Day 2 in Norway - 6th September
I must make an admission right at the beginning here – the following writeup might seem quite bland and insipid, for I have no words at all to express the kinds of things I’ve seen and experienced today. I think I need a whole new level of adjectives and metaphors to be able to even slightly recreate the magic I’ve witnessed today. Words and photographs both fail to capture this - so I’m not even going to try very hard.
The day began very early as I was doing a pretty long journey today. Woke up around 6 and checked out of the hotel by 7, as I had to catch a train at 8. I was doing the long haul to Bergen, on the west coast of Norway. Normally this about a 7 hour train ride from oslo. However, what I was doing was something which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Norway – the Norway in a Nutshell ride. Designed to give tourists a delectable taste of Norway, this is the perfect one day trip. You start from Oslo and take the Bergen train, but get down in the mountains at Myrdal. From there, you take a smaller cogwheel train down into the Flam valley – this train goes through some of the steepest railroad sections in the world. From Flam, one takes a ferry to Gudvangen, a 2 hour journey through a part of the Sognefjord, Norway’s longest and deepest fjord. The from Gudvangen you take a scenic bus ride back up into the hills, riding upto Voss, from where its about an hour’s long train ride to Bergen. Starting the day at 8, you reach Bergen by about 8.30 in the evening.
This trip is quite a mouthful for even the most enthusiastic tourist. Lets take it steps – slow and steady. The train ride to Myrdal from oslo was great. The Oslo-Bergen railway is considered one of the most scenic rail journeys in the world, as it weaves through the mountains of Norway – and its considered that for a very good reason. You’ll find out more soon. There was an old lady sitting next to me, really nice, we spoke quite a bit. She seemed pretty intelligent, and very very well traveled – in fact, she seems to have been to every single continent! And traveled to multiple places on each one, in fact. Even traveled in India – she mentioned, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay….. She was really sweet, telling me about her grandchildren and all…Apparently she was going to meet her sister someplace between Oslo and Bergen up in the mountains (forgot the name of the town), and spend 3-4 days with her up there.
The train journey itself was quite scenic. Starts out pretty mild (in retrospect, that is, considering all that came after that – at that time however it seemed pretty awesome). Soon on getting out of oslo, one gets into mountainous countryside. Its really beautiful, and very very different from Denmark, which, as I mentioned earlier, is almost completely flat. The mountains here are thickly populated by conifers, which completely blanket them. However, the most spectacular part is this – all along these mountains, you have breaks in the forest where people have built farms, or have houses – and around these you see the most amazing stretches of pristine green grass…So it makes for a wonderful sight as you gaze on these mountains – carpets of trees interspersed with expanses of soft downy grass.
As if that weren’t enough, you have quite a few lakes as well as you go past these mountains. Typical mountain lakes. Fresh, clear, and quite breathtaking. All combined to give a completely Alpine feel to the first part of the train ride. Weather was pretty cloudy, but that kind of lends its own touch to the beauty.
The last couple of hours, the train starts climbing up, and then things start getting out of hand. For one, you get these amazing views of the valley below. Quite stunning. Initially, though, it was highly frustrating as all the views were on the side opposite to where I was sitting in the train!:) I’ve decided there’s nothing more depressing/irritating than being on the wrong side of a breathtaking view with a camera. However things soon got better, and there were some pretty amazing views on my side as well.
Soon we reached a point where in the distance one could actually see snow on some parts of the mountains. Pretty amazing – especially considering that Norway supposedly recently had its hottest summer since 1900, or something…..
At a point the scenery suddenly changed – it was almost a quantum jump. Suddenly, as we rounded a bend, the conifers disappeared. The mountains were a lot barer, and the rocks quite exposed. The vegetation had changed to a more shrubs and bushes. I think by then we were above 1000m or so, which might not seem too high, but at that latitude, its over the tree line.
Around this station called Finse, we reached the highest point on the railway. From here, you get a spectacular view of the Finse glacier. Its absolutely spellbinding. The train actually stops for a couple of extra minutes there, just so everyone can take photos.:) As I said, this trip is totally geared for tourists, and the train is actually filled with them – you should seen them flock out of the train the moment it stopped at the station there!!
