Aurlandsfjord – the little village of Aurland at the left
Another unproductive Migraine Sunday [obviously I had to leave this unfinished due to headache] and suddenly I feel like sharing a bit of my travels in Norway last September. My friend and I did the “Norway in a Nutshell” tour which may be called very touristy, but at the same time it’s perfect to explore as much of the country’s breathtaking nature as possible within a very short time. And since I only had like 4 full days in the country we decided to do this. We started the tour on the Oslo-Bergen train, and then changed to the Flamsbana which brought us down to the wonderful fjord area. And this is what I’m going to tell you about.
When the train slowly arrived at Flam, the end station at the fjord, rain drops started coming down. I mentioned this in previous posts about my trip last fall: We had just sooo much rain during those few days there, got fully wet twice and in the end I even had to buy Wellies, because my boots wouldn’t dry anymore. So right after boarding the ferry that would takes us on a 2 hour trip through branches of Norway’s biggest fjord system, my friend and I changed into our full body rain clothes, covered our backpacks with the rain cover and kind of looked as if we had just arrived on the moon. So we climbed up the stairs to the higher decks – and found a really weird scenery: The decks were packed with plastic chairs, arranged in rows like at the cinema. And most people had already taken their seats and stared at us like in anticipation of the spectacle to start. In the most remote corner we found a bit of space and settled down on two wet plastic chairs in the drizzle. After a while it was my friends who claimed that she couldn’t see herself sitting in this corner jammed together with all the other tourists and asked if I’d mind going down to find a better place. Not exactly disappointed I joined her and so we found our places at the very front of the ship in a far more relaxed atmosphere with way less people around and no plastic chairs. And can you believe what happened right after the ship had left the harbour? The rain stopped and even the sun came out!
So we had those wonderful, perfect two hours within that amazing, almost magical landscape! I know, I seem to exaggerate once again, but that journey was just like a dream and whenever my friend and I meet up we’re speaking about it. It took us through two branches of the huge Sognefjord system, first from Flam through the Aurlandsfjord, then through the Nærøyfjord (dt.) to Godvangen. From there we’d continue by bus and later by train to Bergen. Aurlandsfjord is very calm, large and tame; when we crossed it there was still a lot of mist on top of the water surface, as well as amazing cloud formations in the sky which created a kind of dreamy atmosphere. But especially the other fjord is simply breathtaking. Along with the famous Geirangerfjord it’s UNESCO World Heritage. At its narrowest point it measures only 250m, the steep cliffs that embraced it, tower up to 1760m. And when we crossed it, the sun had finally won over the clouds and stood right in our travel destination.
I calm down and just enjoy the journey. I like to watch the landscape, the people who are with us, the water. I’m not used to being surrounded by water, but I like it so much! Afterwards I’m full of energy.
Suddenly I realised that the ship had become very slow and that we were driving extremely close to the cliffs. Then there’s the answer – a group of seals sunbathing at the rocks. Earlier the loudspeaker had told us that they’d often meet those cute animals, sometimes also dolphins.
Then I wonder what life was like here, in this remote part of the country, accessible by anything else than ships only for a few decades, and till today with ships as the principal mean of transport. But for this issue I’ve got a little episode of the very end of this posting.
…click for more…
Fast boat to Bergen
so cute – seals!
Final destination: Gudvangen
A kind of touching episode on our journey (maybe I was just in the mood for being “touched”): In Aurland the elderly man in an electric wheelchair joined us at the front of the ship, the basket of his wheelchair filled with milk cartons. About one hour later we approached this little village, actually just a few houses. And there, Granny was already waiting on the veranda. The staff, obviously knowing the man very well, helped him down on shore and he drove up to his house in super fast high speed. In the end they both waved at us and we waved back.
So how is life when you have to undertake a two hours ship ride to get some milk??! And when you’re living in the middle of nowhere with just a few other people around you? After this little incident I dare say that it’s obviously not THAT bad.
(But who am I to judge peoples’ lives only from a 5 minutes observation, of course…)
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