Sunday Aug 20, 2023
Hi All! Well I thought our good weather luck had finally run out. We woke up to pouring down rain and the forecast said it would rain all day in all the places we’d be today. But luckily that was not the case!
It did rain on us for the 5 minute walk from our hotel to the train station but luckily we had brought our umbrellas. The first 5 hours of our day was the train ride from Oslo to a town called Myrdal. There was some pretty scenery but a lot of it was blurred by the rain and the fog. But then we started to approach Myrdal the rain stopped and it kind of cleared up but not fully.
We had about a 20 minute layover in Myrdal waiting for our train to Flam which is the more scenic part of the train trip. That’s the portion they call “The Flam Railway”. That part was really nice and there was no rain but still a little fog in the higher elevations. At about the halfway point, the train stopped at this huge waterfall and they let you get off the train and take pictures. All of sudden this music comes on and this lady appears thru the mist and starts dancing. It was kind of bizarre actually! I guess she was supposed to be some Norwegian goddess??
A cool thing about this train ride was we sat next to a young girl from Singapore who was traveling with her 7 year old Husky named Vader (like Darth!). He was sooo cute and so calm. He laid right next to us and hardly moved. She had been traveling with him for 3 weeks!! Good Dog!
We then had a 2 hour layover in Flam and walked around and had lunch. It is in a beautiful setting with fjords all around it but it’s a bit touristy for me. We did a little shopping then boarded our ferry for Balestrand.
The ferry ride thru the fjords was the highlight of the day and the views were just spectacular. It was mostly sunny and clear the whole way but then a little sprinkle of rain started and we got a rainbow! But it was the strangest rainbow I ever saw since it was at ground level and not up in the sky. But it was very cool!
We then got checked into our hotel and relaxed on our balcony that looked out over the fjord. Balestrand sits on the Sognefjord which is the largest fjord in Norway and the second largest in the world! It is sooo beautiful and peaceful here. This is what Norway is all about.
We walked around the quaint little town and took in all the views. I could definitely live here (at least in the summer time!). We got to bed early since we have a long day tomorrow. We’re renting a car at 9 AM and driving around all the fjords all day. We’ll also be taking several car ferries (that’s how they all get between all these fjords!) so it should be interesting! Wish us luck! Hope everyone had a great weekend!
The Wandering Italian 