Because I took a nap on Monday afternoon, and I was busy
writing my previous blog, I didn’t get to sleep until 3am. But, thankfully, I
was able to sleep until 9am, so I was well rested for the first time on our
trip! We got up Tuesday morning and took the train to Vigeland
Park. That was an awkward park to go to! We walked up the pathway that had very
detailed naked statues on both sides. It led to the main central statue with
multiple other statues surrounding it. The park itself was huge and a beautiful
surrounding, but it was still an uncomfortable place. This didn’t stop us from
being tourists and taking lots of pictures though! Although it was a bit
uncomfortable, some of the works were neat if you got past the nakedness and
there were others that were more tasteful and did not show much nudity. We
stayed there an appropriate amount of time and then headed off to our next
destination.
We had purchased the Oslo Pass, only available to
non-Norwegians, so we had our free travel on all public transportation; we used
it a lot and more than got our money’s worth. We took the train further out of
Oslo and went to Holmenkollen, the massive ski jump used in the Olympics. We
had to walk a ways up the hill to get there, and then wait in line for about 35
minutes to take the elevator to the top. The weather was completely cloudy,
with a sporadic drizzle, but the view was still incredibly beautiful. They have
a zip line that goes from the top all the way to the bottom, and some younger
boy did it while we were there. To say the least, he was hauling on the way
down. Because we were running behind for our appointment with the king, we only
stayed up at the top for about 15-20 minutes before getting in the much shorter
line for the elevator ride back down. We did a bit of speed walking back down
the hill to the train and took it back into downtown Oslo.
We got off the train running! (My mom was literally
jogging.) We walked as fast as we could up to the Royal Palace and made our
schedule tour with four minutes to spare! We could not take any pictures
inside, but it was pretty neat to see. It is not nearly as big as many other
European palaces, but it was quite ornate and it was interesting to learn more
about the Norwegian monarchy.
We walked back the few blocks to our hotel and gave our feet
a wonderful rest! While my parents went back out and toured around a little
more, David and I just hung out for most of the evening. We went out and roamed
Karl Johan Gate again for the last time and went and had dinner. We decided to
start a tradition (because we did it in Guatemala) to eat at McDonald’s in
every country we visit that has one. Yep, the Big Mac meal was identical to at
home, even down to the cold fries. Ok, maybe not identical, this one cost
almost $15.00! After we ate we took our time getting back to the hotel to pack
our bags for our early morning scenic train/boat/bus ride to Bergen.
We got up early Wednesday morning to meet the porter to take
our luggage to our hotel in Bergen while we went on our tour. The tour
consisted of a total of three train rides, a boat ride, and a bus ride. So the
porter was well worth the money. Lugging it around that whole time would have
been miserable; it sure looked that way with all the people who were packing
all their bags with them from one transportation ride to the next. Anyway,
after that we went and ate breakfast and walked down to the train station. The
first leg of our journey was a 4-1/2 hour train ride on a normal commuter
train. It went through some beautiful landscape and was a very comfortable
ride, but it was just a way to get to where the scenic part of the trip was to
start, Myrdal. The first leg was assigned seating; it ended there and havoc
reigned after that!
When we got off the train in Myrdal we immediately went to
the edge of the track for that line and waited. There was no guarantee where
the doors to the train would be when it arrived, that was the gamble. We ended
up fairly close to a door and I pretty much muscled a bunch of little old
ladies out of the way to get on. Ok, not exactly, but I did muscle my way on
and staked out a good set of four seats for us where the window opened so we
could take pictures without looking through glass. It might seem mean to get
our seats like that (which we read earlier was necessary), but wow was it worth
it. Not only did we get nice seats, but we got seats period! There weren’t even
enough seats for everyone on the train so some people had to stand the whole
time. The trip was a ride on the Flåm
Railway down into the fjord from way up in the mountains. It went from Myrdal
to Flåm in a little over an hour. It went through some beautiful scenery with
lots of waterfalls, lakes, and tall fjord cliff walls. When we got to the
bottom, in the town of Flåm, we only had about a half hour before we were to
board the boat. We made another mad dash!
This time we knew where the line we going to be to board the
boat; we were at the front of it! When they lifted the gate across the opening,
scurrying took place once again. We got to the upper floor (it was actually a
small car ferry; no cars loaded in Flåm) and staked out the back corner of the
boat. We were able to take some pretty good pictures, but the weather was bad.
It sprinkled most of the time, but we made the best of it. The boat ride was
almost 2-1/2 hours, stopping to pick up a few cars and dropping off one, before
delivering us to Gudvangen. During that time we abandoned our seats and roamed
around the boat to take other pictures and to get out of the rain when it
picked up again. All in all, it was pretty neat to go down one of the most
famous fjords in a boat. As we were pulling up to Gudvangen, everyone lined up
for the mad rush to the waiting buses.
We hurried toward the back buses while people were trying to
cram into the first one. We got onto the second one easily, and thankfully.
There were not even close to enough seats. We actually had to wait until a
fourth bus showed up before anyone could leave. We then started the 1-1/4 hour
bus ride to Voss by driving quite a ways down an 18 percent grade road! There
were many, many switchbacks with great views and it was quite the first part of
the trip. The rest of the way to Voss was fairly mundane and uneventful. We
pulled in with about 30 minutes until our final train ride.
Ten minutes before the train was to arrive, everyone lined
the track. No one really even knew where the train was coming from, or which
direction we were even going. It was totally overcast and we took so many turns
it was impossible to know which way was west. Most people were stacked near the
small train terminal, so we went further down the track where there were less
people. Thankfully. When the train pulled in it stopped further down the track
from the station than even we were. Everyone raced down the track and we were
able to get four seats across from each other. Once again, thankfully! There
were quite a few people (most were kids from a Scottish group that looked
similar to our Boy Scouts) that did not have seats. A few people got off in
some small towns along the way so some of the kids standing in other cars were
able to find seats. This train ride was just another commuter train to bring us
to Bergen and was quiet and uneventful as well.
The train pulled in to Bergen and we walked the half mile or
so to our hotel (thankful once again for the porter), walking through some
pretty neat city courtyards and past some nice stores. Our hotel was down at
the end of the famous wharf, so of course we walked past it on the way to our
hotel and that was great. We checked in, picked up our bags that the porter had
left at the front desk, put them in our rooms, and headed out for some dinner;
except for a few snacks, we hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 7:00am and it was
now 10:00pm! We walked back down the wharf to a little sidewalk fish and chips
tent and ate our dinner. We were eating fish and chips, on a wharf, in Bergen,
Norway, at 10:30pm in the broad daylight; doesn’t get much better than that!
(Except maybe some sunshine! Hopefully we will have some when we come back a
couple of weeks from now to stay a few nights.) We then went back to our hotel
to go to bed; Hammerfest, here we come!
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