After yesterday’s series of debacles, I was prepared for catastrophe at every turn today. The Norway leg of the trip was tightly planned out and timing was key (hence the need for the $$$ Uber yesterday), so a missed connection would spell disaster. I was also somewhat dubious about our train ticket reservations, which I had to make by calling the train company in Norway. All I had to show for it was an email with a reservation number — no bar code, no passenger list, no seat assignments.

We were trying to do something called the “Norway in a Nutshell” tour, which involves several different scenic legs to travel between the cities of Oslo and Bergen: the spectacular train ride to the town of Myrdal, a small scenic railroad trip to the village of Flam, a fjord cruise to Gudvagen, a scenic bus ride winding down the mountain to the train station at Voss, and a train the rest of the way to Bergen.

The whole thing takes up pretty much a whole day but gives a great snapshot of the amazing Norway fjord lands. The companies that run the transit time them out so you can smoothly move from one to the next.

So we left the cursed CityBox at 7:45 am and held our breath while boarding the 8:30 train for the first leg of our trip. We immediately encountered a hurdle in that we didn’t have seat assignments and no conductor was in evidence.

We have a first class Eurail pass so we took the last five open seats in first class, figuring we were good — until another passenger arrived to kick one of us out. I sat on a little window seat bench in between the first class carriages and awaited the conductor with a mixture of impatience (because maybe someone was in one of our seats and could be kicked out?) and dread (because maybe we didn’t have real tickets at all and would be kicked off the train at the next stop in the middle of nowhere).

The reality turned out to be in between — we did have tickets, but they were second class for some reason. The kind conductor said that we could keep the four seats that we had, since apparently the people who reserved them didn’t show up. I stayed camped out on my window seat, which was nicer than the second class carriage and actually turned out to be a great location for seeing the gorgeous scenery that we soon began to pass.

The train between Oslo and Myrdal, heading up into the mountains and fjords, is considered to be one of the most scenic train journeys in Europe and it was easy to see why.

Lots of tourists from the rest of the car visited my large window to take photos of the lakes, fjords, mountains, waterfalls, and glaciers. (Eventually two more people got on with first class reservations, so two other members of the family had to join me on the bench.)

Step 1 completed successfully, we waited about 10 minutes on a platform in a gorgeous mountain town then boarded the Flamsbana, a one-hour train ride from Myrdal (elevation 867 meters) to Flam, at sea level. It claims to be the most beautiful, and one of the steepest, train journeys in the world.

Halfway through, the train stops at a gorgeous waterfall so everyone can get out to take photos, and to our surprise there was a mini-show, with a woman dressed in traditional garb dancing from the top of a cliff part way up to musical accompaniment. The ride was one breathtaking vista after another as we wound down alongside glaciers and fjords.

Our luck seemed to be changing — until we tried to book our boat ride and discovered that (a) the next ride was sold out, and (b) the later bus wasn’t running for some reason, so if we waited for the next boat ride we’d be stranded in Gudvagen. This was a real low point. Fortunately, Nadia’s internet skills came in handy again and she managed to find a different cruise that was making the five-hour journey directly to Bergen, our final destination.

We hurriedly booked ourselves tickets for the boat that was leaving in an hour’s time (and reflected that after the previous 24 hours we’d had, maybe getting directly to our destination, rather than having to navigate more buses and trains, was no bad thing.

 

 

 

 

 

And then things truly did turn around.

The boat ride through the fjords was gorgeous and comfortable. We alternated between sitting in our cozy indoor seats (especially when periodic rain started up), playing games and relaxing, and going up on deck to look at the towering cliffs of the fjords, the copious waterfalls, and the little storybook villages that we periodically passed.

 

Our boat arrived at 8:45 pm, which is still broad daylight up here.

It would take a lot for me to feel that this whole leg of the journey, with all the stress and problems, was worth it — but Bergen rose to the challenge. It is hard to overstate how beautiful the town is, particularly when approached by sea in the evening sunlight. It was a Saturday night and the town squares and cobblestone pedestrian lanes were lively with people.

Our rental apartment proved to be literally a few steps from the harbor where the boat docked and just around the corner from the famous waterfront “timber town”, which dates back to the 1700s and 1800s and is a UNESCO world heritage site. (It’s one of the few such sites in the world that hasn’t burned down over time.) Even though it was well after 9 pm by the time we hit the streets, the long day of sun and the energy of the town made us all up for some strolling around as we looked for a place to have dinner.

By the time we’d enjoyed our excellent harborside Italian meal and made our way back to our apartment, it was 11:30 pm, but didn’t feel like it. We can’t wait to see more of Bergen tomorrow.