Norway: Flam to Myrdal to Oslo

The hotel had breakfast which is where we got our first true taste of Norwegian food. There was your typical breakfast buffet bar with scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, pancake crepes etc. There was also a salad bar with sandwich making supplies (not the first time in Europe we have come across cold cuts for breakfast), salmon, caviar and other things. Lots of fresh bread with several different types of really great jam to try. It was an impressive breakfast bar! We took a walk after breakfast to the end of the harbor and also up above the hotel to get a view of the harbor from above. 

The trail was steep and winding. I could barely keep up and I didn't even have my backpack weighing me down! Aaron is so patient with me and this growing child of ours. In my defense, he was getting out of breath too with our little hike up the mountain. The scenery that we saw was just astounding. You felt like you were shrunk, the surrounding mountains and fjords were just majestic! 

We checked out of the hotel (cue me complaining about having to carry my backpack around) and explored the Flam Railway museum, ate lunch and waited for our bus to take us to Stegastein Lookout.  We purchased tickets for the Stegastein Lookout from the tourism center in the railway station. A mini-bus arrived to take us to the lookout which is above Aurland and looks out towards the fjords we had traveled from the day before. The road to the top of the lookout was narrow and several times we met vehicles traveling the other direction. Our driver always refused to move and the oncoming vehicles were forced to back up until they could pull over enough for us to pass. Stegastein was easily the best part of the trip. 

The sun broke through the clouds right before we arrived and we were able to get some amazing pictures and enjoy the view. There weren’t that many people there either, so that was nice. 

On our drive back to Flam, the bus driver chatted on his cellphone for most of the way .. it was a little terrifying. We caught the train for the Flam Railway around 1600.

 From Flam we traveled to Myrdal where we would hop back on the NSB railway for our final destination of Oslo. The journey from Flam to Myrdal was stunning. (What part of our journey hasn’t been stunning?) The Flam Railway, which is a branch of the Bergen railway that goes from Flam - which is about 2 meters above sea level to Myrdal - which is at an altitude of 866 meters above sea level. This makes it the steepiest normal gauge railway line in Northern Europe. I expected rollercoaster climbs, but it was a gradual climb to the top, barely noticeable. The railway has 20 tunnels, 18 of which were built by hand! The railway also included Kjosfossen waterfall where the water is used to provide electricity for the line. 

We arrived in Myrdal about 50 minutes after leaving Flam and had a short wait to switch lines and get back on the Bergen Railway for the final leg of our train journey to Oslo. 

The 5 hour journey to Oslo included a lot of the same scenery that we had seen from the start of our journey in Bergen. 

We were able to relax and rest as the train accommodated longer journeys with a food car and comfortable seats. I enjoyed watching all of the little towns pass by. I couldn’t help but notice a lot of the houses didn’t have cars. We take so many things for granted in America. I wondered how these people got the things we pick up at places like WalMart. I’m sure life is a lot simpler for them and to me, that is amazing. We passed several houses with grass roofs which for some reason made me think about Little House on the Prairie. Once we arrived in Oslo, we walked to our hotel which was reserved through the tour we had booked complete with the train tickets and hotel on Friday night. We paid a little less than what we paid for the Fretheim Hotel in Flam, but the difference was astounding. We discovered no soap anywhere in the room and a sign that read there would be a charge for request for extra toiletries. It was just one of those hotel rooms that you are afraid to take your shoes off and walk anywhere in your bare feet. Luckily, we were both exhausted and managed to sleep despite the shabby conditions.

