Norway: Bergen. A study in many kinds of rain. Tasty food. Sauna on the ocean.

Recall: What we did (to try to take it a bit easier than a rapid sprint across the country): 

• Day 1: Oslo (walked around in the sun, had tasty falafel, bought supplies for the trip) (sleep)
• Day 2: Train Oslo to Geilo, which is a ski resort that also supports hiking in the summer. 4ish hrs from Oslo by a really pretty train ride.
• Day 3: Train, Train, Ferry. This is the core of the trip.
• Train Geilo to Myrdal.  
• Flåmsbana from Myrdal to Flåm.  
• Fjord Cruise-Ferry from Flåm to Gudvangen (sleep) 
• Day 4: Gudvangen Viking Village, then bus to Voss. Voss cable car up the rainy mountain.
• Day 5: Train Voss to Bergen. Bergen, the rainiest city in Europe. 

Day 1 & 2 here

Day 3 : the core of the trip 

Day 4

Day 5: Bergen

While Bergen is not the wettest place in Europe (which I think means greatest total volume of water falling from the sky), it is the rainiest city in Europe based on sheer number of days where rain occurs. I'd been to Bergen before, and hadn't been as well-prepared. 

We left Voss by train, involving an interaction that to me was what I expected from Norwegians (like a slightly more talkative Finn): K and I disagreed on the anticipated direction of travel of the train. The train driver walked by and I stopped him and asked if he could let us know the direction of travel. He had a bit of a frustrated look and said something like  "I drive the train. From here (pointing to where he was walking to). We're going to Bergen".  Technically not answering the question, but answering it if you'd just apply two seconds of logic.

[Weather]

Bergen was clearly much more a city than Gudvangen and Voss. Makes sense, I think it is the second largest after Oslo. It was much colder than Oslo. In the full day we had there, I could label 3 or 4 levels of precipitation, which it cycled through twice. 

• light rain (not mist!), 
• a kind of lasting rain that slowly soaked into your bones and shoes and generally wore down your will to live
• raining cats and dogs (find cover, even if you're wearing "waterproof" clothing) and 
• HAIL/Slush.

Video of the crazy precipitation: 

Despite it raining literally the entire trip, it was only in Bergen where my shoes got rained through. They have a light amount of goretex and are getting on in years. I was wishing I'd brought some kind of travel galoshes. 

[Hanseatic Wharf and lunch] 

We stored our luggage at the hotel and re-packed a bit before heading out to walk around what sights there are to see. Largely the old Hanseatic fishing village. 

We came back and had lunch at the fish market, I had whale steak and K had soup, a fish frikadelle and a salad.

[Floyen/Floien] 

There was a brief 2 ish hour period of 'clear' weather where we managed to go up the funicular to Floyen, the "Hausberg" (as Germans would call it), the closest hill/mountain. I could tell the paths were used (when snow was there, which the locals said is maybe 1 week in the winter) for cross-country skiing as well. There was a  nice lake and some carved trolls, as well as very friendly and very very soft goats. 

We ducked in to a free museum after, then I went to the hotel to rest and K went to another museum.  

Being the last day of the trip, we splurged on a restaurant meal (at Frk. Schmidt) and after on Sauna (the collage's middle picture was the view from the sauna). Also had a little alcohol. I had some cider, some norwegian Labskaus, which unlike hamburg, is not a gross basically-raw pork  and beet juice dish with potatoes and a fried egg, but instead a hearty lamb stew. Followed by amazing brown-cheese mousse. 

[Sauna! On the ocean]

We also went out to have a wood-fire Sauna on the water (here). 

Little video of the adjacent electric sauna, to get a feel. 

That was really great. Norwegians in a Sauna are friendly, talkative people. We chatted about Finnish vs Norwegian Sauna culture. Learned that a couple there (also from the US) was a guy who had a Physics degree but travels around the world coaching Olympic Beach Volleyball, and his wife (tiny and speaking in that kind of high pitched baby voice i assume is an affect but maybe I'm wrong) is an ultramarathoner and a high powered consultant/NGO person who had a project example where she went to Svalbard to get seeds to take to somewhere in Africa to replace in the local diet something that people relied on but had developed a really bad allergy to. 

[Leaving Bergen and Norway]

K used points to book us a nice hotel with a good breakfast. The most amazing scrambled eggs -- I asked the cook and he said 200g butter and 50 eggs, scrambled in the oven in a casserole dish (think Le Creuset). This buffet was so fancy, they had whole avocadoes for you to take. Lots of kinds of fish. Brown cheese of course! 

After breakfast, we went to wait for the bus, and it somehow missed us. 

We ended up going back to the hotel and getting the guy behind the desk to call us a taxi. He also told us how much the fare should be. Despite the missing-the-bus stress, we got to the Airport with enough time. My fancy refundable ticket let me into the 1st class lounge in Oslo on my way back to Frankfurt. K. was returning to Oslo to go to a conference, and then home a few days later. 

Last thoughts: 

Norway is a beautiful place. I could totally see living there --- just not Bergen. Otherwise, I think 1/3 my salary would be rent and 1/3 would be Sauna just to fight the blues. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad though...? :) 

Norway: Gudvangen & Voss.

