Day Three: The Fjords
OK, prepare yourselves. This will be long. We have just had one of the most incredible days of our lives! We toured Norway’s famous fjords.
Here’s how it works just so you get the background. You take a regular train from Oslo to Myrdahl. At Myrdahl you climb aboard the unbelievable Flam train which drops you thousands of feet in just a short time. The train has something like 8 braking systems as the descent is so steep. All the way down you pass through breathtaking scenery--waterfalls, lakes, etc. You end up in a village called Gudvangen (spelling may be incorrect and I’m too tired to check it). There you board a ferry which takes you miles down the fjords. When you return from the ferry, you climb aboard a bus which takes you to the village of Voss where Ken and I spent the night. So there is the outline. Here are the details.
Oslo train left at 8:05 a.m. As it is the only train for the entire day to catch the fjord tour, you absolutely do not want to miss it. Ken and I are traveling on a rail pass and it requires that you have a station agent stamp it for your first train journey--huge fine if you don’t do that. As we had paid a small fortune for the tour, we wanted to be sure that we knew exactly where the train left from and how to get our passes stamped so we went to the station yesterday to be sure to get it all laid out. We talked to the ticket agent who offered to stamp our pass right then so it would be official but we didn’t want to do that as our pass is good for only 30 days and we will run out of days on it before we come home as it is, so we didn’t want to miss a day. She told us, “no problem” and said the office would open at 7 a.m. Plenty of time to get everything done. She also told us the train left from Track 3. So, all details taken care of, we headed back to our hotel.
Next a.m. we rose bright and early and were at the station promptly at 7 a.m. First problem: YES, the office opens at 7 on weekdays, but this was Saturday, and it didn’t open until 7:45. We immediately went into panic mode. How long would it take to get everything finished? Would we make our train?? To make a long story short we stood there, packs on back not daring to move because we HAD to be first in line. Office opened at 7:50. We dashed to the first agent we saw. She assured us we would be fine, stamped our pass and told us to head for Track 3. We breathed a sigh of relief as we were fine now--our pass was stamped and we had scouted out the location of Track 3 yesterday. So off we went, big grins on our faces,, and scurried down the stairs to Track 3. I was immediately uneasy. Not another soul was there and yet I knew tons of people were going on this tour. And the sign should have read “Bergen” and the sign read nothing. We pondered and worried. Finally we decided we’d better go check again as we simply could NOT miss this train. This fjord tour was Ken’s designated big highlight of the trip and we HAD to do it--or be sick forever! Up the stairs we went, found some officials gossiping, interrupted them without shame and asked about the train. “Track 3?”, one said. “No, that train is leaving from track 17!” NO, NO, NO!!!!! We raced across the whole station, and dived down the stairs to Track 17. It would be exaggerating to say we just made it--we really had about 7 minutes to spare, but we couldn’t get over thinking what would have happened if we hadn’t checked.
More adventure was in store. We knew our seat numbers as we had reservations--but remember we were total neophytes at train travel.. We got on and started looking for Seats 57 and 58. Found them--but someone else was in them! We stood there not knowing what to do until Ken said, “There’s open seats back here and what does it matter--all the seats are the same.” So we settled into the open seats, thought we were home free and prepared to enjoy ourselves. But we were far from home free--trouble was just starting Pretty soon--along came the conductor. I proudly pulled out our reservation form and handed it to him. He looked at it, frowned and said, “This isn’t a reservation for this train. Where is the one for Oslo to Myrdahl?” Well, I had purchased the entire tour from Rail Europe and they had sent me the seat reservations all the way through in one package (I thought), so I was at a loss. To make things worse, the conductor said we couldn’t stay in the seats we were in--they were reserved and would be needed an hour ahead. I asked him what we should do and he said, “I’ll get back to you later.” Off he went, and we sat there miserable and worried. Ken finally said “It’s not fatal, you know; we’ll figure something out.” I then informed him that they would probably put us off at the next stop and we would miss the tour. Then he decided that maybe it was fatal after all. While we sat there sick at heart, I decided to start checking through all our various upcoming reservations. And huzzah! I found the one for Oslo-Myrdahl. THe travel agent had sent it separately from the full tour We were saved! Now we just had to wait for the conductor to come back, show him the reservations, and have him remove the couple from our seats! But he never came back. Stop after stop went by and he didn’t show. Finally the inevitable happened. The two people who were supposed to have the seats we were in showed up. There was nothing to do but confront the couple in OUR seats.. I took a deep breath and went up to them. “Excuse me,” I said hesitantly “But I think you are in our seats.”
The woman looked at me and said “No these are our seats. We reserved them.” The man wasn’t so nice “Nonsense,” he said. “These are definitely our seats!” (mind you this was playing out in front of the entire coach). I pulled out our tickets and showed them to him. “Well, good grief,” he said, “no wonder! You’re in in the wrong coach. This is Coach 9--you’re supposed to be in coach 7!” Mr. and Mrs. Train Dummies had had no idea that each coach had the same numbers and you are supposed to go to a specific coach. We made our way, red-faced down the coach with everyone grinning behind their hands and eventually found our coach and our seats-thankfully unoccupied. From there everything went pretty well.
