Day Four - Oslo to Voss

We left Oslo at 9AM after another wonderful breakfast buffet.  We are likely to gain weight on this trip!  We must have our luggage outside our door at 8AM for pickup.  We met our new driver, Frank, who will be with us for the rest of the trip.  We drive through the Hallingdal Vall to Gol.  The scenery is beautiful:  clear lakes and green mountains.  There are waterfalls everywhere as we drive along.  There are many opportunities to take picture of the scenery perfectly reflected in the lakes.  The roads are one lane, and the bus and oncoming traffic must be very wary of each other.  At points, there are pull off lanes for the buses to let traffic by.  It is so peaceful.  We see very few people.  Traffic on the roads are mostly small campers and our tour guide tells us they are mainly tourists from Germany.  At one point, a herd of goats is walking along the road and we must stop and wait for them to get out of the way.   We arrive in Flam, site of the Flam Railway. This ride is one of the top 20 train rides in the world.  We will ascend 2800 feet in 15 miles.  It must be very interesting going the other way!  We have a quick lunch at the rail station there.  With our big breakfasts, a small lunch is all we need.  Frank will drive the bus to Voss and meet us there.  Michael tells us that the train will stop along the trip to allow us to see a beautiful waterfall.  He will tell us when we are about to stop so we can quickly get out an take a picture.  We board car 12 and head up the mountain.  It is hard to believe the numbers of people who get on this train.  We stop and take pictures of a beautiful waterfall.  Along the way we must wait for another train.  This makes us late getting into Myrdal.  Our train to Voss is ready to go as we arrive in Myrdal.  Michael runs ahead to tell them to wait and has to argue with them to hold the train for us.  We run to catch the train and as soon as we board it leaves!  We have about a 40 minute ride through some more beautiful country on our way to Voss.  We arrive at the rail station and our hotel - the Fleischer Hotel -is right around the corner.  We receive our room assignments and are to be down for dinner at 7PM.  It is a beautiful old hotel which is still standing because it was the German headquarters in World War 2.  It has a beautiful patio on the back which overlooks a lake.  Gorgeous!  We have been searching for a bottle of wine along the way and are told by Michael that wine is highly taxed and regulated in Norway (all the fun stuff is taxed he says).  You can buy beer at the grocery stores but not wine.  A glass of wine is about $10 at the hotel, but we break down and buy one and nurse it all night!  Dinner is wonderful - a delicious mushroom soup first course served to us and then the buffet.  I am eating a lot of fabulous salmon at every chance!  Dessert is also served which means I am eating one serving and not more which is good for my diet although I don't understand what the Fleischer people have against a dessert buffet!  We enjoy a visit with some of our companions out on the patio after dinner.  The long days are a bit hard to get used to.  We were told on our first day to make sure we close the room darkening drapes that all hotel rooms have in addition to the regular drapes.  We are visiting and realize it is after 10PM because it is not a bit dark.  We are leaving at 8:30 tomorrow so we reluctantly go to the room to get a bit of sleep.