Recall: What we did (to try to take it a bit easier than a rapid sprint across the country): 

• Day 1: Oslo (walked around in the sun, had tasty falafel, bought supplies for the trip) (sleep)
• Day 2: Train Oslo to Geilo, which is a ski resort that also supports hiking in the summer. 4ish hrs from Oslo by a really pretty train ride.
• Day 3: Train, Train, Ferry. This is the core of the trip.
• Train Geilo to Myrdal.  
• Flåmsbana from Myrdal to Flåm.  
• Fjord Cruise-Ferry from Flåm to Gudvangen (sleep) 
• Day 4: Gudvangen Viking Village, then bus to Voss. Voss cable car up the rainy mountain.
• Day 5: Train Voss to Bergen. Bergen, the rainiest city in Europe. 

Day 1 & 2 here

Day 3 : the core of the trip 

Day 4

End of Day 3 was us checking in to the Gudvangen Hotel, which involved tramping out in the rain and then back from the port, since there was a small sign on the hotel door telling us to use the check-in counter of the other hotel, next to the port. That hotel had a gift shop and restaurant and also luggage storage lockers, which we used the next day. 

The hotel was alright. Shared bathrooms, but we were clearly the first to shower in the evening, and the bathroom areas had been pretty recently renovated and had great water pressure. 

Gudvangen Viking Village

On day 4, we got to the "Viking Village" on opening at 10 am, which gave plenty of time to look around and take our bus after (unfortunately, due to being booked over Norway's best, they had a dumb cancellation policy, else we would have probably taken one bus later. Vy, the norwegian public transit service, has really flexible cancellations). 

The first tour in the village was at 10:30 so we were encouraged to walk around, try out axe throwing and archery. My companion was an archery natural, although did have the bowstring snap back on her wrist. I was able to translate my several stints of wood-chopping in Finland into a successful axe-throw.

Despite the village in the description being described as not full of "actors" but instead people "living as Vikings!", our guide was not speaking in an immersed way (which I was fine with, it's kind of weird when they pretend to be 1000 years old). The nationalities of the employees were largely not Norwegian -- the axe throwing guy was French, the archery guy maybe Scottish, our tour guide from Spain, a woman beating a drum clearly from England, etc. 

It was raining (as it was the whole trip) and I did feel bad that due to being "authentic", the people there were stuck with wool capes as their only defense against it (they didn't smear them authentically with lanolin to waterproof them).

The village profited from various archaeological digs, recreating various buildings and artefacts from them. 

We were shown how one turns wool into yarn/thread and told this was usually annoying, repetitive work given to kids to do. We talked about dyes --- yellow, blue, green, red -- and how red was pretty popular but also prone to fading, so you should think of a lot of Vikings running around in pink. 

Metal was super strenuous to smith, so spears were a good common weapon. Having a sword was a sign of extreme wealth, and you might have one person per village with a sword. Chain mail and horses also other signs of wealth.

There was a Viking burial with sword, armor, and two horses and with modern genetic testing we found out it was a woman (go Viking equality).

Also, as in York, emphasized again that Vikings all had combs and were fastidious about grooming. (Recall: York trip)

As we left the village, a giant crowd was waiting to enter, so my pro-tip would be: get there when they open. I wondered if these people were from the first boat of the morning.

We caught our bus, which made a short stop of about 10 minutes at a hotel with a nice lookout before going on to Voss(evangen).  [the view is the picture from the next collage, upper right] 

Voss/Vossevangen

It was still raining when we got to Voss and did the one thing on the docket for Voss, take the cable car. Which I admit was...a questionable decision given the weather. 

It was nice to have down time. I went out for a hike to the 'Voss' in Voss while K read. Voss is the word for a kind of lazy waterfall, I guess? Rocks on a hillside with water running over them, but not a free-fall. I went to look at it, it was nice? I suppose? Nothing to go out of your way for, but nice enough to go look at. 

We were in the "motel" looking out onto the water, with a little terrace off the room where we ate our meals.  Dinner was a quick stir fry, using up our remaining veg snacks (I was pleased the whole trip how heavy it was to get snack-sized veg at the grocery stores) and a stir-fry freezer meal, cooked in a pan on a hot plate. 

I couldn't remember the Swedish word for lake, and we asked the guy at the desk of the hotel-which-also-was-the-Voss-train-station what he would call it and he said something that to me clearly meant "big waters". 

Next: Bergen, Norway's Hanseatic town, and our last stop. 

Norway: Geilo - Myrdal - Flåm and a Fjord Cruise

 Recall: What we did (to try to take it a bit easier than a rapid sprint across the country): 

• Day 1:  Oslo (walked around in the sun, had tasty falafel, bought supplies for the trip)  (sleep)
  
• Day 2: Train Oslo to Geilo, which is a ski resort that also supports hiking in the summer. 4ish hrs from Oslo by a really pretty train ride.
• Day 3: Train, Train, Ferry. This is the core of the trip.
• Train Geilo to Myrdal.  
• Flåmsbana from Myrdal to Flåm.  
• Fjord Cruise-Ferry from Flåm to Gudvangen (sleep) 
• Day 4: Gudvangen Viking Village, then bus to Voss. Voss cable car up the rainy mountain.
• Day 5: Train Voss to Bergen. Bergen, the rainiest city in Europe. 