We got off in Myrdahl and climbed aboard the Flam train which is described thusly (I’m copying and pasting from the website to save myself some typing: Flamsbana is a spectacular train journey that offers a panoramic view of some of the wildest and most magnificent nature in the Norwegian fjord landscape. Flamsbana is one of the steepest trainlines in the world on normal tracks, where almost 80% of the journey has a gradient of 5.5%. The train journey runs through fantastic nature, past the Rallar road, steep mountains, breathtaking waterfalls, through 20 tunnels and offers so many viewpoints that many feel like travelling multiple times between the mountain and the fjord.
After the train we got on the ferry for the several hour journey through mile-deep water past the fjords. There simply are not enough superlatives to describe the beauty of the fjords. I will never forget that journey for as long as I live. It was an overcast day (and even rained a bit) so we were a little sad not to see them in sunshine, but they were still spectacular.
We came back and buses were waiting to take us to Voss. We expected that the trip was basically over and all that was left was to get to the town of Voss so everyone could either catch a train to somewhere else or to stay in Voss which we were doing.
We were wrong .There was more to come and it was glorious beyond words. The bus slowly made it’s way down one switchback after another with magnificent views around each corner. There were waterfalls galore and beautiful forest scenery. It was almost too much for the senses to take in in one day. I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking about the fjords.
I do want to touch on our hotel a bit though. When I had tried to book one in Voss I was horrified at the prices. I felt we simply couldn’t afford to stay at any of them, so I finally found a hostel that had decent reviews. The price was atrocious for a hostel, but it was considerably better than the hotels. I decided that even though Ken and I are well past the age of hosteling, we would simply have to bite the bullet and spend a night there. One night couldn’t kill us, right? So I made the reservation. When we arrived in Voss, the bus driver pointed us the right direction to our hostel and off we went pulling suitcases and carrying backpacks on our back. It was not a full mile there, but it felt like it!
Now here’s what was worrying me (besides the whole idea of a hostel). I had just read the latest reviews on Trip Advisor and one person who had just stayed there had shrieked that there had been bedbugs! You can imagine my joy to read that. I didn’t mention it to Ken--enough that I was shaking inside! We got there and were immediately impressed with the place. It was lovely really, with huge windows overlooking a magnificent lake. In fact the view was spectacular. We were handed a pile of ironed sheets--it seems we had to make our own beds! We were given a room facing the lake (Yay), and it wasn’t too bad. Now I had asked the girl at the desk about the bedbugs and she had looked at me like I had grown another head, and said, “Bedbugs! I don’t even know what they are!” and she had seemed quite sincere. But that didn’t stop us from doing a complete inspection of the entire room, believe you me! But we found not a trace of a bedbug. Finally satisfied we made our beds and headed to the attached restaurant for some dinner.
And here’s where we had another astonishing and wonderful thing happen. We weren’t expecting much at a hostel in the way of food, but we were placed at a table with a great view of the lovely lake. I asked if they could do anything for a vegetarian, and the adorable waitress said they could give me a potato patty instead of the turkey patty Ken was getting--and they would just give me the vegetables that went with his meal too--cabbage, zucchini, carrots, etc. Now there isn’t a vegetable I won’t eat, but cooked cabbage and zucchini are way down on my list of favorites, But what was I to do--there weren’t a lot of options, so I smiled and said that would be great. Ken too, wasn’t overly thrilled with the choice of a turkey patty, but he agreed we didn’t have a lot of choice.
And then the plates came! I tell you I will never forget that meal. The plates were gorgeous! Just gorgeous. Stunningly displayed. And it looked delicious. I took a tentative bite of the cabbage. I had NEVER had cabbage like that. Then the zucchini. Same thing. Ken tasted his, and a look of wonderment came over his face. I tell you, we sat there like two pigs who haven’t been fed in days. I’m not sure but what we may have done a little grunting even! That chef should be working in one of the finest restaurants in Paris--not in little Voss, Norway! The sauces were incredible. There were little berries on our plate that Ken thought must be raspberries, but they were so tiny and were still on the stems. The waitress came over and we told her how fabulous this food was. She beamed and said she would pass the word to the cook. She said all the food was organically grown on a farm just around the corner. She said the berries were a Norwegian form of strawberry.
Ken and I rarely have dessert after a meal when eating out--can’t afford it for one thing, and usually too full for another. But we just had to see what this chef had come up with for dessert so we ordered it. We weren’t disappointed at all to say the least. I’ll post a photo of it along with this.
As you can imagine, we got up the next morning fully prepared for a magnificent breakfast after having eaten the great meal the night before. And we were not disappointed, I promise you. Some Americans might complain as there were no fried or scrambled eggs, potatoes, etc .etc.. But we loved it! Piles of cantaloupe, pineapples, kiwi, plums, berries, bananas. Fresh orange juice, Organic lemonade. Racks of yogurt (incuding melon yogurt which I had never heard of). At least 5 varieties of homemade breads--all whole grain. Berry jams and marmalades And then the typical Scandinavian stuff--tomatoes, cheeses, beautiful fresh herbs, and hot sliced meats of some kinds (can’t tell you about that as Miss Vegetarian passed them right by-all I can say is Ken raved!). Apparently the Norwegians take the breads, pile the meats and cheeses on the slices, load the herbs on top of that with tomatoes, and have a breakfast sandwich. I tell you, it was all just heavenly!
Well, this is very long and I need to add some photos. We took off after breakfast to go back to Oslo. Our “box” hotel had so kindly allowed us to store our luggage with them while we took the fjords trip, so we headed back on the train to pick up the luggage and head for the dock to catch a ferry to Copenhagen. That will be Day 4.
End of Day Three
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