We woke up to rain on Sunday morning. It put a damper on the days activities. We had planned on walking most places to do a couple of museums and landmarks of Oslo. We ate breakfast at the included buffet and once again, there was a huge difference in our stay at the hotel in Flam vs this hotel. The food was similar in nature, but it was a buffet that you didn’t feel comfortable taking things from. We discovered that hot dogs are everywhere! And not just your Oscar Meyer bun-length frank either, the hot dogs in Norway are twice if not three times the size (same length though) with a tough outer skin to bite through. After breakfast, we took our time checking out knowing that rain wasn’t going anywhere according to the forecast. We debated on getting a citypass so that we could take advantage of free transportation for the day but in the end figured it would be cheaper to take the bus as minimally as possible and try to stay in one area for most of the day. We bought bus tickets at a local convenience store and while waiting for the bus to come, we observed the other riders getting onto the bus to see what we needed to do. No one seemed to have a ticket and there wasn’t anyone in the middle of the bus to make sure you had a ticket. While in Amsterdam, there would be personnel on the trams to purchase a ticket from and also make sure you were scanning your ticket when getting on and off. Not the case for Norway. We boarded the bus and got off of the bus without scanning our paid for tickets at all. It was odd. We took the bus to the Viking Ship Museum. The vessels in the museum were three excavated and preserved Viking ships believed to have been buried in the 9th century as part of a grave site.

 It was fascinating to learn about the people who had been buried with the ships and all of the things that they took with them such as multiple animals, cooking supplies, jewelry that was then grave-robbed, combs, carts and even one ship seemed to have a servant buried alongside the owner. 

From the Viking Ship Museum, we went to the central part of Oslo and wandered for a bit. The ticket we bought at the Viking Ship Museum included entry to the Heritage Museum as well, which we quickly lost interest in because all of the exhibits were in Norwegian and only a small section of it actually focused on Norwegian history. We ate lunch at TGIFridays, which we initially felt guilty for doing so, but then realized that we no longer live in America and it was just as rare to eat there as it would have been to eat at any other restaurant. The rain had finally stopped but it was cool and damp outside. I had envisioned a nice, sunny day to explore Oslo but things don’t always go as planned. We talked about how it would have been a stretch to spend an entire weekend in just Oslo. There were plenty of museums and places to go, but we are so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to take the train across Norway, it will be an experience we’ll talk about for a long time. After eating, we went to the Opera House which opened in 2008. The roof is open to the public so we decided to walk to the top and check out the views of Oslo and the waterfront.

Our flight from the airport, which is about a 30 miles outside of the city center, left early Monday morning so we booked a hotel near the airport and took the train to the area on Sunday evening. We stayed at one of the Radisson Blu chain hotels and automatically felt like Americans. We have stayed in mostly bed and breakfast places while in England mainly because you will more than likely find them versus an actual hotel throughout the country. We couldn’t help but notice the mini bar with it’s steep prices and the gym that included a tanning bed and golf simulation course. We definitely enjoyed our stay but it’s interesting what you notice after having been gone from living in America for only 6 months.

Our flight home to London Gatwick was uneventful. The rain managed to followed us to London but Memorial Day just so happened to fall on a Bank Holiday for the UK, so traffic was minimal.

Probably the best investment made prior to this trip was buying a windbreaker type of jacket with a hood. I wore that thing almost every day and it kept me warm and dry! We had an amazing time in Norway and hope you enjoyed reading about our adventures and looking at our pictures. Until our next adventure, which will be Ireland!

Already buying things for our child.

Aaron with his troll. Didn't get to buy one, but at least he got a picture.

  

Norway: From Bergen to Flam by train, bus and boat

The next morning, we woke up and allowed ourselves plenty of time to get to the train station which was only about a 10 minute walk away. We ate breakfast in the cafe next to the hostel. Aaron was tempted to get a “Troll Burger” which allowed you to choose between beef or reindeer but he ended up settling for eggs, toast and bacon. I had a croissant with delicious jam. We picked up our tickets at the station and waited for our train to arrive. 

We had about a 1 hr 15 min train ride to Voss. From the very start, the scenery was stunning. It was misty and overcast, but still breathtaking. Aaron managed to fall asleep during the train ride and I may have nodded off but didn’t miss much. We passed through the Osterfjord and Bolstadoyri fjords, glimpsed the island of Osteroy, passed through the towns of Dale, Bolstad, and Evanger and followed the Vossavassdraget river system to disembark the train at Voss. Right before we arrived in Voss, I attempted to use the bathroom on the train, but there was a line and the train stopped and I feared that it would keep moving and I would be separated from Aaron for the rest of the trip. So I quickly went back out to our seats to retrieve my backpack and got off thinking I could use the bathroom at Voss, train stations have bathrooms right? Right, but they cost 5 krones .. which we did not have in change at the time. So I boarded the bus half wishing I would have worn depends for the occasion. The bus took us on about an hour ride to Gudvangen. Our bus driver was informative and entertaining as he pointed out things along our way. We passed through the towns of Bavallen, Vinje and Stalheim. We saw several waterfalls including the Tvinefossen waterfall and Kjelsfossen waterfall. The most exciting/nerve-wracking part of the trip was our journey down Stalheimskleiva. It is a 1.5 km stretch of road that has 13 sharp hairpin bends. It is one of the steepest stretches of road in Northern Europe and we were travelling down it, in a bus, in slick, rainy conditions. 