From there the train descends just a little, and we finally got to Myrdal around 12.55pm. Just before you get there, you get some awesome views into the valley below, where you can see the fjord. Again, don’t expect any of the photos to do any justice whatsoever – taking photos from a train on a cloudy day sucks, and there’s just no way to bring out the kind of things we could see with my very basic camera.
A large part of the train gets off at Myrdal, and hangs around for the next train which takes us into the Flam valley. Now this is a very interesting train – it goes down about 900m over a distance of 20km, and is one of the steepest railroads in the world. It was apparently quite an engineering challenge, and took many years to complete. Also along the way are more than 20 tunnels covering a distance of about 6 km! The way down is just amazing. You can get some absolutely brilliant views, and basically people spend time running around from window to window, trying to get a good photo before the next tunnel! Its quite a party on the train – the driver’s constantly announcing just before you get to a good section, and he even stops the train for 5 minutes at the biggest waterfall on the way, so people can get down and take photos.
On the way I ended up having some conversation with this chap from Britain, David, who’d taken some days off from work to sightsee – he was also doing the same Norway in a nutshell trip. So chatted with him for a while.
As one finally descends into the valley, you get some cool views of the town. A small mountain river flows through it as well, accentuating the effect. Quite idyllic.
We got down there at about 2.25pm or so. The pier is right next to the station – in such a small town, hardly any reason to have it otherwise. We hung around there for a little bit, and then the boat departed from there at about 3pm. The fjord cruise takes about 2 hours as the ship slowly weaves its way through offshoots of the famous Sognefjord, and makes its way to Gudvangen. This cruise is amongst the most magnificent ever. This is really the point at which words fail me. These 2 hours confirmed in my mind at least that Norway has to be, without doubt, one of the most beautiful places on earth. The fjords are just out of this world – one could not hope for a more scenic afternoon. With mighty cliffs towering on both sides, you are given some of the best views ever. The mountains are pretty awesome – and the scenery constantly varies – from sheer rock faces to gently sloping meadows to steep, forested slopes. This is classical Norway – the way you see it on National Geographic.
It was lightly drizzling most of the way, and was pretty cloudy, but not foggy – so quite clear all along. That was a saving grace. Somehow, though, I think the cloudy weather really added to the majesty of the fjord. I know all picture postcards show these fjords bathed in sunlight – but their essence, I think, lies in the mist and the clouds – the grey havens, as it were….
Oh, I forgot to mention – suddenly on the boat we seemed to be inundated with hordes of Chinese tourists – I was surprised when, at one point, as the ship was get filled up, I looked around me, and couldn’t see one European face – I was in a sea of hated Chinese tourists with cameras hanging down their necks!!! They all came on a tour bus, I think! Anyway, even on the train earlier there had been some Jap tourists – so seems like the Asians come in hordes to visit Norway.
When the cruise began, one Chinese lady decided she wanted to feed the sea gulls around (remember, fjords are extensions of the sea into land – therefore, sea gulls). So she started throwing pieces of food to them. Immediately, two things happened – one, we were besieged by seagulls; two, every other Chinese tourist on board decided they wanted a piece of this too, and started throwing their food around as well. It was quite hilarious, really – these gulls must be getting quite fat on tourist food daily! I was amazed by the persistence of these guys – for one, they seemed to have an infinite supply of food to throw around, and secondly they seemed quite jobless – it actually went on for quite a while. Provided some decent photo ops – but otherwise was kinda irritating!!
I struck up conversation with this Indian chap who seemed to be traveling with his dad. The guy had an American accent, so I guessed he was from the states – and turned out he was. I asked him where in the US, and he says, California. Oh wow, I said, me too. Where in California? They bay area. Wow, me too! Where in the bay area? Thankfully he didn’t say Stanford – that would have been quite ridiculous. Apparently he’s a pediatrician working up in the city in SF. We chatted for a while – he was traveling quite a bit, Sweden, Norway, and later spain.
Anyway, the cruise went on, and we all enjoyed the scenery. Rick Steves’ guide to Scandinavia, which I’ve been following, states that the fjord cruise is basically 2 hours of nervous tourists flitting from side to side on the boat trying to get the perfect picture. And it was precisely that. You just didn’t know which way to turn! One moment there’d be this lovely waterfall on your right; a moment later a small town on the left; then a new branch of the fjord opening out ahead. We went quite crazy!
