I saw a lot of fjords. Oslo. Bergen. And Nærøyfjord, the King of the fjords. It’s why I went to Norway. That said, I’ve had to look up the definition of a fjord because now that I just drove through Switzerland (not as stunning, sorry) I saw lots of big mountains and pretty lakes and rivers/bodies of water. So the official definition from fjordnorway.com…

The definition of a fjord

A fjord is a deep, narrow and elongated sea or lakedrain, with steep land on three sides. The opening toward the sea is called the mouth of the fjord, and is often shallow. The fjord’s inner part is called the sea bottom. If the geological formation is wider than it is long, it is not a fjord. Then it is a bay or cove.

So it’s open and, I was told, always salt water though perhaps not as high concentration since clean melted ice often flows into it. Formed obviously by glaciers. 

They promote “Norway in a Nutshell” which you can just book with a tour operator online. It involves catching a morning train, then switching to a (famously steep) funicular train, an (electric) ferry through the fjord, a bus and finally, resuming a train either back to original city (Bergen or Oslo) or continuing to traverse the country and go to the opposite city. I read other people’s blogs who said it’s not that hard to schedule it all yourself and you can save a few euros. Plus you have better control of your times though they seem to do that well and even allow for an overnight stay (they book it or you book yourself). Of course I HAD to book it myself and after four rather involved hours (they didn’t want to take my American credit card from the US — though they did on everything when I was there?!) I think I saved 40 euros!!!  So not even $40. Sigh. That said if it were a family of 4 or perhaps even a couple that would feel more worthwhile!  

But it also made me focus my attention on exactly where I was going and I guess that’s a good thing.

The train ride out from Oslo was famously beautiful. I had an assigned window seat facing forward in the right-front of the car, with a table and people facing me. It was comfortable and I think had better views than the left side. 

I (of course) started talking to the Aussie woman opposite me. Turns out she was doing the exact same tour with her husband. And also she was a dietitian and we chatted about that for a bit. (She said many dietitians and/or their children have eating/body issues because people who are into food and calorie counting often gravitate to the field!? Hmm.) Anyway. Lovely couple. They said their Oslo highlight was seeing “Mary” — the new Danish Queen who is apparently Aussie. They had more sightings than I did.

We got off at Myrdal — seems its basic function is to be the transfer point to the Flåm Railway. I ate my sandwich there and waited — there are no assigned seats on the train and it’s famously very scenic but better on the left hand side. (Thank you Rick Steves.)

The views were great but apparently everyone got that memo about the left side and there were many people already onboard who I guess were doing a roundtrip. So left-hand seats facing forward were at a premium. And most everyone had their luggage since we were all transferring through … anyway it was crowded, stuffy, windy (NOT the breezy kind), steep, and with tons of switchbacks and tunnels. It is supposedly one of the top train rides in the world but I have to say — given my fear of heights and tendency toward motion sickness, I was very ready to get off at the end of that hour!

I’m glad I did it but no need to do it again. Flåm is a cute town. There are huge mountains all around so it’s a great base for a variety of hiking, biking, camping and general outdoorsy stuff with sights to die for (well hopefully not really). Since I’m hardly that type and didn’t even have hiking boots with me, I walked around the town and did tiny “hikes” but my feet were tired! Every time I saw a long chair I sat in it to put my feet up!

So much for my feet! There are cute hotels and restaurants and bike/boat rentals (and saunas) along the fjord … I was glad I stayed one night though considering I wasn’t planning a big hike (you can do hard/easy ones and grab that funicular train back up or down) one night was enough!

This fjord was more amazing because of how it’s cut into the mountains. I could talk more about the silent electric ferry and such but I think I’ll just leave this with a ton of photos. Oh I guess last thing — the ferry takes you to Gudvangen, from where you catch a bus that takes you back up the mountains to catch your train in Voss.