Day 6: Norway in a Nutshell

On the way to Voss
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Today, we embarked on our Norway in a Nutshell tour, which we reserved prior to our U.S. departure.  TJ says this is a must when coming to Norway.  Basically, it really is a tour that shows Norway in a nutshell.  We woke up early because our train departed from Oslo Sentralstasjon (Oslo Central Station) at 8:11 a.m.  We took a train from Oslo to Myrdal.  This train ride was spectacular.  Getting out of the city of Oslo, we got to see beautiful green mountains, Norwegian summer homes along lakes and rivers.  It took us about 4 hours to get all the way up to Myrdal.  In Myrdal, we changed and took the Flam Railway to get from Myrdal to Flam.  That took just about an hour.  They made a pit stop at the most incredible waterfall.  We got out, took a couple of pictures and darted back for the train before we got too soaked.  When we got to Flam, we were able to mill around for about an hour.  We took amazing pictures since we were in between two gorgeous mountains and at the end of the Aurlandsfjorden.  We then boarded a boat that took us on a two-hour cruise of the fjords.  This was really really beautiful.  After getting off the boat at Gudvangen, we then boarded a buss to Voss (yup, Voss, like the brand of water!).  We went up narrow mountain roads and swerved through waterfalls to get to Voss.  Once we got to the sleepy little town of Voss, we headed on a train to Bergen.  Bergen is Norway's second-largest city and is located in Western Norway.  It is a large port city with lots of houses up on the cliffs and restaurants and bars by the water.  (Norwegians really know how to drink and stay out all night!)  We searched for something relatively cheap to eat and came across a pizza restaurant by the water.  For a medium pizza and bread and two sodas, the meal cost us $50!  And that's considered cheap!  Later that night after a stroll through Bergen, we boarded back up on the train to Oslo and took the overnight train into Oslo.  We arrived the next morning, June 11, 2007 in Oslo at around 6:00 a.m.  More Oslo to come...