We arrived in Gudvangen around 1115 and had about 30 minutes to spare before catching the ferry to Flam. We used the bathroom (no charge and also no flush handle for the toilet, there was a pin at the top that you pulled upwards to flush) and grabbed a hot dog to share just in case the food was ridiculously priced on board the ferry. Lesson #1: Food, hotel rooms, everything is ridiculously priced in Norway. Aaron snapped some pictures of the Gudvangen area before we got on the boat.

We must have been one of the last ones to board because there was barely any seating available. People had drug lawn chairs from the outside deck into the enclosed solarium type so that they could have a view while staying warm inside. We found a table without a view, but figured we could venture outside as needed. We ended up just going outside and braving the chilly temps to see the most amazing views one could imagine. 

The fjords of Norway are stunning. We passed through towns of populations in the hundreds only accessible by boat and lived in since the Viking era. 

 

One town, Stigen had farms that could only be reached by ladder. It is claimed during the age when the church’s men travelled around collecting taxes, the people at Stigen could see them approaching by boat on the fjord well in advance and pulled up their ladders preventing the tax collectors from reaching them.

If you look carefully, you can see the "town" of Stigen.

A close up of Stigen. 

Our cruise was about 2 hours long and easily the best part of the trip so far despite the mist and cooler temperatures. We pulled into Flam around 1400. The entire trip from Bergen to Oslo can easily be done in 1 day, but we decided to stay overnight in Flam and continue on towards Oslo the next day. We had reservations at the Fretheim Hotel but weren’t able to check in until 1600, so we relaxed in the lobby for a bit and explored the shops in the surrounding area. Souvenir shops all sold the same things, lots of little troll dolls, fur coats, all-weather jackets and your typical postcards and other travel trinkets. Flam has a population of about 400, it is one of the most popular cruise harbors in Norway and also is home to one of Norway’s most popular tourist attractions, the Flam Railway, with more than 300, 000 passengers a year! We ate at one of the cafe’s near the station and managed to somehow get behind a group that had just arrived via train and needed to depart on the ferry in less than 10 minutes. It was a group of 30 some people and the bill for their food was like 3,000 krones. It is a difficult concept to grasp when all of sudden your food bill is in the thousands. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing and we managed to go to bed super early thinking we would wake up early and tackle the day from there. The room had black-out curtains in it, seeing that it didn’t get dark until well after 2300, they were a blessing. We both slept so well and woke up feeling refreshed.

Norway: How we almost missed the entire trip

The theme of this post and trip will not only follow our adventure and trip through parts of Norway but will also highlight the fact that I’m pregnant and things just aren't the same as they used to be for me and my body. With that said, enjoy reading as much as we enjoyed our trip, I hope I can convey into words what the majestic country of Norway offered us while there.

