Bergen Norway

We woke about 7:30 and enjoyed the breakfast at the hotel. A traditional Norwegian breakfast of breads, yogurts with fruits and brown cheese. Very good! We then walked down to St. Olaf’s church which was used as inspiration for the church in Frozen. It is an English church that doesn’t have a congregation and it mainly for tourist and visitors of Balestrand. We then walked down to the dock to enjoy this beautiful and clear morning with the sun shooting down the two small fjords near the town. We headed back to the room at about 10 to pack up. Checked out at 10:45. We chilled at the hotel’s viewpoint for a while and headed down to the docs / aquarium area around 11:00 - 11:15. We rested there, enjoy the views, and snacked on a cliff bar til our ferry arrived. We met a Swedish girl, who was checking into the hotel just before us yesterday. She was on the docs too so we go to talk with her a bit. She traveled quite a bit and was finally exploring Norway some. She had a 5 year old back home and did most of her traveling years ago. She chose to do a short weeklong Norway trip since it is so close to Sweden. She was a lot of fun to visit with. She would also be on our Flåm train before grabbing a train from Myrdal to Oslo so we ran into her throughout the day.

The Ferry arrived right at noon. Balestrand isn’t really that far from Flåm but the ferry actually took us a little way up the UNESCO fjord past the turn to Flåm to see a waterfall. Got to Flåm right at 1:30. We grabbed some lunch at the food stands there and then sat in the grassy area to just take it all in and enjoy the food! After eating and then getting some pictures down the fjord, we went and checked out the Flåm Railway Museum for a bit and Emily bought a Bergen Christmas ornament (Christmas ornaments are our main keep sakes from trips). We were on the 4:05PM train out of Flam so that gave us 2.5 hrs in Flåm or so. We then did some more shopping / browsing before getting in line to get on the Flåm train.

We lined up about 10 minutes before the train arrived so we were pretty high up in line (it was first come first serve for window seats). We ended up with two facing window seats on the right side of the train in the first car. It was a 6 car train with two big electrics, one on each end to handle the steep grades. Our area was three seats wide and a daughter, mother and grandfather sat with us. The mom and daughter were from Denver and the grandpa was from Anchorage. They were on a big trip hitting Bergen, St. Petersburg Russia, Estonia, etc. they were fun to talk with. A Spanish man from the Canary Islands filled out our six. He was actually on our regional train down to Bergen as well and talked to us a while, while we waited at the Voss station (more on that later). The Flåm line was fantastic! 20 tunnels in 20 miles and steep grades with great views! We seemed to sit a long time at the halfway point waiting for the other train that was coming down to pass us. This made Emily nervous so she didn’t even get off the train to see the waterfall. Our connection in Myrdal (the Flåm Railway’s connection with the Oslo – Bergen line) was only 10 minutes and we got in with 3 minutes to spare. However, our train was on a side track and now scheduled 20 minutes late so that a late express train to Bergen could come through. So, I enjoyed checking the station area out. I saw the express come in and went to go watch the Flåm train leave since it was on the other side of the station. However, should of stayed with Emily as she reported they were letting people ticketed to Bergen that were supposed to be on our train, on the express so we missed doing that (which would of have been a quicker trip down to Bergen, far less stops). Our regional pulled up right after the express left and we got settled in.

The scenery out of Myrdal was beautiful but the light was start to fade too much for pictures out of the train’s windows. It did stop a lot at little stations on the way but we made up 5 minutes as we got into Voss which was the other bigger town on the line. Voss had an old round house and a decent sized train yard. We had to get off the train in Voss so they could back it out of the way and let a few trains come through. A train from Bergen came into track 3 and then they ran a freight through on track 1 to get it past us. All in light rain. Then a light engine did a run around on its passenger cars using our platform track 1. They then ran a very late express train to Oslo (so against our direction) in and stopped it on track 1. After it headed out they quickly got our train pulled up and us on. We left Voss at 7:10 about 20 minutes late. Considering we also left Myrdal 20 minutes late, the ordeal in Voss took the 25 minutes they had for us scheduled to be in Voss for (by our figuring). After Voss our car was fuller (as in it actually had people on it, we were the only two in it from Myrdal to Voss) including a chocolate lab that was nervous, but handled it well. There were so many tunnels on the Bergen line both before and after Voss, truly so very many! I kept loosing all cell service when we were in the tunnels which made my slow, free internet connection sprint provides even more frustrating. Even though it was still light outside, it was overcast and too dark for photos anymore. We got held again at Vaksdal at 8:05 for an east bound train to come by us. It didn’t take long for the container train to roll past us. With electric engines they can pick up speed really fast, this gives the illusion that the meet was really tight which I am sure it was. We were back moving by 8:08. Another freight was waiting for us at Arna, the last station before Bergen. All of the freights I saw were container trains and were fairly short. We arrived in Bergen at 8:35, about 40 minutes late at this point. The hotel we had for the night, the Zander K, was right next to the train station so we headed over. We had stored our two suitcases there so we pick them up and headed up to our room. We got settled then headed out to dinner at Peppes Pizza, getting there at 9:15. We greatly enjoyed the pizza! We took a long way back to the room, walking through a shopping area and ending up close to the fish market before making a right-hand turn and heading toward the train station and our hotel. Getting back about 10:20. We repacked a bit, showered and called it a night.

The next morning involved basically repacking our bags, a small walk around the hotel, and heading to the airport for our mid morning flight back to Iceland!

Safe Travels,
B&E

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