NORWAY

Norway.

A night in Oslo -

Day 15 - Friday 25th July

After a lovely flight we arrived at Oslo airport, which had a few nice touches. Surrounding the luggage conveyer belt was a big red line saying "stand behind". How civilised. No people pushing and climbing over each other to get their bag first. We then used the toilets and found the touch screen satisfaction survey machine. On exit there is a panel on the wall for you to rate your experience. "Was it clean?"  "Enough paper?" etc. 

Tickets for the express train into town were over $35 each, but research told us that a taxi would have been over $180. No taxis in Norway for us! But it was a very fast train - almost a bullet. It went "Fullfart!" (Yahh We got to use the word Fullfart in context. It's Norwegian for 'full speed ahead', a fact we learnt on the last cruise. It was still not dark at 11pm and was fully daylight at 4 am. Sarah was very confused at 4am as to why the crazy people up early for their days work were so noisy and in such high spirits, oh wait, just because it is full light out does not mean it is 7am. They were actually still up from their night out, ahh, makes sense. :P

Our hotel was run by robots. You walked in and entered details into a machine. Out popped keys, internet code and all. But finally, a really soft bed. Pity it was 1am before sleep time and we had to be up at 5.30.

It was then our epic adventure across Norway to see the Fjords.

A massive day but should be great.

6.45 AM  (YUCK) train from Oslo to Mydral - 5 hours

12.13  Flam Railway (Steepest railway in Europe)

1.20pm  Fjord Cruise

3.30pm   Bus out of Fjord

5.40pm Train to Bergen

7pm Arrive Bergen.

It started with a 5 hr trip on a train to Mydral. Pretty impressive scenery along the way and so much water!  

Each house has massive wood piles, mostly undercover, and SO organised. Perfectly split and stacked with mathematical precision. Even if you ran your fire 24/7 for nine months a year, they would have years worth of wood stacked at each house.

The other thing we noticed was the amount of hay! If the land was not covered in trees or built on it was producing hay - by the side of the road, parks etc

Then a one hour train trip on the Flam Railway, a 20 k journey between Myrdal (866 metres above sea level) to Flam (2 metres). It's got a maximum inclination of 55%. That's a climb of 1 metre down for every 18 metres forward. AKA very steep.  The trip took an hour.

We stopped at a very stunning waterfall. Very majestic and got quiet wet from the spray. It was huge - a 93 metre free fall of water. But then a lady stepped out from behind the lovely stone ruin and stared singing what we presume to be a Viking Lament. Quiet nice but a bit strange.

A two hour boat trip down to Gudvangen on the Sognefjord - Norway's longest and deepest fjord.  

The whole area is a UNESCO site and not too shabby at all. Very similar to the NZ sounds. We did see a seal.

We packed a picnic as research told us food was ridiculously expensive and particularly bad on this trip and we had fun munching along the way. A few bottles of a lovely cider went down well.

The one hour bus trip down the Stalheimsklevia Road was interesting to say the least. Talk about steep and twisty. There were 13 hairpins, most of which the driver got around in one go. We would sit and let the bus in front get a lead of a few hundred metres then go. SO MANY waterfalls.

We have been carting empty "Voss" water bottles with us since Dubai (and refilling them to use in our bedrooms). Voss is an expensive brand of bottled water from Norway. They are great for drinking out of, when we fill them up that is. And today we refilled them with Voss water - while we were in Voss, Norway. How cool is that????

Then back onto the main train line for a 90 minute train trip to Bergen.

A night in Bergan - Accom Raddison Blu Royal. When we arrived in quiet, peaceful little Bergen we were greeted by the 2014 Tall Ships championship. There are about 50 tall ships in town and tonight is the final night of the celebrations. 50 ships, hundreds of crew and many, many thousands of tourists. There is a major street festival on with heaps of seafood restaurants set up. Pity a plate with four chunks of Salmon and some potato salad was $45. But the main reason we couldn't eat seafood - every stinking one of the shops had whale meat for sale. Kind of forgot that about Norway!

But the streets were fun with sailors everywhere, live music, big screens, huge fireworks (even though it doesn't really get dark).
And Bergen is still really pretty.

It was very funny that we both commented on the fact that it would be great to get away from the masses of people in Prague. Oh Well. Bergen will be quite again by Monday.
But we don't care 'cause we are going on a cruise tomorrow.