We flew out of London Gatwick airport on Thursday evening. London has several airports, Heathrow being the most popular and one that most have heard of. We've flown out of Stansted for our previous trips but found tickets through Norwegian Air that left and returned to Gatwick, which according to Googlemaps is about a 2 hour drive from our house. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 2040, so I picked Aaron up from work at 1600 and we started towards London, not sure what traffic would be like. It had been raining and thunder-storming for most of the day and I briefly wondered if it would affect our flight but then I concluded that it rains often enough in England, a little rain shouldn't affect things, right? Our cigarette lighter in the car stopped working weeks ago, which means we were no longer able to light up in the car. No, we use the lighter to plug our GPS into, but our radio had a USB port so we were able to use that and didn't bother looking into replacing the fuse for the cigarette lighter. Until the USB port stopped working not too long ago. So we had a GPS that had battery life of about 2 hours. I had printed off directions (Mapquest, remember that website kids?) to follow versus using the GPS, so we could conserve battery life for our return journey home. PS The Brits call a GPS, a sat nav. Fun fact. So anyways, I would occasionally switch the GPS on to make sure we were going the right way. We hit traffic with more than an hour to go. Horrible traffic that makes one reminisce about DC and 495 and 395 and commutes home from Washington Hospital Center after working a 12 hr night shift or commutes to Inova after not really sleeping during the day and going into work for a 12 hour night shift. I mentioned these memories to Aaron several times during the inch-like pace of London traffic and he said, this is definitely worse. Probably because there was only two lanes at times. We were getting hungry and I was needing a restroom stop. The wonderful thing about pregnancy is your bladder capability goes down to near zero mL tolerance levels. The week of our trip to Norway, I entered the sixth month of pregnancy. I can’t complain, but I will. I’m exhausted most of the time, peeing more than not peeing and beginning to expand beyond just a cute little bump in the belly ... just to name a few. So we stopped briefly to eat and use the restroom and continued onward. We still had plenty of time to get to the airport, we weren't checking bags and I had already checked in for our flight online, so we had our boarding passes and planned on walking directly to our gate to board. While still sitting in traffic, I got a text from Norwegian informing us of a flight delay of about 15 minutes. Not a huge deal. We arrived to the airport, parked and shuttled to the terminal with time to spare. Our flight left as rescheduled around 2100. Norway is 1 hour ahead of London time, so we were scheduled to land in Bergen after midnight, local time. Before pregnancy consumed my body, I was an extremely light sleeper. Now, I can sleep anywhere. I often nap in the middle of the day and sleep better than during the night. So before the plane even took off, my eyes were feeling heavy. Aaron was more than 10 rows back, we had booked our tickets separately to get a cheaper rate. The flight wasn't very full and he could have moved up to sit next to me, but I was already half asleep and figured he might be too, so I enjoyed my aisle seat with an empty seat next to me. While up in the air, I drifted in and out of sleep. I remember thinking to myself, there seems to be more announcements than usual going on over the intercom system, but once again .. pregnant, sleepy and cannot be held accountable for being of sound mind. I woke up to an announcement saying we would land shortly and applause breaking out throughout the plane. I thought, man, these people are more than happy to be in Norway. While waiting for Aaron to get up to my seat to hand me my extremely heavy carry-on of a backpack, he caught up to me and said, “Well that was a close one.” I smiled and nodded, something I often do when I have no idea what is going on. As we exited the plane, he caught me up on what had happened while I was sleeping. The plane was originally scheduled to land in Bergen around 2340 but with the delay it was going to be after midnight. Apparently Bergen airport informed the pilot while we were in the air that the airport was shutting down and would not be able to land our plane due to the airport being closed. So the plane was going to be re-routed to Stavanger which was uh, a 4 hr drive from Bergen. After hearing this, Aaron started to stress, big time. The pilot assured passengers that there would be personnel in Stavanger to arrange hotels, transportation and help with other needs.  We had train tickets booked for the following morning, boarding and leaving Bergen’s railway station around 830am! Aaron said they were getting ready to land the plane in Stavanger when the pilot came back on and said they were able to negotiate with the Bergen airport and arranged arrival and touch down for there (hence the applause that woke me up). So the plane flew up the coast and landed in Bergen after all. Looking back, I understand why border patrol in Bergen was extra grumpy while stamping our passports. We caught the bus into downtown Bergen where we had booked a room at Citybox hostel. Our first hostel experience! I guess there should be another theme to this trip as well, Norway is expensive. The krone to dollar is a like 6:1 ratio so I was constantly dividing our costs by six (good for my non-employed brain). While researching hotels for the trip, I couldn't believe how much hotels were. $200-300/night for the more simple rooms. So we decided to brave a hostel that offered a private room with its own bathroom for a little less than the outrageously priced hotel rooms. It was a smart choice after all, because we ended up spending about 6 hours total in the room. We were both exhausted (despite my flight nap) and fell asleep quickly. I was impressed with the room, it was clean and worked for what we needed.

