Steve and Cathy's Blog

Before I start this post, let me say that I finally am discovering why I’m so far behind (I am writing this on July 31^stabout our July 21^stactivities). First of all, we are so fascinated by everything about these places – especially the history which we were not really exposed to in school (Now I know why my father majored in European history in college!). Secondly, I am taking all too many photographs, which I then have to download, review and edit. The scenery is just too incredible (the kid-in-a-candy-store syndrome, you might say). And thanks to those of you interested in following our journey.

We arrive in Flam (pronounced flomm, as in mom) at 10:00am. Lecturer Sherry had hoped we would be the only cruise ship, because the town is very tiny and seats on the Flam Railway limited. Alas, the gigantic MS Preziosa(1093 feet long; 4,363 passenger capacity with 1,292 crew, or six times as many as little bitty Nautica) has arrived before us. That ship has taken the one pier available, so we will be tendering into port.

Our excursion, Best of Flam by Rail & Road, begins at 10:15. It will consist of riding the famous Flamsbana from Flam to Myrdal, then another train ride to the town of Voss on the main line that runs between Oslo and Bergen. We will detrain in Voss, have lunch and hop a bus for a two-hour trip back to Flam. It’s going to be an amazing trip, despite the gray and occasionally rainy weather predicted.

Now let me first say that Oceania Cruises’ Destination Services Department is second to none. Any possible detail they can control, they do. Most of the time, of course, we are on chartered buses, and that makes the outcome predictable and confusion is rare. Each bus has an Oceania person (or a professional local guide) herding us and leading us, holding up a sign on a stick for us to see. They take their responsibilities very seriously, and it gives us great peace of mind.

Today is a bit different. We will be riding trains for the first two hours – public transportation, if you will. We will join the hordes of summer travelers, cruise passengers and special tours from all over. 

Our tender ride to shore is easy. It’s only a 10-minute ride on very smooth waters. We disembark and take a maybe five-minute walk to the train station. Now there are at least four or five Oceania groups of around twenty. We arrive at the station and the place is mobbed. This is one of Europe’s most popular attractions, the one thing that draws so many thousands to tiny Flam. It is very, very well organized in typical Norwegian fashion, and there is even an electric sign with our ship’s name on it to direct us to the right cars. 

We are directed to two or three cars in the front of the train. Our Oceania person is named Dan Benedict, a guest lecturer age 70 or so, and already we can tell that he either isn’t experienced enough for this guiding job, or has decided that he is just another passenger but with a sign to hold. It is chaos. We all eventually get on the train, and walk up and down the aisle looking for seats. Each seat holds three people (like on a plane). Of course everyone wants a window seat (impossible) and would like to sit together with everyone else in their group (not always possible). 

Cathy and I are among the last to board, and we roam up and down through the two cars. Finally we spot one aisle seat and make a decision that Cathy should sit in it. Now, in the front of this car is an area that is roped off. It is for another tour group. After a few minutes of playing musical chairs, Steve and a couple of others without seats notice that this “reserved” area is now open and there are a few seats. We head in there and find at least four seats available. We sit down, relieved that we at least finally have seats for the trip.

Immediately, a dispute ensues. It turns out this a group of Chinese tourists, and they have reserved 24 seats. The tour leader starts telling us “Get out. These are our seats.” We reply: “Are there people that are going to sit in these seats?” Tour Leader: “All these seats are ours.” Us: “Are people taking these seats?” Tour leader: “No, but these are for us.” Us: “But there aren’t any seats anywhere else, and these are empty.” Tour leader: “I will get train official.” Us: “Yeah, you do that. In the meantime, we are sitting here. If someone in your group needs a seat, then we’ll move. Otherwise, we’re staying put.” 

The train starts to move. Steve has no idea if Tour Leader does anything about us Oceania interlopers, because he decides that, if any photography of the scenery is to be had, it won’t be from this aisle seat surrounded by put-off Chinese tourists, so he moves to the opposite end of the car by the exit door to stand for the trip. Cathy and I are separated anyway.

Now you might ask: where is the Oceania person accompanying us, and what has he done to help solve this seating dilemma? Well as soon as he got in the car, he moved to the front of the car, found a seat, and sat his a$$ down – job over. We are starting to see that he is going to be a problem as he really has no interest in doing anything but hold the little Oceania flag. Oh well. More on that later.

Well, the train is on its way, and we all settle down. Steve is delighted with his decision to stand, because there are large, clean windows on both sides of the train at the end of the car from which to take pictures without getting in anyone’s way. It’s a perfect situation as far as he’s concerned. A few other people see this, and occasionally join to take photos as well. 

Let me get lazy and get Wikipedia to help introduce this railroad line: “The Flåm Line (Norwegian: Flåmsbana) is a 20.2-kilometer (12.6 mi) long railway line between Myrdal and Flåm in Aurland, Norway. A branch line of the Bergen Line, it runs through the valley of Flåmsdalen and connects the mainline with Sognefjord. The line’s elevation difference is 863 meters (2,831 ft); it has ten stations, twenty tunnels and one bridge. The maximum gradient is 5.5 percent (1:18). Because of its steep gradient and picturesque nature, the Flåm Line is now almost exclusively a tourist service and has become the third-most visited tourist attraction in Norway.

