Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Day one of the ' Oh my god's '

Sunday in Oslo is quiet.  If we thought that the centre of town was quiet on other days/nights, this morning was dead. Literally.  Until we got to the railway station about 5 blocks away, we saw the sum total of three people!

The day began with a little scare.  Instead of adding a block to our (read my) walk, we chose to go down the back exit which meant that Donna had to carry the suitcases down a flight of stairs. So far, so good.  Get to the bottom of the stairs and open the heavy exit door, Donna carries the cases out, she is now outside the building and then just before the door closes behind me, we realise that the heavy, huge iron gates - you know the massive ones that you see at the opening of many historic buildings in Europe, were closed and locked with a padlock.  All of them.  On both sides of the building. Its about 07:25 am and the train goes in an hour.  So I jam my foot in the door while Donna checks out the exit. Little scare, not a big one - there is an exit release - phew!!!  Disaster averted.

The road is damp underfoot - it must have rained during the night, but the morning is clear and cool.  Lugging our (getting heavier) suitcases it takes us about 15 minutes to walk to the station and get our bearings.  And, thanks to Murphy's Law, our carriage is the furthest one out.  We finally make the door, lug the suitcases up the steps and find a spot to store them in the luggage vestibule. As we move in to the carriage, we find it filled with the passengers of an Indian tour group AND four of them are in our seats.

One of them wanted an argument, but man, that wasn't going to happen. We stayed firm and it was only a couple of moments before the tour guide came and insisted that the four of them return to their allotted seats.  He took one of the last two and just as the train was due to depart, in rushed the last passenger - Kimberly, a nurse from Venice Beach in California. We hit it off straight away and have made a new friend!

Both Donna and I feel that today really starts the trip of adventure - even though we have now been travelling for a week and seen and experienced some wonderful things. 
Today we are doing a self-guided tour called Norway in a Nutshell.  It involves five legs:

• train Oslo to Myrdal
• scenic train Myrdal to Flam
• boat cruise Flam to Gudvangen
• tour bus Gudvangen to Voss
• train Voss to Bergen.

The train departs Oslo smack on time at 08:25 am. It is not long out of the City Sentrum before we begin to encounter the working day for some, with farmers harvesting cauliflowers in the morning dew.  Its not long before we find ourselves in bucolic scenes from some European folksong.  The streams and rivers are bubbling alongside us in every shade of glacial blue and the open meadows morph into valleys between towering mountains. And yes, we do mean mountains, not the hillmountains we have back home.

And still we have the reach the real Oh. My. God. Scenery. 

We pass by the Geitanosi glacier, near Finse where the snow scenes from Star Wars was filmed - the things you never knew!  Finse is the highest railway station on the entire Norwegian railway system at only 1222 m!  
And pass through tunnels before reaching Myrdal and changing for the the Flåm Line is a 20.2 km long railway line between Myrdal and Flåm in Aurland, Norway. A branch line of the Bergen Line, it runs through the valley of Flåmsdalen and connects the mainline with Sognefjord. The line's elevation difference is 866 meters; it has ten stations, twenty tunnels and one bridge. The steepest incline is 1:18 - and without cogs!

Even though the journey to Myrdal takes 4 hours, the time flies. As we pass Finse we see little huts hunkered down hugging the earth as if to protect themselves from the cold winters. Many have moss and alpine plants including flowers growing on their roof, like a blanket keeping in the warmth. Kimberly is not travelling to Flåm today, but going direct to Bergen so before we leave the train, we exchange contact details and make loose plans to catch up tomorrow in Bergen. 

Crossing the platform takes us to the departure point for the Flåm railway. The Flåm railway is considered to be the world's most beautiful train journey and provides a panorama of some of the wildest and most magnificent mountain scenery in Norway at any time of the year. There are rivers carving their way through deep gorges, waterfalls leaping off steep mountainsides with snow-covered mountain peaks, as well as mountain

farms clinging tenaciously to steep slopes. Down at the bottom, you can enjoy the scenic cultural landscape of the Flåm Valley and admire the beautiful Aurlandsfjord.  On the way, the train makes a stop to allow everyone to get off the train to take photos at the Kjosfossen Falls where the Hulda sang to lure us into the waters of the waterfall. Thankfully no-one succumbed!

We continue our journey down the valleys into Flåm railway station. The scenery is jaw-breakingly beautiful and the camera and our two phones get a massive workout today.  If you want to see more of the photos, then ask us to put on a slide show for you when we get back!

At the end of the line, we have arrived at Flåm harbour. We have a chance to catch a breather here and meet three American sisters travelling together for the first time to visit their grandfather's birthplace near Bergen. We grabbed a coffee and an amazing Pistachio biscuits with chocolate and raisins. Crisp on the outside and chewy inside. It was the size of a bread and butter plate!   Mmmmm.
Here we catch a Fjord cruise on Nærøyfjord with Fjord Norway.  You know those times when you say that you couldn't get the whole vista in one photo?  Well, up close this is what the scenery is like.  Mountains tower over you and dwarf elfin little hamlets and villages with perfectly manicured lawns right to the water's edge, surrounded by untamed brutality of the mountains and thundering waterfalls (nice description Donna). Everywhere you look is another view down another finger of a gorge or a fjord. It really is an oh. my. god. day.


The two hour trip is done all too soon and we dash for a bus that will take us up and over the mountain into Voss. We head out the only road into the Gudvangen harbour and then the coach pauses before the driver turns off the perfectly good double lane road on to the old highway that was the only access until 1981 for traffic in both directions.  This is a very steep mountain pass road with 11 switchbacks immediately one after the other.  The bus creeps down most of it in low gear doing about 10 kph. Which is good for anybody wanting photos of the stunning mountain peaks or waterfalls (if you can get a clear view while staying seated in a seatbelt, and vying for window space with your seat partner. Behind us are the other two buses that met the cruise boat.  If one goes,it is likely that we will all go!

Soon enough, we reach the bottom and rejoin the new highway for the remainder of the trip in to Voss where we clamber over makeshift steel and planking walkways to the train for our last leg of the day. Old Murphy obviously thought he had tortured us enough for one day as on the final train trip down to Bergen we are in the second car.  We are travelling through increasing urban areas, although still manage to go through two ski resorts, one complete with Ski Jump. We pass through a multitude of tunnels and by the way our ears are popping, we are dropping in altitude rapidly. In 90 minutes we reach Bergen arriving right on 9 pm, 13 hours after we left Oslo this morning. A distance of 463.9 km in the most direct route and 7 hours by car.  And do you know, I would not have changed a thing.

The hotel doesn't have a restaurant but we passed the fish markets about a block and a half back so Donna heads out to get some fish and chips. The prawns are tiny, frozen and $65 AUD per kilo.  Crab claws were $100 kg and the king crab,well there wasn't even a price on them and you know the saying that if you have to ask the price you can't afford it. 
Lovely fresh white fish (but quite bland) and chips that the seagulls back home would refuse, but washed down with a bottle of Italian Chardonnay, worked a treat. Was definitely a better $60 spend on the wine than the same cost for the takeaway meal! Meanwhile, Bergen by night looks lovely and everything we have read of the old port area sounds intriguing.  Some exploring early tomorrow, perhaps a catch up with Kimberley before we board the Kong Harald to sail north later in the day. How exciting!