There were at least 4-5 little towns that we saw along the route. These are pretty amazing – hardly even qualify as towns, some as small as maybe a community of 50-80 people! Quite isolated from the world, a couple didn’t have any road access till as late as 1970-75. Was trying to imagine wht life must be like in such a place – and couldn’t even begin to understand that……
The cruise finally ended at about 5pm – was quite mentally drained by then. We then had to wait for about 45 min at gudvangen for the bus that would take us to Voss. It was raining quite a bit by then, and also around the fjord, it was getting pretty foggy. And up in the hills you could really see the clouds rolling in.
The bus finally came and we all got on. The bus ride to Voss is again extremely scenic, and would have been even more so on a clear day. The road winds its way up the mountains, giving some great views of the valley below. This road in fact is the steepest in Norway – and by golly, it is! Definitely one of the steepest I’ve ever been on. And I cant imagine wht it must be like driving a bus on it. Winds a hell of a lot as well – you’ve hardly completed one turn before the next is on to u. this road must be pretty close to rivaling Lombard street as one of the steepest and most crooked – and this is along a cliff face!!!
We stopped at the top of the hill at Stalheim motel to get some last scenic views down into the valley. After that the bus sped on to Voss. These parts are less spectacular in terms of height variations, but equally lovely. Grassy meadows, serene lakes, cosy looking towns dot the road on both sides. Didn’t really take any photos as it was raining a lot, as well as pretty foggy, so no point, really.
Got to the voss station, and then took the train to Bergen. The train ride was very much in the same vein as the second leg of the bus ride – similar landscape. Quite extraordinarily beautiful – but there’s only so much one can take in in 1 day!
Finally reached Bergen around 8.40, and got checked into the hostel. Its raining here as it usually is – rains about 300 days a year here!!! But seems a beautiful town – is on a hill, so lots of steep roads and all. Should be fun exploring it tomorrow….but too expensive, man! Tried to find dinner somewhere, but for one, no vegetarian food in these restaurants, and two, no main course less than like 150NOK – about 25$! Ridiculous….ended up getting some groceries, and sort of picnicking….best thing to do….even got some stuff I can use for breakfast tomorrow….
Am physically and mentally exhausted now….so time to sleep…
The day began very early as I was doing a pretty long journey today. Woke up around 6 and checked out of the hotel by 7, as I had to catch a train at 8. I was doing the long haul to Bergen, on the west coast of Norway. Normally this about a 7 hour train ride from oslo. However, what I was doing was something which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Norway – the Norway in a Nutshell ride. Designed to give tourists a delectable taste of Norway, this is the perfect one day trip. You start from Oslo and take the Bergen train, but get down in the mountains at Myrdal. From there, you take a smaller cogwheel train down into the Flam valley – this train goes through some of the steepest railroad sections in the world. From Flam, one takes a ferry to Gudvangen, a 2 hour journey through a part of the Sognefjord, Norway’s longest and deepest fjord. The from Gudvangen you take a scenic bus ride back up into the hills, riding upto Voss, from where its about an hour’s long train ride to Bergen. Starting the day at 8, you reach Bergen by about 8.30 in the evening.
This trip is quite a mouthful for even the most enthusiastic tourist. Lets take it steps – slow and steady. The train ride to Myrdal from oslo was great. The Oslo-Bergen railway is considered one of the most scenic rail journeys in the world, as it weaves through the mountains of Norway – and its considered that for a very good reason. You’ll find out more soon. There was an old lady sitting next to me, really nice, we spoke quite a bit. She seemed pretty intelligent, and very very well traveled – in fact, she seems to have been to every single continent! And traveled to multiple places on each one, in fact. Even traveled in India – she mentioned, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay….. She was really sweet, telling me about her grandchildren and all…Apparently she was going to meet her sister someplace between Oslo and Bergen up in the mountains (forgot the name of the town), and spend 3-4 days with her up there.