“Construction of the line started in 1924, with the line opening in 1940. It allowed the district of Sogn access to Bergen and Oslo via the Bergen Line. Electric traction was taken into use in 1944; at first El 9 locomotives were used, and from 1982 El 11. Until 1991, the train connected with a ferry service from Flåm to Gudvangen. In 1992, freight services were terminated, and due to low ticket prices and high operating costs, the line was nearly closed. In 1998, Flåm Utvikling took over marketing and ticket sale for the line, prices were heavily increased and El 17 locomotives were introduced. The trains remain operated by the Norwegian State Railways (NSB), while the line itself is owned and operated by the Norwegian National Rail Administration.

“The Flåm Line runs from Myrdal on the Bergen Line to Flåm. Myrdal Station is located in a mountain pass at 863.6 meters (2,833 ft) above mean sea level (AMSL), while Flåm is located at 2.0 meters (6 ft 7 in) AMSL. The line’s maximum gradient is 5.5 percent, and 16.1 kilometers (10.0 mi) of the line’s 20.20 kilometers (12.55 mi) have at least 2.8 percent gradient. The line has standard gauge and a minimum curve radius of 130 meters (430 ft),^[1] and is the steepest standard-gauge railway in Europe.^[2] Maximum permitted speed upwards is 40 km/h (25 mph), while it is 30 km/h (19 mph) downhill. The line has eight stops, twenty tunnels and one bridge.”

Once things settle down, it becomes the wonderful experience we had hoped it to be. I mean, c’mon, we are traveling through the stunning Flamsdalen valley of Norway on a train moving at no more that 30 miles per hour on a railroad line so circuitous and difficult to navigate that it took 17 years to build it. What’s not to love! The journey takes an hour, and ends at another quaint, by our standards, station where we board another train whose equipment seems practically new. [I couldn’t see anything but I sat next to a lovely woman who told me she is a therapist from Palo Alto. She couldn’t see anything either so we spent the trip discussing the meaning of life. It was quite pleasant.]

The transfer is, again, chaotic. Some of the other Oceania guides (there for the other groups of Oceania guests) do their best to make up for the clueless guide we have. We wander from car door to car door and finally board after a Norwegian Railway employee barks at all of us for holding up his train (very un -Norwegian-like behavior but perhaps typical railroad-employee attitude). Again we wander through several cars looking for seats. Finally, a lovely young lady takes sympathy on us. We figure she is a guide of some sort, or perhaps a rail line employee hired during the tourist season to help reduce chaos to disorder, making sure we have seats and disembark at the right stop. In any rate, we look upon her as a goddess. She leads us forward to a car with plenty of seats. As we are concerned to be separated from our group, she assures us she will let us know when we have reached our destination.

The ride is, well, beautiful (sounds a bit redundant, doesn’t it?). The ride is ultra-smooth double-tracked railroad, just what we have come to expect of anything Norwegian. We relax in comfort and quiet. In about an hour, we reach our destination, a town named Voss, the center of a what is basically an agricultural region. 

Interestingly, though, Voss has developed into a tourist region with a unique draw. Here is a Wikipedia description: “Voss is surrounded by snow-capped mountains, forests, lakes and fast-flowing whitewater rivers. This has led to its development as a notable center of skiing, water sports, skydiving, paragliding and other adventure sports. Every year in the last week of June the area hosts the Ekstremsportveko(Extreme Sports Week), which is regarded as the world’s premier extreme sports festival. Bømoen, the local airstrip, is home to Skydive Voss, one of the largest dropzones in Norway, as well as a gliding club. The rivers provide various levels of white water, attracting kayaking, rafting and river boarding. Kite surfing and para-bungee may be seen on lake Vangsvatnet. The ski area, to the north of the town, is accessible via a cable car, Hangursbanen. There is also chair lift access from Bavallen, a short distance northeast of Voss.”

We leave the rail station and walk to the hotel, a fairly new building in the center of the town. There is a huge hall on the lower level where we are served a delicious Norwegian buffet. There around seventy-five of us, and we spend about an hour sampling all kinds of Norwegian fare. 

This prepares us for the last part of our excursion, a two-hour bus trip, guided by a delightful young man named Manuel Casprini (his parents are Italian and Norwegian, hence his name). We will travel through Voss, then follow E16, the main road between Bergen and Oslo, through Oppheim and Stalheim, two small farming communities, until we reach Flam. 

On our way out of Voss, we see and are told about a beautiful 13^thcentury stone church, the Voss Church. The fact that it is made of stone indicates that Voss has always been a wealthy community. Almost all other Norwegian churches are made of wood. It is also the only building left intact during WWII, the Germans having bombed the town in 1940 to conquer it, and again in 1945 when withdrawing in defeat.

