Norway in a Nutshell

Today I did the "Norway in a Nutshell" tour. It involves trains, buses, and boats, fjords, rivers and high plateaus. I took a bazillion pictures, so won't put them all in here. Here's a link to a Kodak Gallery of them.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=14b5vs3i.bc3s6cqi&x=0&y=fn4sn1&localeid=en_US

Or you could check out http://www.norwaynutshell.com/.
The train left Bergen heading east at 8:40 am. It follows the Sorfjord and then the Osterfjord for a long way. The "o" in Sorfjord is really an o with a slash through it. I didn't get any pictures here since we kept zipping in and out of tunnels, and the train was moving along. I'll give you word pictures. Deciduous trees with new green, sheep with lambs, flowering fruit trees, green green green. Roofs are slate, tile and composite to start, but are soon almost all slate. The fjord ends and we continue east along a rushing river system. It is not colored as if glacier-fed.

This river system, the Vossavassdraget, is under a permanent conservation order, so is one of the few that has not been harnessed for hydroelectric power. Almost all of Norway's power is from hydroelectric power. You'll believe it when you see all the waterfalls! This river also used to be a great salmon fishing river, but the salmon population here has been greatly reduced due to a combination of pollution, disease and other unknown factors. Sound familiar, Seattleites?

We get off the train at Voss. The train unloaded onto four tour buses and we started up a beautiful winding road along the Strandaelva River. There are supposed to be lots of trout in the upper reaches. I saw 3 river kayakers. At the top of the river is Oppheimsvatnet lake, also full of trout. I'm just tempting all you fishermen so you come visit!

Now comes the spectacular stretch of road that goes down a steep (up to 20% grade) switchback road from Stalheim to the Naeroydalen valley (that o is really an o-slash). That's where I started getting snap-happy with the camera. The bus continues to Gudvangen, at the end of the valley.
Gudvangen was a big cruise ship destination already at the end of the 19th century. Kaiser Wilhelm came here several times. My great-grandfather left Germany because he didn't like what Kaiser Wilhelm was doing. Just a little tangent there.

At Gudvangen, we boarded a passenger-only ferry. We went up the Naero(-slash)yfjord, which is the narrowest arm of the Sognefjord. Wow! Steep mountains, snowfields, waterfalls, small villages. More snap-happy time.

We turned right on a wider stretch of the Sognefjord, and chugged up to Flam. The 'a' is an a with a small circle on top. That's where I picked up some postcards and some spare batteries for my overworked camera. That's also where we boarded the train that is the the steepest normal grade, no cog-wheels, train anywhere. It's electric, and has 5 sets of brakes. We start at 2 meters elevation. The grade is 1:18. The route even has a tunnel that makes a 180 degree hairpin turn. There's a picture of the going up train meeting the going down train, and each politely waiting for the other, as controlled by the guy with the green flag. By the time we reach Myrdal, at 867 meters, we are back in winter. It's bright sun on white snow, but there are many melted spots.

From Myrdal, we took an express train back to Bergen through Voss, so we got a second look at the last section. Got back at 5:55 pm, so it was a full day.