The train journey itself was quite scenic. Starts out pretty mild (in retrospect, that is, considering all that came after that – at that time however it seemed pretty awesome). Soon on getting out of oslo, one gets into mountainous countryside. Its really beautiful, and very very different from Denmark, which, as I mentioned earlier, is almost completely flat. The mountains here are thickly populated by conifers, which completely blanket them. However, the most spectacular part is this – all along these mountains, you have breaks in the forest where people have built farms, or have houses – and around these you see the most amazing stretches of pristine green grass…So it makes for a wonderful sight as you gaze on these mountains – carpets of trees interspersed with expanses of soft downy grass.
As if that weren’t enough, you have quite a few lakes as well as you go past these mountains. Typical mountain lakes. Fresh, clear, and quite breathtaking. All combined to give a completely Alpine feel to the first part of the train ride. Weather was pretty cloudy, but that kind of lends its own touch to the beauty.
The last couple of hours, the train starts climbing up, and then things start getting out of hand. For one, you get these amazing views of the valley below. Quite stunning. Initially, though, it was highly frustrating as all the views were on the side opposite to where I was sitting in the train!:) I’ve decided there’s nothing more depressing/irritating than being on the wrong side of a breathtaking view with a camera. However things soon got better, and there were some pretty amazing views on my side as well.
Soon we reached a point where in the distance one could actually see snow on some parts of the mountains. Pretty amazing – especially considering that Norway supposedly recently had its hottest summer since 1900, or something…..
At a point the scenery suddenly changed – it was almost a quantum jump. Suddenly, as we rounded a bend, the conifers disappeared. The mountains were a lot barer, and the rocks quite exposed. The vegetation had changed to a more shrubs and bushes. I think by then we were above 1000m or so, which might not seem too high, but at that latitude, its over the tree line.
Around this station called Finse, we reached the highest point on the railway. From here, you get a spectacular view of the Finse glacier. Its absolutely spellbinding. The train actually stops for a couple of extra minutes there, just so everyone can take photos.:) As I said, this trip is totally geared for tourists, and the train is actually filled with them – you should seen them flock out of the train the moment it stopped at the station there!!
From there the train descends just a little, and we finally got to Myrdal around 12.55pm. Just before you get there, you get some awesome views into the valley below, where you can see the fjord. Again, don’t expect any of the photos to do any justice whatsoever – taking photos from a train on a cloudy day sucks, and there’s just no way to bring out the kind of things we could see with my very basic camera.
A large part of the train gets off at Myrdal, and hangs around for the next train which takes us into the Flam valley. Now this is a very interesting train – it goes down about 900m over a distance of 20km, and is one of the steepest railroads in the world. It was apparently quite an engineering challenge, and took many years to complete. Also along the way are more than 20 tunnels covering a distance of about 6 km! The way down is just amazing. You can get some absolutely brilliant views, and basically people spend time running around from window to window, trying to get a good photo before the next tunnel! Its quite a party on the train – the driver’s constantly announcing just before you get to a good section, and he even stops the train for 5 minutes at the biggest waterfall on the way, so people can get down and take photos.
On the way I ended up having some conversation with this chap from Britain, David, who’d taken some days off from work to sightsee – he was also doing the same Norway in a nutshell trip. So chatted with him for a while.
As one finally descends into the valley, you get some cool views of the town. A small mountain river flows through it as well, accentuating the effect. Quite idyllic.
We got down there at about 2.25pm or so. The pier is right next to the station – in such a small town, hardly any reason to have it otherwise. We hung around there for a little bit, and then the boat departed from there at about 3pm. The fjord cruise takes about 2 hours as the ship slowly weaves its way through offshoots of the famous Sognefjord, and makes its way to Gudvangen. This cruise is amongst the most magnificent ever. This is really the point at which words fail me. These 2 hours confirmed in my mind at least that Norway has to be, without doubt, one of the most beautiful places on earth. The fjords are just out of this world – one could not hope for a more scenic afternoon. With mighty cliffs towering on both sides, you are given some of the best views ever. The mountains are pretty awesome – and the scenery constantly varies – from sheer rock faces to gently sloping meadows to steep, forested slopes. This is classical Norway – the way you see it on National Geographic.
It was lightly drizzling most of the way, and was pretty cloudy, but not foggy – so quite clear all along. That was a saving grace. Somehow, though, I think the cloudy weather really added to the majesty of the fjord. I know all picture postcards show these fjords bathed in sunlight – but their essence, I think, lies in the mist and the clouds – the grey havens, as it were….
