Flam is the start or the end of Sognefjord. It is really pretty but very commercialized.Its crowded all the time because the whole world has found out about it. One of the girls I shared a dorm room with the night before, a Swedish girl said she's going on the Naeroyfjord cruise. Since I had hours to kill before I get on the Flamsbana train I decided to join her.
The Naeroyfjord has just been added on to the UNESCO world heritage site list. It is supposed to be wild and rocky, its rock cliffs are so steep, it goes straight up. Hardly anyone lives along this fjord because the rocks and the steepness of it does not support human activity.
Besides taking a slow ferry, one can also go in a very speedy hovercraft. Its freezing and these guys are given a special suit to wear.
The only other activity were these kayakers.
We saw some sheep. I don't know how they got here, they could be renegade sheep.
We passed by some campers. I don't how they do it, its remote and its so cold.
The ferry takes us through the fjord to the end at Gudvangen where we were dropped off to catch a bus back to Flam. Here at Gudvangen they were loading another batch of visitors for the trip back to Flam. The trip to Flam was fast. The terrain in Norway is steep and irregular that road building is a problem. The Norwegians seem to have solved this by building tunnels, burrowing into the rocks for miles. Their tunnels goes on for miles.
Then I came back to Flam and I still have a few hours to kill. The Swedish took the next Flamsbana train and left. I took the 3pm. This is the famous and spectacular train the climbs out of the Flam valley to the top at Myrdal where it meets the Oslo-Bergen-Oslo train, another spectacular train journey. We passed some of the most beautiful view of steep rocky mountains, waterfalls and wild vegetation.
We had to stop when the train coming from the opposite direction comes. It has a few trips a day and every trip is crowded. Everyone is there to ride that train, just 20Km long and took 40 years to build.
There are lots of waterfalls but this is the biggest. We were let out of the train for 5 minutes to take pictures.
At Myrdal, the Oslo Bergen train was waiting and I jumped into it for the last 3 hours to get to Bergen. I'm in my hotel room now in Bergen.
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