Norway Trip #3: The Fjords, not terribly af-fjordable, but terribly beautiful.

I know, I know. It’s a bad joke. But seriously, Norway is expensive.

Part 1 here: how we got to Norway and then to Bergen.

Part 2 here: Bergen, where we got lucky and also unlucky

We left off when Louie and I had boarded our express boat to Balestrand. When I first started researching Norway, I knew we were going to Oslo, and then I had to figure out what else to do. Bergen seemed like the other obvious choice, and then I started looking at the small towns…some people say to just do the fjords and small towns, and I’m sure that would have been a perfectly gorgeous trip. Once I found out about “Norway in Nutshell” which is a way to see fjords using only public transportation from Bergen or Oslo, I knew we wanted to do something like that. I ended up going with a version of it called “Sognefjord in a Nutshell”, which for the record, several people on Trip Advisor poo-pooed as being boring because of the long boat ride. Our first segment of the ride was 4 hours long, and even with not feeling well I found it to be phenomenally beautiful and I am so glad we did it!

Leaving Bergen: seeing Bryggen from the water was great!

You often hear that other countries don’t fly their flag as much as the US. That very well may be true, but we saw a lot of Norwegian flags, not just on boats or government buildings.

It was incredibly windy outside so we thought we could take our masks off for a better picture.

Some large statue, I’m not sure what it was.

I thought this was a funny sign/translation. The ship, which is a restaurant, is only allowed to drink beer and wine purchased onboard.

We got into some amazing mountain scenery. Pictures of course, do not do it justice.

The boat made several stops along the way. It was fun to see each tiny port and watch the crew get the ship ready to allow passengers on or off. Not many got on or off along the way, but here and there.

I took a video from the top at one point after getting back on the water after a stop.

There was a giant cruiseship outside of Vic, one of the bigger towns we stopped at.

After about 4 hours, we started coming into the Balestrand Harbor, our home for the next two nights. A large group were getting off with us, so we had to wait our turn to disembark.

Our ship, the Njord.

We had about a 5 minute walk to our hotel, the Midtnes Hotel. The fancy hotel in town is the Kviknes, but we aren’t fancy people (aka it was way more expensive). We weren’t able to check in yet, but we were able to drop off our bags and headed back out to explore. We ate a picnic lunch and then looked into getting information on short hikes.

Initially I had planned for us to hike this afternoon, but it looked like it was about to rain, in fact, rain was forecast in one hour. (We didn’t know it at the time, but rain would be forecast in one hour for the next day or so, until it finally rained.) I also felt utterly exhausted and wanted to rest. Louie decided to go for a quick hike on his own “before the rain” and I went back to the hotel to rest. The hotel room was nice: it had a balcony that overlooked the fjord (if you angled a little bit) and while the hotel was dated, it was perfectly lovely.

The view if you angled a little bit. In the distance you can see the ferry from Vangnes to Dragvik, taking cars back and forth.

It turned out Louie got in a nice hike for a few hours in the sun, while I was able to check into the room. When he got back, he crashed for the rest of the night. I ended up having to go to the grocery to get supplies for dinner in the room and he had a rough night of sleep as well.

This was a portion of our visit that definitely didn’t go as planned. I am still a little sad writing it. I wanted to have done the hike, we planned to take the boat to Vic in the morning to see a Stave Church/maybe even meet up with a distant relative of Louie’s since the area is where his great-grandfather was born. But I was also thankful that we weren’t stuck in the hotel room as we might have been in another country!

The Midtnes is the white building in front and the white building behind. The little church is St Olav’s and it inspired the church in Frozen, I am told.

As far as the hotel: we had asked about breakfast in the morning, because initially we planned to leave early for the boat to Vic before breakfast at the hotel was served. The owner put the spread out early for us, and even though then we didn’t go, it was still so nice! I took plates of food up to the room for us to have: at that time Louie was in no position to get up and we didn’t want to eat around others in any case.

We rested in the morning, and then met our afternoon tour: a boat to Fjaerland to see a Glacier! Like the day before, we kept our masks on, and spent as much time as possible outside. The tour only have about 10 people on it so there was plenty of room to spread out.

This little owl had a head that went all the way around.

We got on the boat and stayed on top in the open for awhile, until it just got to be too cold and windy. There was a nice area below to hang out, with windows and a cafe selling coffee, snacks, and even pasta bolognese. We did not order it, but somebody did on the way back!

The landscape was full of mountains, waterfalls, and tiny little hamlets, some deserted, some only occupied in the summer (former homes that remained in families from before that now people use as summer homes).

I had wondered if going on another boat ride was overkill, but it was not. This fjord was different enough (smaller) and the views, frankly, never get old!

We imagined boating around from village to village, hamlet to hamlet.

The weather was more overcast today than the day before. We had been lucky with the weather in Norway so far, but today was a bit more overcast and seemed to threaten rain.

We disembarked in Fjaerland and got on a bus to the Glacier Museum. You can see us getting into Fjaerland here.