We also pass the Vinje Church in the village of Vinje. Manuel asks us to note the design. This peculiarity originated with a law passed in Norway in 1851 requiring each town to have a church, and further requiring that the church be large enough to hold one-third of the town’s population. Around that time a widely regarded Norwegian architect was asked to design a church. His design caught on, and today you will see dozens and dozens of churches that look identical to this one we are seeing, including its twin in Oppheim, which we will pass another fifteen minutes down the road.

Our first stop is at the Tvindefossen Waterfall. A 350-foot waterfall that is formed as two streams converge, form this beautiful cataract, and then diverge again at its base. The place is jammed with us tourists. Manuel explains, and Wikipedia elaborates about one of the reasons: “in the late 1990s the water at Tvindefossen acquired a reputation for rejuvenation and revival of sexual potency that made it one of the most important natural tourist attractions in western Norway, with as many as 200,000 people a year from the U.S., Japan and Russia visiting and filling containers with the water.” It is a beautiful site, to be sure. As for its powers …

We continue along E16, and in Stalheim, we deviate on to a very narrow road called the Stalheimskleiva Road. It was built in the 1840s, and was once a two-way road in its entirety (now only one-way on its 1,600-yard descent) and the only way to go between the village of Stalheim and the town of Gudvagen (there is now a tunnel connecting the two). It is only open during the summer months, and we can see why. After reaching Stalheim, you descend in as much as a 20% grade through 13 hairpin turns back down into the beautiful valley we have been traveling. Of course it is busy, and especially with us tour buses negotiating these hairpin turns and steep grades. It’s a fun but hair-raising ride. When we reach the bottom, Manuel jokingly tells the driver that it is okay for him to open his eyes again. 

We are back on E16, in the Naeroydalen Valley, and our next stop is pretty much a souvenir and “comfort” stop (one of the polite euphemisms for bathroom stop), and to view the754-foot freefall of the Sivlevossen Waterfall. 

We leave and motor along beside a rushing river. Manuel explains that this area – including the rocks in this river – is heavily deposited with the mineral Anorthosite, which is 20% composed of aluminum. Norwegian roads are mostly narrow two-lane roads that are not lit. That makes them difficult to drive at night, so this mineral is used in roadbuilding. It is mixed with the asphalt that is used on the sides of the road, and it reflects the light from car headlights. This mineral is also used as an ingredient in washing soda and toothpaste. Because it is also present in the river, the trace amounts of aluminum in it make for the healthiest fish environment in Norway as the parasites that attack the fish are killed off.

We turn off this valley – still on E16 – and enter two long tunnels that connect Gudvangen and Flam that were built in the 1980s and 90s to replace a ferry trip of 35 kilometers that used to take 90 minutes. The first tunnel is 11.4 kilometers long (7 miles). Then there is a small gap where E16 meets the road to the tiny village of Undretal. Then we enter a second tunnel 5 kilometers in length (3.1 miles) to reach Flam.

As we pass through these tunnels, our guide Manuel takes the opportunity to discuss the tunnels that Norway has built:

• The two tunnels through which we are driving have a very specific design in order for them to connect the tiny village of Undretal. It would have been cheaper to build just one tunnel from Gudvangen to Flam, but that would have left Undretal isolated, so the first tunnel was built to ascend 350 metres to the road to the town and the second tunnel built to descend back down to Flam.
• There are 900 kilometers (550 miles) of tunnels in Norway, mostly built within the last thirty years. This has had a phenomenal impact on the country, because previously most communities were connected only by ferry or by narrow paths over the mountains. In other words, most communities were isolated from each other. The tunnels have eliminated that, binding the country’s people together as never before.
• Many of the tunnels have been built with a sharp curve at the beginning and again at the end. This prevents snow from blowing through the entire tunnel.
• The spoils from all this tunnel building have been used in construction and for rip rap in the rivers and fjords. It has not gone to waste.
• Tunnels have WiFi service and cell service, both for safety and convenience.
• Fortunately, Norway is not part of the European Union, because that would have necessitated that all these tunnels would have been required to have breakdown lanes, essentially doubling the cost. Of course, there are frequent pullover areas and a system of phones to use in case of emergency.

Well, having navigated these two long tunnels, we come out right near the town of Flam. Our six-hour journey is over. Cathy and Steve pass up the opportunity to visit the many souvy shops in Flam, board our tender and head back to Nautica. We are pleased and honored that the ship’s safety officer Vladimir comes over and says hello to us. He remembers us from our Around the World cruise of a year ago. We had the pleasure of dining with him on that voyage.

The ship departs Flam at 6pm. We have a fine dinner in the Grand Dining Room, after which Cathy hits the sack. But Steve cannot resist the temptation to stay up and take more photos of the Sognefjord as we make the 128-mile journey to the sea. The sun is shining – finally – and the views (and photo ops) are fantastic. 

We are heading for Copenhagen, Denmark, 508 nautical miles away. That will be the end of the first leg of our cruise called Northern Glow. We have a Sea Day tomorrow and then will arrive in Copenhagen, where more adventures await on the next leg, called Nordic Knights. Hmmm. Seems appropriate. J