Norway: Fjord Cruise, Bus, and Rail to Bergen

After spending the night in Flam, we got up and had breakfast in the apartment before heading back into town. We walked around town briefly, got a couple of small souvenirs, then boarded a boat to cruise the fjord (Naeroyfjord) for about 1.5 hours. The boat was quite new and very sleek, and actually very empty! Charlotte was struggling a bit behavior-wise (we tried to engage her, but I guess fjords are just not exciting for 2 year olds), but we were secretly relieved that there was another family on the boat with worse-behaved children than us. (Don't judge us.) 

Although Charlotte wasn't too impressed, Paul and I absolutely loved the breathtaking mountains rising steeply from the water, truly countless waterfalls (but really, where does all the water come from? It's incredible!), and the isolated fishing villages dotting the narrow strips of land between water and rock-face. It rained for much of the second half of the boat ride, but we took turns braving the weather to enjoy the views. (Charlotte wanted to stay out of the rain, no point in forcing that.) 

I mean, WOW.

Me and Charlotte on the broad bow of the ship.

Approaching the tiny town of Gudvangen, where we disembarked the boat.

Luckily, the rain eased off as we got off the boat in Gudvangen and walked a short distance to waiting buses. We continued the "Norway in a Nutshell" tour by taking said bus for about 1.5 hours to the small city of Voss. The bus ride was much more scenic than I had anticipated, as it snakes up and down the mountainsides, providing extensive views of the valleys and mountains as it made the hairpin turns! I didn't get too many pictures, as Charlotte had stolen my phone to take selfies of her shoes for a majority of the bus ride. She fell asleep for about 20 minutes at the end of the ride, and wasn't too happy to be awoken to head into the train station around 1 pm.

View from the bus to Voss

Our original train tickets on to Bergen were scheduled for around 5 pm. However, when we arrived in Voss, we quickly realized there is nothing of note to actually do in Voss, so we were able to easily finagle new train tickets scheduled for around 2 pm. Even though that train ended up being delayed by over an hour, we still cut out some "wasted" time -- and enjoyed chatting with an older American couple doing the same trip as we were. Charlotte also absolutely loved taking the elevator down, crossing through the underground tunnel, and coming up on the train platform across from ours, waving, and repeating the process again. Paul and I must have each done that 5 times with her, if not more. Whatever works!

The train to Bergen was a little over an hour, and was also very scenic! Charlotte enjoyed the small soft-play area in our train car for almost the entire ride. Once we got to Bergen, it was (again!) pouring rain, so we were very happy that our AirBnb host had offered to pick us up at the train station. We had a little trouble figuring out at which exit of the station he was parked, but we ended up finding him and he drove us through town to orient us before heading up several switchbacks to the neighborhood we were staying in. Bergen is located at the base of a small mountain, and we were staying about 1/4 of the way up the mountain. Again -- we were so glad to have him drive us there the first time, as we likely would have really struggled to find it on our own. We settled into the apartment, and then headed out to explore. I'll pick up on the time we spent in Bergen in the next post.