I’ve always wanted to see fjords in Norway, and seeing as we’d have such a short time in the country it was natural to check out “Norway in a Nutshell” – a tour package sold online that allows you to traverse the country from one side to the other, mostly by train, but also including a cruise through one of the UNESCO fjords.
There is no rule preventing someone from checking out the itinerary of the trip and booking the tickets themselves, so that’s what I did in advance (and saved quite a bit of money, too). Today was the day of the trip, and we needed to get an early start.
One thing we did that was a big help was pay a porter service to pick up our suitcase from our hotel in Oslo and deliver it to our hotel in Bergen at the end of our route. Since we had only one suitcase it was reasonable, and it really made our trip easier. Of course we could have dragged a suitcase along – there was plenty of storage for luggage on all the transportation we used – but not having to worry about it was worth the extra money.
So we had to catch a 6:30 am train and we stopped at the markets that we had reconned yesterday, and then went to the platform. The train was already waiting, with a huge group of big senior citizen Americans shuffling towards their train car. We managed to get in front of the slow moving crowd and then got on to our train car. We entered from the opposite side as our seats so we had to swim upstream a little, but at last we arrived at our seats. They were facing what seemed to be the wrong direction – most other passengers were facing the other way – but when it left we were facing the direction of travel so lucky us.
There were a lot of Japanese and Americans on board sitting around us. In front of us was a 4-set of seats facing each other with a table between them. In one pair of seats a couple of older Americans were sitting, who turned out to both be widowed and traveling together after recently starting a relationship. Across from them were a younger couple, an American soldier based in Japan with his Japanese girlfriend who spoke British English but worked for the military as a nurse.
The older guy in the widow couple was quick to strike up a conversation, and thanks to his ceaseless questions I was able to ascertain the previous information about them. I started to feel bad for the younger couple who were forced to answer all the questions, and so glad that our tickets ended up being one row away.
We enjoyed our breakfast while watching the scenery outside of Oslo, the change from city to rural happening very quickly. There was a lot of open space stretching out to the mountains, and the landscape reminded me a lot of the game Valheim that I had played so much of last year. It felt like I had been here before.
Some houses had immaculately trimmed lawns in the backyard, looking like something out the American 1950’s suburbs. Mostly the train followed the river, and offered some pretty dramatic scenery. Looking around the train car most people were either sleeping, using their phone, or answering personal questions. They were missing out on some beautiful views. About halfway through near the town of Bromma I saw a house that was absolutely haunted. Surrounded by nothing but forest, I couldn’t imagine approaching that place at night. Spooky!
One odd moment was when the sun started rising, burning bright light across the train car and glaring in people’s eyes. I had my sunglasses ready as I was enjoying the view, but the window shade on my window was also the window shade for the group in front of us, and they wanted to drop the shade – I wasn’t happy to give up my view so I told them so. We sort of compromised by pulling it down a bit, but I knew that once the shade went down it would be up to me to convince them to put it back up.
The train climbed up the mountains and eventually reached the small town of Myrdal. It was here that we got off and waited for our connecting train. There was snow up on the mountain tops, a dramatic view of the Flåm valley, and people were getting excited for the next stage. When the Flam train came, we got a nice seat as people were aggressively jockeying for position. The train then descended into the valley, passing through tunnels now and then. The video screen above displayed video images of the valley around us as we passed through the tunnel – good idea!
There were dramatic views everywhere – spectacular waterfalls that fell from the tops of mountains, and striking river scenes below. Someone would gasp, “Oooh!” and then people would jump up and try to take pictures with their phones, then an “Aahh!” from the other side and they’d jump up again and snap away. Because of the light, the glass and the reflections I didn’t take many photos – but instead tried to soak it into my memory.
At one point the train stopped next to a particularly large waterfall, and let people out to take pictures close up. Kuniko got out and took some photos and I stayed to hold our seats. There was a lot of water moving through the falls, and mist was rising quite high in the air.
The train suddenly played some new-age dramatic music from the speakers both inside and outside the train, and you could tell they really wanted it to be a moment to remember. Kuniko did a pretty good impression of the music the rest of the trip and had us laughing each time.
The next stop was the terminal station at Flam, and the beginning of the next stage of our trip. Flam sits on one end of the fjord network we were planning on cruising through. But it also receives cruise ships, and to see a huge cruise ship towering next to the tiny town was pretty impressive. These fjords must be deep to allow something of that size to cruise in.