Day 1 & 2 here

Day 3: all the trains and a ferry. 

Geilo to Myrdal and Myrdal to Flåm by train. 

A nice report on this stretch from a "Train blogger". Including a sunset picture that makes Finse look warm and idealized instead of like somewhere you might find polar bears. 

The original plan was to take things slowly and hike and cycle down the hill from Myrdal to Flåm. Unfortunately, it was raining the whole trip. I did write to the booking agency (more than half these things had to be booked over "Norway's best", which has kind of annoying cancellation policies) and ask about rain plus cycling, would that be safe. I got a very Norwegian answer: ( For those not in the know, Germany and the Nordics all claim ownership of the belief that there is no bad weather, just inadequate clothing)

"It is still safe to do with rain, though can be little uncomfortable if you do not have water proof clothing.  

If the weather forecast shows possibility of rain, we recommend bringing sunglasses so the rain would not hit your eyes. And thin gloves are recommended as well."

 

First leg: Train Geilo to Myrdal.  About 1.5 hrs, delayed about 15 -30 minutes. 

Honestly, this trip was wild. Anyone who skips it to just do the Flåmsbana is missing out. The scenery was surreal, like a moonscape. We went from a hot summer day in Oslo to an area so cold the water was partially frozen and snow on the ground (the stop was 'Finse').  They train had a few stops where it would pause a bit longer, which seem like a great way to lose some tourists. The train itself felt like an "S-Bahn" in Germany. Very minimal toilets and modest seating, like something you ride 30-60 minutes, not a half day. 

A group of what I think were Ukrainian teenagers got on the train with us at Geilo and got off at Finse, which I thought was an interesting choice. Plus one Asian couple with a giant suitcase that seemed really out of place. 

Second leg: Flåmsbana from Myrdal to Flåm. 

While planning this trip, I was thinking that in an ideal world, you could stop at Myrdal but literally no one lives there. It is a train station, nothing else. Flåm would also be a good place to stop to deal with the overload of amazingly beautiful scenery, but we planned a bit too late and only 400USD hotels were available, so we just chose to keep going by Ferry and sleep in Gudvangen (which let us beat the crowds to the Viking Village, so there is that). 

Getting on the train in Myrdal,  I was very glad we had just sucked up losing our money on the bikes and bought the train stretch. It is a very touristy train -- sit on the lefthand side if you can, coming from Myrdal, for the best views. There are some informational things put up on the screen at the front of each wagon. The windows can be opened so you do not have as much glare (but then you have rain...). We sat across from two other Americans who amusingly also studied in Illinois. 

There was a stop at a nice waterfall where a woman who is more tough than i am pretended to be a fae creature and danced to rather cheesy music (more here). I would have preferred silence, but there is clearly a whole souvenir section dedicated to these local underground-dwelling night-active cow-tailed fae folk, so maybe it pays off.  Link to my short 9 second video. 

Brief stop in Flåm. Lunch, hike, Bergenbahn museum, until the evening Ferry. 

Due to taking the train instead of hiking and cycling, we had a lot more time free and went for a nice little hike in Flåm. It was great to stretch our legs after all the train-riding. 

This is the route we took to Brekkefossen waterfall and back, although we did not swing through old Flåm.  Unfortunately, there is VERY VERY VERY little left luggage space in Flåm, and what there was cost 20 USD and closed at 4pm. We did not think we would make it back soon enough (and we were right) so the hike was done with full luggage, making it a lot sportier than expected. 

Flåm Railway Museum

Getting back from the hike, we checkout out the cute, tiny free museum on the construction of the Bergenbahn. Why Flåm, etc. I though the cool little rail "cars" and motorcycle and other conveyances for getting around before the trains rain were really cool. 

Third Leg: Ferry/Cruise in the Naeroyfjord from Flåm to Gudvangen 

This leg was super important to me, in planning this trip. To get out onto the fjords on an electric boat. There is just something about it. 

The boat takes the U along the Fjords from Flåm to Gudvangen. The point where the 3 Fjords meet was especially beautiful. There is an audio guide you can download and listen along with live on your phone, about various towns, how people have lived there since the viking era, and how a rich guy decided to make a little museum in his wife's tiny village and brought them some tourism and as a result got a medal from the Norwegian king. 

If you notice Undredal on the map, that is a stop of some of the boats (this boat did not stop) and the source of some delicious and odd award-winning brown cheese i got later in Bergen.  Brown cheese is a dessert cheese, i guess, because it is brown due to the sugars in the milk being forced to caramelize. Norwegians invented a special cheese scraper/knife/doodad for this cheese. 

I was getting a little burnt out on beauty -- and getting wet while also being cold -- at this point, so chose the points I went out on deck strategically. Unfortunately, your view inside the ferry is limited and does not look forward.