet. Weird. Kind of like caramel cheese), we decided to take the short hike around the town. 30-min later, our "town tour" ended up showing us THE one "neighborhood" (a couple of houses) in the area. We did see a
Norway countryside
View from the bus on the nutshell tour. goat though. And probably the happiest cows on earth -- the entire region is so amazing! We were sitting at the bottom of a giant gourge, on the waterfront, between 2 huge mountains with a loud waterfall nearby.
We boarded the train for Myrdal and began the most scenic train ride in Europe. The Flåm-Myrdal train ride is in every guidebook and is well-worth the rave reviews. Gorgeous view after gorgeous view, we stopped at this huge waterfall (but couldn't go outside unless you want to be soaked with spray). It's amazing they can even get the train to some of these remote mountain locations. I can't imagine what was involved to build it.
A short hour later and Justin and I were parting ways at the Myrdal train station. While he has another week to go to northern Norway (I'm so jealous!) I had to get back to Oslo to wrap up my Scandinavia tour. The train ride back was GREAT. The train was only half-full and I think I had the best seat on it. Halfway there, a huge tourist group got off (at a no-name town in the middle of NOWHERE) and there were about
Justin in the mountains
We stopped at a hotel at the top of a mountain on the bus tour. Great views! 10 people left on the 7-car train. The trip from Bergen to Oslo really shows the diversity of Norway. With about 7% of it's land actually able to support crops, I could finally appreciate how true that really was. We started at the coastal town of Bergen, meandered to the fjord towns, then back out to the middle of the country via the snow-covered mountain tops. We were traveling through a frozen wasteland spotted with empty winter homes before the view slowly became greener. Out of the mountains, we were among the great lakes, rivers, and streams of the region. Although there are tunnels about every 30 seconds (really annoying if you're trying to get a good picture and just before you can click you're suddenly in a tunnel), every second was a great view. Towards the end of the trip (a total of 5 hours from Myrdal to Oslo), I nodded off a bit, only to wake up to more sedate scenes the likes of which I've seen in parts of New York. After the seemlingly endless last hour (I think anything, even traveling through beautiful countryside, gets boring after 5 hours) I arrived in Oslo. Left to single-handedly
Me in the mountains
We stopped at a hotel at the top of a mountain on the bus tour. Great views! wield my gimpy suitcase the 1/2 mile to the hostel, I arrived with blisters on not one but both hands. Ouch. I think I'll be getting a new suitcase...soon. If I can only stick it out for one more day....
The hostel is nice, but not as nice as the others. It's busy with tons of people playing foosball, using the internet (while not free it's handy being open 24 hrs), drinking some beer at the table, and watching tv. A flurry of activity after 1 in the morning. Unfortunatly I just don't have the stamina tonight. A week of 4-hour nights is taking its toll. I just want to roll into bed at this point. The crotchety old lady in my 6-bed room already complained about the light, so we'll see what happens when I go back up. By the way, that answers the question about whether there's an age limit at hostels: not the ones I've stayed at!
Thanks to all who've wrote comments. It's nice to hear little notes from home! (and for me to know someone's reading this besides the guy who tipped me off on the cheap beer in Stockholm). I think I
Norway countryside
A view of one of the great waterfalls from the bus -- this was at the point where we were on the steepest road in Norway. A windy corkscrew with about 5 buses trying to pass each other in either direction. Check out the rainbow at the bottom...mmm...skittles... figured out how to reply to comments, and if I did I replied to some. I also finally have a way to upload pics, so I'll be working on that... check the other blogs for pics from the past few days.
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darren.maher
non-member comment
great place
absoulutly briliant to see. :)