Flam, Norway -Day 13

Flam Norway is in no relation to Flamm’s orchard (I checked with Carly). It is pronounced more like Flahm and is a small little town off one of the longest fjords in Norway. It takes 8 hours to cruise from the opening of the Aurlandsfjord until reaching the town. The landscape around Flam is so dramatically steep that the roads, like many other places, are inaccessible in winter.  Some of the farms are isolated for nearly 8 months of the year. It’s a tiny town of just over 300 people and the fjord is spectacular.

Today we woke up to cloudy skies with the treat of rain hanging in the air. After breakfast we packed our backpacks with optional layers and headed to tender into the town. There we met our guides that took us on the train ride up the mountain. The ride was slow, but the climb was steep and speed was not an option. There is no reason you’d want to be rushed with this scenery. The guide told us it was easy to remember facts about the train. 20, 20, 20. It took 20 years to build the rail system because they had to dig 20 tunnels (by HAND) and they began in 1920. So the train began transporting goods (mostly) and people in 1940. In the 50’s it went from steam to electricity. The old wooden rail cars made you feel like you took a small step back in time. We took the train all the way to where it met the main train system that went to Bergen. 

One of the stops allowed us a 5 minute photo op at a waterfall. When you got outside the mist from the waterfall was covering you. I pulled my hood up and headed to the edge for photos. Music began to play loudly from speakers (incredibly eerie Celtic music) and on the right of the waterfall there was a woman dancing in a red dress with long blonde hair. It was straight up creepy! You were not sure if she was some crazy lady getting ready to commit suicide in the falls, or if this was on purpose. Well, after watching for a minute you knew it was on purpose. I told Guy that there is more than one woman (maybe 3) because she was going from the left to the right way too quickly, like a ghost. He disagreed but one of the conductors said there were two women. I knew it! Anyway...that made it so creepy. When we got back on the train, our guide said that she is a legend from this waterfall. A beautiful woman that would dance and lure men to her, then she would kill them. I started liking her a bit more after that. 

As we started heading back down we stopped about half way and exited the train and this is where the fun began. We rode the remaining 8 miles on bikes. Of course the guide said it was all down hill and there was minimal peddling. He also said he would set the pace because there was no rush. It was not the “Tour de Flam”. We laughed. He would be in the front and Gier, our older guide, would be in the back. He was definitely the clean up committee, because the roads were wet and a few people bit the dust! Nothing serious, but I think one guy rode back down with the bike company. Anyway...as we geared up it was difficult to not stop every - single - second to take photos. It was just more beautiful than I can say. It was raining on us just a touch, but gave a magical feeling to the area. The air was cool and misty and the lush green mountains glistened. We rode along the road that was just down from the railroad tracks, so we got to see these wonderful sights again, but from a different perspective. 

Guy and I went pretty slowly and mostly hung out with Geir because he had to stay behind us. I think he would have told us if we were going too slowly, but we just didn’t want this experience to go by too quickly. We are absolutely in love with Norway. In. Love. We stopped whenever we wanted for photos and enjoyed every minute. We eventually caught up to the group when they stopped at the major photo points. A magnificent waterfall and the church. We peddled all along the stream and we couldn’t take our eyes off how blue the water was. About the last mile you actually had to peddle, but it was flat and felt kind of good to go at a more controlled pace. By the time we got to the bottom, we came in with most of the others, so we didn’t hold them up, but milked it for as long as we could. Oh to spend the day there and taking 3 hours (or more) to come down instead of just one. We thanked our guides and headed into the town to see about some lunch! Be sure to look at today’s photos. (The one shot of the twisty turny road was from the train. We didn’t bike on that one!)

We tasted some street food and was very tempted to buy some reindeer stew from a kid that had a big bubbling pot of the delicious soup under his tent (we got a free sample) but decided to do what we like to do when we can, and that is to go into the grocery store and buy some bread, cheese and ham and find a spot where we could have a picnic. And that’s exactly what we did. We found some rocks down by the river where our party of two needed no reservation. :) We bought two different kinds of cheeses (one that was brown because the Viking TV did a little story on it) and the other was like a spreadable cream cheese. Guy went first to taste the brown goat cheese and he had a look on his face that was, well...unpleasant. Two seconds later he had spit it out on the ground. I had to try it as well, I mean come on, how bad could it be? Bad. Really bad. It was gritty. I think it was more of a texture thing than taste. Well, not really. It wasn’t good. However, the spreadable cheese was outstanding. We spread that all over our rolls and added some speck (cured ham) and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. One of the best picnics ever. Plus, no snakes, so we didn’t really fear what might be around those big rocks!

After lunch we shopped some of the stores and Guy visited the train museum. There really wasn’t much to Flam and we wouldn’t come back just to stay in the town, however the places you could go from this stop were just the bomb. We’d be really curious to be here in the winter time. Our guide said it is another one of those micro-climate areas because of the Gulf Stream and it really never got too much below freezing. However, he said drive just a short distance, like 3 or 4 miles, and it could drop 20 to 30 degrees instantly. But when you sit between two mountains, the air just kind of sits there, not changing much. Of course in the winter it’s dark most of the time, so maybe that wouldn’t be so much fun. 

We tendered back to the ship and it just happened to be tea time, so we had tea/coffee and a scone. Then to the top to sit out in the fresh air and enjoy the scenery. I guess because they were going to pull out in the next hour or so, the furniture had already been put up. However, we had time to get in two rounds of GOLF. It was fun, but Guy beat me both times. We played like HORSE in basketball, but this was g-o-l-f. Maybe if I had another letter at the end I could have made a comeback! (Probably not) 

Back at the room we got ready for dinner because prime rib was on the menu and it was really good the other night. And it did not disappoint tonight. We told Sridhar that we weren’t super hungry and he only brought out one extra appetizer tonight. He brought our coke and peach tea without even asking. And made recommendations for dessert, which were spot on. I had haddock soup, shrimp cocktail, prime rib and some kind of orange soufflé. Guy had tempura battered soft crab, some kind of fruit appetizer, prime rib, and a strawberry cake that was amazing. 

But what made the evening even more special was the appearance of the most incredible rainbow (double for a moment)...possibly the strongest one I’ve ever seen. It was in the sky like paint. And stayed for some time. Sridhar scooted me around the corner where I could see out a big window, but there were people outside blocking the view. So I took some photos from the window by my table, but when it didn’t go away, there were about 20 of us who briskly walked through the dining area to the closest door. An older couple said it was their anniversary and got out side in a hurry so they could get their photo with it in the background. They made it in plenty of time. It was nothing short of God putting a beautiful ribbon on the most beautiful day.