Thanks to that cruise ship there were a ton of tourists in Flam. There were food trucks, a brewpub, a cafe, and another restaurant, along with some tourist shops and a convenience store. That was about it for Flam, but it was our lunch break so we went to the brewpub first to try some of their beer. I lined up to get some food downstairs, but upon arrival they said that food was only upstairs, so I settled for a tasting flight of their beers. I ordered a 7-up for Kuniko but got an orange Fanta instead.
The beers were pretty standard, except for their Aegir IPA which was exceptional. After sipping here we went to get some food at another restaurant, and while ordering a customer in front of us tried to take our drinks for some reason. The food was pretty good, though – we had fish soup, roasted lamb with vegetables, and I had another Aegir IPA.
I was liking the beer so much that we went back to the brewpub to buy a T-shirt. The staff was busy pouring so it was tricky to get someone to come over, but eventually we did. She asked us what size shirt and Kuniko said “X” – but the lady understood and gave me the extra large shirt.
It was time to get ready for the fjord cruise, so we went to the ship and the line was huge! There were multiple tour groups, and we listened to a Japanese tour guide explaining things behind us. Once we boarded we walked around – the ship had a cafe, and a multilevel design that allowed for plenty of rails on all sides so that everyone could get an unobstructed view. We managed to get a good spot up front, and once the boat left the cool air was blowing in our faces as we headed up the fjord – it was a fantastic feeling.
Looking down into that deep still water it was easy to imagine my phone dropping in there never to be seen again, taking all our vacation photos with it, so I was mainly using my other camera that has a strap. Because of our position we were often asked to take photos of people, which is always fun.
A big family of Indian people were really enjoying themselves. The teenage kids less so, with lots of complaints and drama. But you could tell the parents were happy to be doing a big family trip.
After passing beautiful waterfall after beautiful waterfall, even the dramatic natural beauty wasn’t enough to keep us out in the sun, so we went inside for some sparkling wine and to rest for the last 30 minutes or so of the cruise. We got off the cruiser in Gudvangen – as I walked off the ramp onto terra firma I made a goofy face at Kuniko and she snapped a great picture of it.
The next stage was taking a bus to the Voss train station, and there were plenty of buses waiting for us. We bought a ticket on the bus from a large driver who was wearing really cool sunglasses. We told her so, and she looked happy to hear it. We rode the bus for just 15 minutes or so and then the driver announced a stop at a hotel for a break – it seemed like the hotel was paying kickbacks. We didn’t go inside but most other people did, and outside we saw a father lose patience with his daughter who was freaking out. He got a little rough which alarmed me, but later we saw him holding her and they both seemed OK.
The bus continued on to Voss, and dropped us off at the train station there. We already had our tickets so it was just a matter of lining up on the platform. We saw the Indian family again on the opposite platform, and this time their son was shouting and complaining that everyone in his family was blaming him for something he didn’t do. I thought it might be exhausting to travel with that family.
We caught our train and sat down, again the train was full of mostly Japanese and American passengers. Around us a Japanese family sat and talked about their upcoming visit to Sweden. Down a few seats a lady brought her dog on board, and it was cute to see a little boy politely ask the lady if it was OK to pet the dog. The dog was happy to get the attention but kept checking back with the owner to make sure everything was OK.
This was a shorter train ride from Voss to Bergen, and it was past 8 pm. Outside the sun was still out, and the scenery remained beautiful. Lakes, tiny towns, and still waterfalls here and there – I wonder if the residents realize how good they have it.
We arrived in Bergen at 8:45 pm, and thanks to Kuniko our hotel was right next to the train station. Our hotel’s restaurant was pretty lively, and there was a nice bar too. We checked in, our bag was waiting for us, and so we brought it up to our very Scandinavian room. We were still looking to eat dinner so we headed out to take a look at Bergen.
It was still light outside (and a little cold) and we could enjoy some sightseeing as we worked towards the center of town. There were a lot of younger people out at this time of the evening. The restaurant that I had picked had changed from a traditional seafood restaurant to a party bar, which wasn’t the vibe we were looking for. Another restaurant had a long line, so we ended up at a place called Egon – which apparently is a chain since we had our hotel breakfast there in Oslo.
It wasn’t a traditional cuisine restaurant really, but we ordered a cod dish that was tasty, some shrimp that was cooked in a spicy Thai style, and I had a local juicy IPA that I had been wanting to try. The servers there were super-friendly and everyone spoke English so it was easy to order. It was a little strange that we had to order from the counter, not the table. An old guy was there flirting with the staff, who took it goodnaturedly.
It was a short meal for us since it had been such a long day, so from there we walked back to our hotel and went straight to bed – pretty exhausted!
