Norway and beyond…

Well the big one took me on a fantastic adventure last week.  I might have to split this into 2 blogs.  It is unusual for me to praise the Big One but I did enjoy the adventures.

It started on the Saturday morning very early.  The Big One, child and the dwarf looking one woke up while I was still awake, I guess they wanted to see what night looked like.  They dragged me to an airport though, so I guessed we were off somewhere.  I am sure at this rate I am going to see all the airports.

Getting set to fly again.

Particular as on this day we saw 3 different airports!  We started the day at Leeds-Bradford airport.  It was cold when we all set off, but I was glad that it wasn’t bright and sunny.  Not much to say about this part of the journey really, checked in the child and the dwarf one had breakfast, we got on the plane.  We were heading to Amsterdam to begin with.  I had heard a rumour that we were heading to Oslo for a couple of nights.  I had never been to Norway so was looking forward to somewhere new.  Was hoping to try lots of new bugs as well.  So we flew to Amsterdam and then onto Oslo.   We landed in Oslo and then we discovered that the dwarf one had tricked us all, we weren’t staying in Oslo we were catching another plane to a place called Bergen.  We had landed in a very small airport in Oslo and we  got on the smallest plane I have ever been on, to Bergen.   It was raining when we arrived in Bergen.  That seemed to be the theme for Norway, RAIN and more RAIN!  We delivered everything at the hotel and went out for a walk, in the rain.  Thankfully the big one put me in her raincoat pocket so I was nice and dry.

Friendly Norwegian Troll

In Bergen I got to meet some of the famous Norwegian Trolls, didn’t seem too scary at all if you ask me.  We walked over to the old part of the town, Bryggen.  Bryggen is a World Heritage Site.  It as lots of old buildings with wooden alleyways, they were lovely.

Wooden Alleyways in Bryggen

Oh and no bright sun as well!  I didn’t have to squint, I could see perfectly fine.  🙂

The dwarf one then informed us we had to be up early in the morning as well as we had a LONG day ahead of us.  We were heading back to Oslo, by train, so we thought, he had surprised us again.

So we got up early and had a delicious breakfast.

Melon

Clean plate after salmon

I got fed!  We then walked in the rain again, OK actually I hitched a ride in the big one’s pocket, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.  This time we were heading to the train station.

Waiting in the Train Station at Bergen.

The train we were getting on was heading to Mrydal.  The Big one started saying that it sounded like a place out of something called Lord of the Rings.  I have never heard of that either.  We seemed to be on the right train though as it was quite busy for a Sunday morning.  The dwarf one informed us all that we weren’t going to Mrydal we were heading to a place called Voss.  I just shrugged and looked out the window.  The weather was wet out the window, very wet.  I didn’t have to worry about the rain though as I was in the train.  Besides being wet out the window the view was quite magnificent.  It was full of mountains, waterfalls and trees.  Not very many houses at all either.

Waterfalls

Train to Mrydal/Voss

We finally arrived at Voss, to more rain!  We then got onto a bus this time, we were heading to somewhere that sounded like good morning but turned out to be Gudvangen.  The language here is a bit hard to understand sometimes.

On the bus

Again it was raining outside.  We seemed to be on a tourist route though.  Again views of waterfalls and mountains out the window.

Waterfall on the way to Gudvangen

At Gudvangen we found out that we were now going by boat through the fjord.  The Big one was very excited at this as she has always wanted to go through the fjords in Norway.  At Gudvangen the building was covered in grass with more friendly trolls as well.  We then got on the boat and started through the fjord.  Again it was wet!

On the boat

One of the waterfalls through the fjord

Fjord

We were sailing through the Nærøyfjord which has the distinction of being the narrowest fjord at one point being only 250m wide!  The boat then turned into Aurlandsfjorden heading to Flam.  There were houses in the oddest places through these fjords with no sign of roads.  I guess if you don’t like people the best place to live, very isolated!  The Big one kept dragging me outside to the top deck to look at the view, even though it was windy, cold and wet!  There were also no Whales to be seen as well!

At Flam the next stage of the journey was another train trip.  Apparently this train journey was the world famous Flam Railway.  This train started in Flam which is 2m above sea level onto Mrydal which is 863m above sea level.  Hey I think the Dwarf One has conned us though as we were heading to Mrydal this morning!  This trip to Oslo was very long.  This train trip was also one of the steepest train journeys.  80% of the train journey at over 5% gradient.

Another Troll at Flam

Flam Railway

The old road they used while making the railway 24 hairpins

Kjosfossen Waterfall

The train stopped at  Kjosfossen Waterfall which was quite big, although I stayed in the train and let the big one get wet and cold all by herself.  After the waterfall the train stopped at Vatnahalsen.  We got out here to have lunch, even though it was more like 3pm!  I was getting very hungry at this point!  The big one had her first experience of unknown food on this trip and had some local meat dish, turned out to have a variety of meat on it like reindeer and goat.  She said it was nice but I think the child’s dish was the nicer one.

As it got dark we had to head back down to the train station to get the train to Mrydal so we could the train to Oslo.  It was getting very late at this point.  So yet another train journey.  Long and tiring train journey.  We didn’t arrive into Oslo until nearly 11pm.  Thankfully the hotel was close to the train station.

In the morning we had to get the train back out to Oslo airport to catch a plane onto Svalbard!  There wasn’t even going to be any sun once we got there, whoohooo.

Train in Oslo to Airport

I will leave the Svalbard adventures for another blog.  It was exciting though…