Whole day occupied today by our visit to the Fjords and ride on the Flam Railway. Virtually a 12 hour day, consisting of trains, bus and boat, as we ventured into the mountains surrounding Bergen by train. Changed to a bus, a short drive then we plunged to the sea via hairpin turns on a narrow mountain road. An excellent driver.
The Aurlandsfjord was beautiful, of course. The deep ravines don't allow the sun to penetrate until it is almost directly overhead. We were lucky because it was a sunny day. The mountains are steep and rocky but there are goat farms (each clinging to a small flat piece of land along the way) and small towns of 12 to 60 people, except for Aurlands which has 1200. Trees and ferns grow on the rocky precipices and there are many waterfalls, and even small pockets of snow. Quite breathtaking. I took photos, but don't think they do the scenery justice.
We were a little unfortunate that we struck a bunch of tourists who were extremely noisy. (Not the usual kind).
We had a couple of hours in Flam before we caught this special train, on an extraordinary track, through the mountains. It was a magnificent piece of engineering, plus hard physical labour, that enabled its construction. Twenty years to build including twenty tunnels.
Had a pizza on our way home and plan for an easy day tomorrow.
I'll publish photos separately as I've had trouble putting too much on each post.
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