Oh, I forgot to mention – suddenly on the boat we seemed to be inundated with hordes of Chinese tourists – I was surprised when, at one point, as the ship was get filled up, I looked around me, and couldn’t see one European face – I was in a sea of hated Chinese tourists with cameras hanging down their necks!!! They all came on a tour bus, I think! Anyway, even on the train earlier there had been some Jap tourists – so seems like the Asians come in hordes to visit Norway.
When the cruise began, one Chinese lady decided she wanted to feed the sea gulls around (remember, fjords are extensions of the sea into land – therefore, sea gulls). So she started throwing pieces of food to them. Immediately, two things happened – one, we were besieged by seagulls; two, every other Chinese tourist on board decided they wanted a piece of this too, and started throwing their food around as well. It was quite hilarious, really – these gulls must be getting quite fat on tourist food daily! I was amazed by the persistence of these guys – for one, they seemed to have an infinite supply of food to throw around, and secondly they seemed quite jobless – it actually went on for quite a while. Provided some decent photo ops – but otherwise was kinda irritating!!
I struck up conversation with this Indian chap who seemed to be traveling with his dad. The guy had an American accent, so I guessed he was from the states – and turned out he was. I asked him where in the US, and he says, California. Oh wow, I said, me too. Where in California? They bay area. Wow, me too! Where in the bay area? Thankfully he didn’t say Stanford – that would have been quite ridiculous. Apparently he’s a pediatrician working up in the city in SF. We chatted for a while – he was traveling quite a bit, Sweden, Norway, and later spain.
Anyway, the cruise went on, and we all enjoyed the scenery. Rick Steves’ guide to Scandinavia, which I’ve been following, states that the fjord cruise is basically 2 hours of nervous tourists flitting from side to side on the boat trying to get the perfect picture. And it was precisely that. You just didn’t know which way to turn! One moment there’d be this lovely waterfall on your right; a moment later a small town on the left; then a new branch of the fjord opening out ahead. We went quite crazy!
There were at least 4-5 little towns that we saw along the route. These are pretty amazing – hardly even qualify as towns, some as small as maybe a community of 50-80 people! Quite isolated from the world, a couple didn’t have any road access till as late as 1970-75. Was trying to imagine wht life must be like in such a place – and couldn’t even begin to understand that……
The cruise finally ended at about 5pm – was quite mentally drained by then. We then had to wait for about 45 min at gudvangen for the bus that would take us to Voss. It was raining quite a bit by then, and also around the fjord, it was getting pretty foggy. And up in the hills you could really see the clouds rolling in.
The bus finally came and we all got on. The bus ride to Voss is again extremely scenic, and would have been even more so on a clear day. The road winds its way up the mountains, giving some great views of the valley below. This road in fact is the steepest in Norway – and by golly, it is! Definitely one of the steepest I’ve ever been on. And I cant imagine wht it must be like driving a bus on it. Winds a hell of a lot as well – you’ve hardly completed one turn before the next is on to u. this road must be pretty close to rivaling Lombard street as one of the steepest and most crooked – and this is along a cliff face!!!
We stopped at the top of the hill at Stalheim motel to get some last scenic views down into the valley. After that the bus sped on to Voss. These parts are less spectacular in terms of height variations, but equally lovely. Grassy meadows, serene lakes, cosy looking towns dot the road on both sides. Didn’t really take any photos as it was raining a lot, as well as pretty foggy, so no point, really.
Got to the voss station, and then took the train to Bergen. The train ride was very much in the same vein as the second leg of the bus ride – similar landscape. Quite extraordinarily beautiful – but there’s only so much one can take in in 1 day!
Finally reached Bergen around 8.40, and got checked into the hostel. Its raining here as it usually is – rains about 300 days a year here!!! But seems a beautiful town – is on a hill, so lots of steep roads and all. Should be fun exploring it tomorrow….but too expensive, man! Tried to find dinner somewhere, but for one, no vegetarian food in these restaurants, and two, no main course less than like 150NOK – about 25$! Ridiculous….ended up getting some groceries, and sort of picnicking….best thing to do….even got some stuff I can use for breakfast tomorrow….
Am physically and mentally exhausted now….so time to sleep…
posted by Nikhil | 2:27 PM
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