Norway in a Nutshell

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• May 26, 2016
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We left Bru on Tuesday morning driving through yet more amazing scenery on our journey to Bergen. After a short  ferry crossing and more narrow roads we arrived in Bergen in time to spend the evening wandering around the Old Town. On the morning of Wednesday 25^th May we caught the tram, conveniently placed outside the camper stop, to Bergen train station to join the ‘Norway in a Nutshell’ tour, which is a round trip of approximately 200kms travelling by train, bus and boat.  I was very relieved not to be driving and happy at being able to fully view the scenery. I was not disappointed. The scenery was mind-blowing. I do not have the vocabulary to describe the staggering landscape we viewed and sorry the photos do not convey some of the wonders we saw. The bus journey included a 1.5km descent of 1:5 on a single track road making it  one of the steepest stretches of road in Northern Europe. With 13 sharp hairpin bends we had views in all directions, although it was probably best not to look downwards.  The road runs between two powerful cascading waterfalls, Sivlefossen and Stalheimsfossen and is closed from September to April. We arrived at Gudvangen in brilliant sunshine and boarded a boat which sailed along the Aurlandsfjord and Naeroyfjord, tributaries of the Sognefjord, which is Norway’s deepest and longest fjord. The Naeroyfjord with its steep mountainsides, waterfalls and towering snowfields is breathtaking. Not surprising UNESCO has included it in its World Heritage List. But more was to come! We left the boat in Flam and joined the mountain train to Myrdal. The track passes through 20 tunnels including one which has a 180 degree turn inside the mountain and is, not surprisingly, called ‘the hairpin tunnel’. At 1:5  gradient the track is the steepest in Northern Europe and, reassuringly, has no less than five sets of brakes. And the views! We passed the impressive Kjosfossen waterfall exploding from the mountain top providing the electricity for the Flam Railways. We returned to Bergen feeling exhausted and somewhat overdosed on nature!

We called into the fish market on our way home and thanks to the wonderful stock from our prawn and crab shells from Stavanger, and a few pointers from Raymond Blanc, made a fish soup (I’ve run out of superlatives) to round off the day.