Six hours to Flam

The title of this post is a bit of a fiction. It’s actually six hours to Myrdal, with another hour or so down the side of the fjord to Flam. The trip was billed as one of the most beautiful railway journeys in the world and I quite agree with this. Although it turned out to be spectacularly difficult to capture the scenery through the thick, double glazed, train windows.

The lines in the sky are the reflections of the carriage lights. I need to find a way to get rid of them.

We got on the train first thing, got off it a couple of hours into the journey to stretch our legs for ten minutes, and then climbed up above the tree line to Myrdal. Which was quite chilly and totally vindicated our choice of cosy clothing. The train ride down on the Flam Railway (which is a thing) was very nice, with a stop halfway to look at a waterfall.

We arrived starving and found a lovely place to eat which also served good beer.

..although some of the staff were a bit wooden. Ho ho.

Electric Cruising

Lots of boats

Best way to see Oslo? From boat. Best kind of boat? An electric one. We were up bright and early to get on the first of our pre-arranged “trips around the bay”. This was on a super modern, carbon fibre, all electric boat which glided silently out into the bay and around a bunch of pretty islands and inlets. You could wander around the boat taking pictures, so I did. The weather started super-grey – a bit like being at home – but it got nicer and nicer until we arrived back in something approaching sunshine.

Private island

Walked back from the boat past an amazing bakery where we had a couple of amazing sandwiches. No dry ice , but it did have a really good view of the harbour.

After a quick freshen up at the hotel we headed for the opera house. They let you walk on the roof, and this is totally a good thing. The views were superb and the lighting rather special.

I even managed to find a really nice camera store where I didn’t buy a camera. Or a lens. But did get a rather nice bag.

A change of pace for tea, where we headed for “Proud Mary’s”, a pub/venue which served up a bunch of nice nibbles which, considering the huge breakfast and lunch that we had enjoyed, fitted the bill perfectly.  Then to bed. Big journey tomorrow.

Hello Oslo

Today finds us in Oslo as part of our one-week world tour of Norway. We were up at 6:00 am and off on the road by 7:00am. The journey to the airport – always a giggle – was enlivened by plenty of queues and jeopardy. But we got to Manchester in good time and after a quick trip in and out of the car park (got to love their signage) we got parked up and hot footed it over to Terminal 2 in time to have a coffee in a place with thousands of people and no seats.

Then through passport control, a quick lunch, a half hour delay in the plane and off we went. I think short haul flights are allowed to have their seats closer together than long haul ones. All I can say is ouch.

We got to Oslo in good time and had a very smooth train journey to the hotel. Checked in, a quick walk around and then tea at The Duck and Dumplings, a place I spotted on the map while making plans on the plane after landing. Very nice food and deserts with dry ice.

I asked if all meals in Norway are accompanied by billowing white smoke and I was told that they are. Rather looking forward to breakfast tomorrow.

You may have noticed some interruption to the service at robmiles.com today. It turns out that the day you leave the country is probably not the best day to transfer your domain name. Particularly if the domain you are moving is used in the email address used for 2 factor authentication with your DNS provider. All of which added up to an interesting conversation with a NameCheap support person who was super helpful and managed to give me enough access to able to sort it out with the help of the hotel wi-fi. Very glad I brought the laptop now…..