We flew into Copenhagen to spend several days before beginning a Baltic Cruise. One of our ports was Oslo but we would not be in port long enough to see one of Norways major fjords. We decided to do a quick trip to Oslo that we read about written by Rick Steves. We flew to Oslo after arriving in Copenhagen. We were going to take an early morning train the next day going to Bergen on the Atlantic coast of Norway. Our journey took us through the interior of Norway where the scenery was amazing. We saw wide open spaces that seemed to go on for ever along with huge forrest land and beautiful lakes and rivers. As our train continued on the elevation was increasing and after a few hours we began seeing snow. After about 5 1/2 hours we arrived at Myrdal station. It was probably about 45-50 degrees with snow on the ground. We got off to get on another train to go to Flam located about 13 km to the south but more importantly it was right at sea level. Flam is on one arm of the Sognefjord which is one of Norway's largest fjords. The temperature at Flam was in the mid 80's. The train to Flam had antique style passenger cars and also made several stops on the way down as there were several beautiful waterfalls resulting from the melting snow at the top of the mountains. The station at Myrdal A beautiful and very powerful waterfall A directional sign we passed on our way to Flam We walked around the town of Flam a little while waiting for the boat to arrive. Once it arrived and disembarked we got on and moved to the top level for our 2 hour cruise. The ferry we took our fjord cruise on The ferry made several brief stops at few small and very isolated towns to drop off and pick up both people and mail. The towns along the route were small and picturesque. It seemed like we took a step back in time while we enjoyed the scenery. The atmosphere throughout the entire cruise was very serene. After about 2 hours we arrived at Gudvangen and disembarked. Some of the beautiful scenery we saw on our cruise We got on a bus and were taken to the train station in Voss. We boarded a train and continued on for about 3 hours to Bergen. The second largest city in Norway, Bergen is located on the Atlantic coast. After getting off the train we walked to the funicular car station to go up and see Mt. Floyen. The views from the top were spectacular. You could see the entire city and the ocean as well. Views of Bergen for Mt. Floyen After taking the funicular car back down we headed back to the train station. It was only a short hike back. We grabbed a snack and then boarded a train for our overnight trip back to Oslo which departed around 11pm. We had a compartment in one of the sleeper cars. Sleeper compartments We arrived back at the central train station in Oslo around 6:30 in the morning. We retrieved our bags from the hotel and took another train back to the airport for our flight to Copenhagen later that morning.
That was our Norway in a Nutshell adventure. Although we did it in a day there were of number of places to stay in Flam and at the villages along our cruise route, as well as Bergen if you want to spend a little more time doing this. Our schedule didn't allow for this as we had 3 days of sights to see in Copenhagen before embarking our ship to cruise the Baltic Sea.
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