I just can’t get enough pictures of this view!

It was a short drive to the Museum, where we were given an hour to look around. There was a wonderful introductory video and then various exhibits to learn about Glaciers and other related topics. It was a small museum, but an hour was just barely enough time.

The museum itself was an interesting site.

The mammoths from above–you could walk up to the roof of the museum.

Next the bus took us close to the Jostedeen Glacier. This was an amazing view!

You could hear the hundreds of waterfalls running down the entire time.

I took a video you can watch here.

The visitor’s Center at the Glacier was adorable and blended into the landscape. Norway’s “parkitecture” was delightful.

Definitely take the Fjord and Glacier Tour if you are in Balestrand. Some of the reviewers complained that it wasn’t an active tour, or that you were herded from place to place. Well, maybe if the tour was full: we were only about 10 as it was early in the season and I can imagine if the boat and bus were fuller it might feel more like being herded. But it’s a lovely boat ride and then you see a cool museum and a beautiful glacier, which plenty of cars were parked at as well…what’s not to like?

The boat ride back was uneventful. It was a bit rainier feeling and we were more tired, so we mostly rested inside.

After we got back from the cruise, we went back to the room to rest up for a bit, and then decided to get dinner outside at a nearby restaurant. We chose Gekken’s since it advertised a special that seemed more affordable than some places, and had outdoor seating. It was cold and finally did rain for real, so we were the only ones seated outside, which was likely for the best!

We got fish soup and salmon. It was good enough!

Salmon with boiled potatoes, carrots and a side salad.

We enjoyed watching a seagull nest nearby. The seagull had chosen to make its nest on top of a shed, right near the restaurant. At one point another seagull came and they squawked back and forth a bit and then traded off.

After dinner we got a cider to split in the room and went to sleep.

Oh, and after the rain there was a gorgeous rainbow! It was wonderful to see from our balcony.

The next morning we got “takeout” breakfast again and rested in the room until check out time. We were sad to leave Balestrand, but we had tickets (nonrefundable) to go through Flam en route to Oslo and needed to keep moving. I do wish we had felt better while in Balestrand, but what can you do.

We had a picnic lunch before catching our boat, the same route that dropped us off two days ago. Louie felt particularly bad this day, and it was to be a rough travel day for him. I hated that, since this was supposed to be a wonderful scenic day of finishing up the “Sognefjord in Nutshell”: the boat to Flam and then the Flamsbana Railway to the Bergen Express back to Oslo. It was a lot of travel, all quite scenic, but not fun if you are sick.

A huge waterfall we detoured to see. My pictures closer up didn’t turn out too well.

You can see how the fjord is getting more narrow. That’s the part we missed seeing not doing Norway in a Nutshell, but we were absolutely pleased with our choice to do Sognefjord in a Nutshell instead.

The boat was relatively crowded but we found some good seats anyway, and relaxed and enjoyed the view for a few hours. We continued along Sognefjord, took a tiny detour into the start of the Nærøyfjord, and finally arrived in Flam. Flam could have been a cruise port anywhere, and I found it a little offputting what the cruise ships had done to what was likely at one time an adorable little hamlet on the fjord. We had lunch and looked at the Train Museum there and finally boarded our Flamsbana, the Flam Railway. I had chosen to have a few hours in Flam to look around rather than catch an earlier train, and I would say to you, eh, don’t bother. If you don’t have a particular activity planned, just keep moving.

Flam. Generic shopping and mediocre restaurants, surrounded by gorgeous landscapes!

The Flam Railway, one of the most amazing train rides in the world.

Anyway, we boarded the railway for the journey. It was great! I didn’t think it was the greatest experience ever, simply because as a hiker, you can stop and enjoy things so much more, whereas on a train the landscape just whizzes by.

But it was a gorgeous ride, and we saw so many beautiful things. At one point we stopped at a waterfall and had a few minutes to get out. It was hilarious because a woman comes out and starts singing and dancing. This is when Louie recalled he had done this before, over 20 years ago, and he remembered the woman.

You can see the lady in red in this photo.

Anyway, we got to Myrdal after an hour or so, and then boarded our train to Oslo. I had hoped this would be relaxing, but it wasn’t so much. Our seats weren’t as nice as the way from Oslo to Bergen, and we ended up facing backwards the whole way and sharing a space with two people facing us, which was a little more uncomfortable, less foot space, etc. It was a difficult 5 hour journey because of this. I was able to enjoy the scenery still, but Louie was just barely hanging on.

Finally we arrived back at Oslo Station. Since we were exhausted and it was actually somewhat dark, we decided to just get a cab to the AirBNB that would be our home for the next week or longer. Cabs in Oslo are definitely expensive, and if we had had any energy to take a train or tram instead, it would have been a better idea. But we got there, met our AirBNB host, and found the place.

So that was Balestrand. Not quite as hoped, but we made the best of a bad situation. Maybe someday we will return and do more hiking!