Amsterdam Adventures

We missed out on the four day President's weekend due to Aaron being on call but that's okay because he got the following Friday off and we were able to take advantage of this three day weekend just as much as if we would have had four days. We had our next trip narrowed down to Dublin, Belgium or Amsterdam and finally decided to give Amsterdam a go. We booked airline tickets through Ryanair again and to get the best deal we flew out Friday morning at 0655 and returned to London at 2000 on Sunday evening. In order to catch our flight on Friday morning, we did some serious rising and shining around 0330. We flew from Stansted into Eindhoven which was about a 1h45min bus ride to Amsterdam. We had planned on booking bus tickets through a company called Terravision, which is the same company we went through when in Rome. The only available bus time was 0900 which was when our flight was expected to arrive, so we held off on booking tickets online and figured we would just get them at the airport. When we came through arrivals there was no Terravision booth to be found. Super glad we didn't spend money on a non-existent bus company. We found a different company that had a bus leaving at 1000 so we were able to grab something to eat before catching the bus, it was mid-morning but we had been up for hours and were starved. The airport restaurants menu was completely in Dutch and we thought we might be in trouble when the clerk automatically started speaking to us in Dutch but she quickly switched over to English, probably as soon as she saw the petrified look on my face.
The bus ride was mostly highways, but I did catch one glimpse of a windmill. We arrived at Central Station right before noon and decided to head to the recommended Pancake Bakery for lunch. Before reading our guidebooks and researching places to eat, I had no idea how popular pancakes would be here. It seemed like many of the cafes were advertising pancakes so that made me happy! The Pancake Bakery was amazing. Beyond amazing. I decided to order a banana and nutella pancake and Aaron got an omelet (to balance between sweet and savory and also substantial nutrition vs a sugar coma). The pancake was ginormous. It resembled a crepe more than the fluffy stacks of pancakes we are used to in the States. It was delicious in every way imaginable and Aaron's omelet was just as tasty.

After lunch, we were refueled and ready to hit some of the sights. While waiting for the bus at the airport, we bought "I Amsterdam" cards which are definitely something to be looked into if ever traveling there for a short 2-3 day trip. We choose the 48-hr card which was a perfect for our travel itinerary. The I Amsterdam card includes free entrance to over 30 museums, a free canal cruise, free public transport, free entrance to 5+ attractions and discounts at select places. Our goal was to break even on the cost of the card and all of the attractions (obviously) but we ended up getting the value and much more when we sat down and calculated the cost of all of the places we went. We would have had to buy transport tickets as our hotel was on the outskirts of town so it was a plus just to have the free, unlimited public transport.
Our first stop was The Tulip Museum, but we were bummed to discover it was under renovation expected to be done next week which didn't help us at the time! So we explored the gift shop and headed to Woonboomuseum, aka The Houseboat Museum. Houseboats line the canals of Amsterdam, it was truly amazing to be introduced to their way of life on the water. I actually looked into staying on a houseboat vs a hotel while in Amsterdam but couldn't find any to fit our budget. I'm sure it would be quite the experience!

 Inside the houseboat, to the left and right are the beds where the family of four slept!

 Standing on top of the houseboat.

Next, we went to the Amsterdam Museum which was a great introduction to Amsterdam and the Netherlands. The museum was interactive and had English translation stations every spot you went to. We ended our afternoon at Bloemenmarkt which is the city's floating flower market. It was amazing! Lots of flowers, souvenirs and quirky little shops. We stopped at Old Amsterdam's cheese shop to take in some samples - yum!

We attempted to take public transport for the first time and hopped on a tram to head to the hotel. We ended up going one stop too far, but we arrived at the hotel despite this. We stayed at Westcord Fashion Hotel which was near the Westcord Fashion Center. The hotel had plastic fashion models all over the place, slightly creepy but understandable decor. We ventured back out for dinner and went to bed entirely too early but we were exhausted and both slept great!
On Saturday, we woke up to rainy weather but decided to proceed with our plan to visit the zoo in the morning before our 1pm tickets to the Anne Frank museum/house. It doesn't matter where you are, the zoo never gets old. It was fun trying to translate all of the animal signs into what animal we thought they were.

