On the morning of July 27, 2014, the Thompson's gathered in Flåm for goodbyes before Sarah's boarded the Flåmsbana to continue their Norway in a Nutshell tour to Oslo. Jay's departed for camping in the northern fjord country in pursuit of a glacier to visit. Tom and Ann had several hours before departure to continue their Norway in a Nutshell tour to Bergen. With rain approaching, we decided see if we could catch an earlier ferry. That turned out to be a fortunate decision. When we handed the clerks in the depot our "tickets", we discovered that what looked like tickets to us were actually advertisements. Gratefully Ann is a pack rat when traveling. The bags flew open right on the floor of the depot and we rummaged until we found the documents. With frayed nerves and great relief, we had the departure changed and were able to catch the ferry in the nick of time. The rain held through the ferry and bus rides, so it was really good that we had departed early.
Ann was creeped-out by the entrance to the ferry. It felt like walking into giant jaws.
We found good seats on the top of the ferry and settled in for the trip, enjoying beautiful Flåm from yet another vista.
Traveling the fjord made us feel so small, even aboard this large boat. The mile-high mountains loomed over us on both sides and extended underwater for over 3,000 feet. Such is the erosive power of glaciation. Temperatures were toasty at sea level, yet, even in July, the high elevations retain snow packs.
That's not a toy sailboat. ;-)
We retraced our route from our previous day's rib boat fjord tour and were most grateful that we had done that tour first. Our guide had been excellent, so we knew something about the places we passed and we knew where to look for the beauty.
One intriguing nugget of historical information about farming practices that our guide had shared involved the care of animals. In the winter, the farm animals were kept beside the fjord. In the spring the men would use ropes to lift the the cows up these steep, high cliffs to the richer pastures on the mountaintops. A few women and boys herded the sheep and goats up into the highlands and spent the summer caring for the animals. Moving the animals had to be an impressive operation!
These photos were made at the convergence of Aurlandsfjord and Nærøvfjord.
Tom found a pal. This little Chinese boy was traveling with his family. They established a relationship through smiles and a bit of play. This child and his siblings were precious and full of smiles and giggles. His family wanted photos of us. What fun!
Running up to this waterfall was a trip highlight on both tours. On the rib boat we were right beside it.
Seagulls. URG! Even the promotions tout feeding seagulls as a highlight of the trip. We see seagulls often at the beach and during storms on the coast, even in Raleigh; so, we were not impressed. Flocks of seagulls hovering make photography difficult and they have a nasty habit of sharing their processed food when you least expect it.
This Oriental man must have taken a thousand pictures of seagulls, but he rarely made a photograph of the scenery. Maybe they don't have seagulls in the Orient.
This land was inhabited by Vikings and there are burial mounds like this on the banks of Nærøvfjord.
This beautiful scene was behind the welcome center in Gudvangen. We planned to visit the center and make more photographs of the beautiful scenery and the viking ship, but things rapidly grew hectic. We were on on the top tier of the ferry, so were some of the last people to get off. Employees were hustling us to the buses that were about to depart. There was a long line of buses and none were marked with a destination or labeled Norway in a Nutshell. We became anxious as we passed bus after bus that were already packed. We finally found an available bus and confirmed its destination, planning to find seats and return to the welcome center. There was no time and there were no facilities on the bus. Hmmm....
Beautiful scenery greeted us as we departed Gudvangen. Photography from the bus windows proved even more difficult that it had been on the train. We had the back of the bus to ourselves, so enjoyed moving from side to side to capture the best views.
Stalheim
The highlight of the bus trip is a trip down the Stalheimskleiva. Constructed in the mid-1800's, this serpentine marvel has 13 hairpin curves that provide lovely views of the Nærøydalen valley and the waterfalls Sivlefossen (142 meters) and Stalheimsfossen (126m). This is just the kind of nail biter that Ann likes to find to challenge Tom when we travel. The only thing that could have improved our visit would have been driving a convertible.
The trip from Nærøydalen valley to Voss offered more spectacular vistas. The beauty of Norway is almost incomprehensible.
Photo gallery of our Bus ride to Voss
The rain set in as we left Voss and persisted until just before we arrived in Bergen. It was perfect timing for us. We were most grateful to have successfully rearranged our departure from Flåm so that we could soak in more of the gorgeous scenery before the showers.
Norway in a Nutshell. Check! When we were planning our trip this tour always percolated to that top of lists. We eagerly anticipated the tour and it exceeded our expectations. We highly recommend it!
Bergen was another highly recommended destination. On arrival, two navigational challenges loomed: pulling our luggage and finding our hotel. We set out from the train station hoping that the hotel wasn't too far away and that we could easily find it. The bags rattled across the brick streets. We found a sidewalk that looked like it led in the right general direction and followed it through a tunnel of bushes. Emerging from the hedgerow, our destination was no longer a priority as we had discovered another serendipitous delight.
Just past the park we located our hotel, then called Rica Hotel Bergen. It had a small, attractive lobby. The desk clerk directed us to the elevators, a walk that required that we drag our bags up three stairs and walk through the dining area. That wasn't a problem that evening, but was a little embarrassing when we had to dodge diners to leave early the next morning.
Our room was quite nice, but stuffy because of limited ventilation on a very hot day. We left to find dinner and explore the city. Oh, my! What a treasure we found!
The Adams' had raved about Bergen. Of course, they were most excited about the tall ship races that were being held while they visited; but, their raving about the city was not underrated. We immediately added taking time to explore Bergen to our bucket list for a future trip.
During our walk into town, we had found a promising restaurant, but it was packed. That turned out to be a gift as we found a great dockside seafood restaurant attached to the seafood market. The sunset view was lovely, the fare delicious, and we struck up conversation with a German couple who made dinner great fun.
The Norwegian products were fascinating. It was humorous to see the dried fish on display. First stage lutefisk perhaps?
We took a different route back to the hotel and found this intriguing bunad shop. Oh, how we longed to go in and find the bunads from Tom's ancestral regions.
Another unexpected pleasure was finding this gazebo with it's artist palette of flowers. What a nice way to end a wonderful day!
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