It’s back to winter baby!
Forecast calls for snow – and it sure feels like it could! We sail into
this cute little town – and little it is!
Population of 400 – nestled at the end of the 2nd longest
fjord in the world. It is very cute,
very Norwegian and very picturesque.
Today we are going with a Cruise Critic group on the
Flamsbana railway to Myrdal – considered one of the most beautiful rail trips
in the world. The lady organizing the
tour is so organized! She’s produced business cards with a photo of the train,
and the details of what/where we should meet.
8:15 outside the ticket office.
All works well – we’re all here and we have a special
boarding line for our group – as well as a special train car reserved just for
us. Fun!
We luck out and get 4 seats all to ourselves at the end of our car
(facing the right way – thank heavens! I
don’t have to worry about motion sickness on this trip!). The train is nice and warm – actually too
warm! We all start shucking off our
coats and jackets. As we start our journey up the steep, 12 mile route to
Myrdal – we realize we can open our window and take better pictures without the
glass glare (not to mention cool the train car down!).
It’s a gorgeous ride, moving slowly up through 20
mountain tunnels and 3,000 feet with the snow levels increasing as we move
farther up into the mountains. It’s
lovely – except for the pushing iPad woman who has come over to our seats and
asked to move my backpack so she can sit down and then push her way in front of
us at the window to take pictures. Oh,
and tell us that the window opens further.
Well, if it does – go for it – I had a hard enough time getting it open
as far as it is! And, hey, it works fine
for us because we have normal cameras and don’t have to stick the whole iPad
out the window to take a photo.
Irritating.
Our first stop is a majestic, roaring waterfall – where –
as you can see – it is now snowing at a pretty good clip. We have a 5 minute photo stop where the whole
train pours out onto the platform. We snap away – then quickly get back on the
train. And take our first shutterball
selfie! This thing is totally cool if you can figure out where to put the phone
so it doesn’t fall – or get stolen – while you are taking the pix.
After the waterfall, the snow increases -both in falling
rate and on the ground. There are farms and valleys and incredible ravines and
crevices. It’s beautiful – but like most
other places – isolated. In the summer
it probably doesn’t seem as bad, but now with the snow covering everything it
is almost ghostly in its emptiness.
We also make a stop at Vatnahalsen, a resort area with
skiing – and you can see the snow – still in May. The Celebrity tours get off here to have
their coffee and waffle stop – but we remain (we don’t need to pay triple the
cost of the train for coffee and waffles!).
Then it is on to Myrdal – our turn around point. We have 9 minutes here (don’t ask – that’s
what the train conductor says) – so we hop off – take a picture and hop back
on. If you were on your own, you could
have jumped off here and stayed until the next train – or switched to the
Bergen railway line and head to Bergen or Oslo – but we’ve got a ship to catch
– so back down we go.
We switched sides of the train with our fellow Cruise
Critics so that we could each see the different sides of view up and down. Scenery is still gorgeous, but after a while
Sunny and I get bored – as you can see below.
Once back down in Flam, we wandered around a bit, played
with the troll, laughed at the souvenir prices and went back aboard for
lunch.
Then we headed back out to go to
the Aegir Brewery where we overpaid for a 5 beer sampler.
The atmosphere is great here though – nice and cozy warm,
all wood and quite neat. Just those
prices….phew.
Later we walked a bit up into a park behind the hotel
here – it’s nice, but we walked so much yesterday, that we give it up and head
back to the ship.
Sail away is gorgeous, and once again we’re invited to
the helipad to watch as we head out into the narrow Aurlandsfjord.
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