We stopped for a quick lunch in the Prisengracht area near the Anne Frank Huis. Our e-tickets allowed us to skip the line and go right in which was great because by then, the rain had cleared and the line was quite long. We found out during our 30 minute introduction that due to fire regulations only 200 people can be in the building at a time so that explained the line. The tour that we booked provided us with a 30 minute intro with an educator that usually gives school tours during the week. She brought to life the big picture of the time period with the second world war and also broke down the details of the small picture of Anne and her beginnings in Germany and what brought her and her family to Amsterdam and then finally into hiding in the very building we were about to take a tour of. It was an unforgettable experience. Aaron did not read the book but he enjoyed the tour and museum just as much as I did. In one entry, Anne says, "I want to go on living even after my death!" Thanks to the Anne Frank Foundation, her wish has come true! Approximately 1 million visitors each year make their way through the bookcase that concealed their hiding place.

Trying some traditional Dutch apple pie!

After Anne Frank Huis, we decided to take advantage of the weather and go on our free canal cruise. It was about an hour long and such a wonderful way to both rest our feet and see the city from a different perspective. Who knew there were so many canals! The architecture of the canal front is astounding. After the cruise, we returned to Bloemenmarkt to buy some cheese to take home which we were both pretty excited about. We ate dinner at Burger Bar, a recommended Trip Advisor eat. It was yummy, but nothing beats Five Guys - which we miss, so much.

Bikes are everywhere in Amsterdam. It was truly astounding to see the many different ways one can travel on a bike. We considered DC to be a pretty bike friendly city but if there is a bike friendly city it is Amsterdam for sure. They have entire lanes throughout the city dedicated to their travel method. At one point, I saw a family of four on a bike. Some bikes had little ledges on the back where another grown adult could ride side saddle like. Central Station had a parking garage, just for bikes. We learned on our canal cruise that the parking garage housed 2,500 bikes but that didn't compare to the 9,500 parked near the Central Station area due to there not being enough room in the parking garage.

On Sunday, we had e-tickets to the Van Gogh museum at 11am. Our I Amsterdam cards were due to expire at 215pm and we needed to catch the bus back to the airport around 315pm. So we caught a mid-morning breakfast at The Pancake Corner, a place we had spotted while riding the tram back and forth. Once seated, we realized "The Pancake Corner" was just another name for a greasy sports bar. They did have pancakes though and Aaron decided to go big with the "Dutch pancake". It was a pancake with vanilla ice cream, cherries, whipped cream and cherry sauce. Talk about sugar overload, for sure. It was delicious though and worth the carb overload. I ordered eggs and toast to balance things out.

The Van Gogh museum was pretty great. We were able to skip the line with our pre-booked tickets (which cost nothing extra to do) and take our time wandering through the world's largest van Gogh collection. It was pretty great to trace van Gogh's style through his short time as an artist. The famous Vase with Sunflowers is currently in Paris, so we had to settle for seeing a fake on the wall.

 We had some time to kill after leaving the museum so we went to see a windmill on the outskirts of town and after that we checked out the Bijbelsmuseum - Biblical Museum.

We wandered for a little bit after that and bought some delicious fries or frites in a paper cone drizzled with cheese. While waiting for Aaron to get the fries, I couldn't help but notice the smell of pot (brought back so many RA on duty memories, thank you East Halls) permeating the air. I finally realized there was a coffee shop right across the street. The possession and purchase of small amounts of marijuana is allowed in Amsterdam and usually happens in these coffee shops. When talking to people about going to Amsterdam, most had something to say about this marijuana reputation and also the Red Light District which we didn't even come close to being near. We caught the bus back to the airport around 315pm and arrived to Eindhoven around 5pm. We did some serious time travel at 8pm when we left the Netherlands and arrived in London at 8pm. My backpack was searched at Eindhoven, apparently the cheese we bought set off some sort of alarm. We had no issues coming through the border this time around, as I obsessively checked to make sure my visa was packed several times throughout the trip. We had a really great time in Amsterdam, it went beyond our expectations of a short, weekend trip and would definitely recommend it to anyone as a place to visit!