Our trip this day was the last leg of the rail adventure portion of our Scandinavian trip, and a beauty it was. The 7-hour trip is considered the most scenic in Northern Europe.
It seemed humble enough for the first few hours. Pretty, green farms with red barns. Gently rolling countryside. Lakes and reservoirs.
Suddenly, we found ourselves in another world. We could see snow on the mountains on our horizon. Then we passed a couple of ski resorts, snow still in evidence on their slopes--not enough to ski, but you could make out the runs. We were above the tree line, and the views were stark and rather barren. At one point, I could see some ice floating in a lake we passed. Soon, we were going by lakes that were still frozen--maybe breaking up a bit, but filled with ice.
Ski resort Geilo.
We've seen quite a few sod-roofed houses/structures.
Then, just when this seemed to be the new normal, the snow diminished and then disappeared. Waterfalls appeared, and towns became more frequent.
We knew this trip was going to be a rail highlight, but we hadn't anticipated such a completely different landscape and certainly hadn't expected to see so much snow and ice. There were vacation cottages dotted throughout this snowy area. Most looked currently uninhabited, but at a few, the intrepid owners were in residence. One particularly hopeful pair had set out a couple of lawn chairs.
Not only is this stretch of rail tracks a scenic one, it is also quite a feat of engineering. In just 300 miles, we went over 300 bridges, under 18 miles of snow sheds, and through 200 tunnels. It would be deceiving to think of all those things happily spread out over the full 300 miles. The bulk of them happen in probably less than 100 miles. It seemed every time I started to mention a sight to Jerry--"Oh, look, there's a.....(barn, lake, waterfall, you name it)"--we would immediately pass into a tunnel. It became a kind of game.
From Oslo to Myrdal (about 5 hours into the trip) is the first stage of what's known as Norway in a Nutshell. A large number of people left the train at Myrdal to transfer to a train to Flam. From Flam, they would take a boat down a fjord, eventually landing in Bergen.
We trundled on into Bergen, arriving in time for Friday night rush hour traffic. I guess that is a universal thing. We had to wait for half an hour for a taxi to take us to the hotel. We had several conversations with folks ahead of us and behind us in the taxi queue, all of them sporting Viking Cruises luggage tags. Guess we aren't the only ones who thought it would be good to arrive a couple days before we board our upcoming cruise!
After being in such large cities the past 10 days, we're ready for a smaller town. We're thinking Bergen will be not too big, not too small, but just right.
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