Goodbye Scandinavia!

Oslo (Norway) to Bangkok (Thailand) to Melbourne (Australia)

A train trip to the airport, a flight to Copenhagen, another flight to Bangkok, two sleeps and then home - what a nice way to spend a couple of days!

Overall the journey wasn't too bad, departing Oslo at 11am meant it was essentially a day trip to Bangkok so no need to worry about sleeping on the plane. 

Flying into Copenhagen we had a good view of the bridge connecting the city with Malmo in Sweden, which we had crossed by train when we'd travelled between the two countries. 

After a short stopover in Copenhagen and a 10+ hour flight from there, we arrived into the airport in Bangkok at 6am local time. As we'd booked a stay at an airport hotel we slept for about 6 hours and then took the train into the city.

We took another train towards the river and walked for a short while to find a nice bar right by the water's edge. Our seats were so close to the water that we were splashed by the wash of the larger boats that travelled the river. It was a very pleasant way to spend the last afternoon of our holiday. 

From there it was back to the hotel for dinner, then another sleep so we could get up early for our 8:40am flight back home.   

How can they not like us?

Oslo

It was free walking tour time once again so we met our South African guide (why are they never locals?) near the famous tiger statue quite close to where we'd had dinner the evening before.

We'd encountered a few very large cruise ships in our travels around Norway, and we quickly found that the locals aren't that impressed by the people using them, judging by the signs we saw plastered around the place. Fortunately we're not like other tourists, so we knew they didn't apply us (or did they?).

The walking tour took us past the main highlights of the city, including the Opera House the harbour, and the hall where the Nobel Peace prize is awarded each year.

After we finished the tour we headed to the Royal Palace for the changing of the guard. No matter how many times and in how many different places we've seen a changing of the guard, each new experience reminds us of how traditions like these serve no useful purpose other than to provide a free spectacle for tourists! 

From there we walked along the waterfront and soaked up the fading afternoon sun as we had a drink and snack at a couple of the bars by the promenade. 

Look at the size of that cruise ship, no wonder the locals are unhappy!

A great train journey

Bergen to Oslo

Up early for our train trip from Bergen to Oslo, we arrived at the platform along with a lot of other obvious tourists who were there to take what is said to be one of the most picturesque train trips in the world.

The views were definitely stunning, though we did have an issue with the carriage in that there was a problem with the air conditioning and it started getting very hot. The upside of this though was that some people were relocated to other seats, meaning we could spread out and both have a window seat.

We arrived in Oslo mid-afternoon, with just a short walk from the station to our hotel. K rested for a while (train travel can be very tiring!) while M went exploring, passing a civil protest outside the town hall and ending up a Slottsparken, the gardens surrounding the Royal Palace. 

M had heard of this park before, as it was the location where Hank Von Hell had met his untimely demise just the year before. M searched the gardens to see if there was any sort of marker or tribute to Hank, but couldn't find anything, probably just as well because Hank wasn't exactly what you'd call a perfect role model.

From there M wandered back to the hotel, via the harbour and the famous Opera House, all the while scouting for a nice place to take K to dinner that wasn't too far from the hotel. Fortunately there were some nice restaurants near the railway station, so that's where we ended up later that evening for a nice Italian meal.

  

Sun!

Bergen

Finally we had a sunny day in Norway and we headed out at around 11am for a coffee to find the streets to be almost deserted. 

We should know by now that we can't expect anything to be open in Norway on a Sunday, but we were still surprised to find the main supermarkets closed. We found a small supermarket that was open, and along with a bunch of other tourists in the same predicament we bought something to cook for dinner.

It ended up being a sunny afternoon, though the air was cold so jackets were still required. M took a walk to Bergen Castle, and then to Nordnes Park at the end of the peninsula where quite a few locals were taking advantage of the sunshine.

You can't trust Google

Skei to Bergen

Our last drive of the holiday, back to Bergen where we had to return our rental car. The weather had improved slightly and we finally saw blue sky and sunlight, a relief after a week or so of clouds and wet weather.

We thought we were going to arrive at our apartment early, but Google Maps had other ideas, for some reason it tried to send us over a hill in the middle of Bergen with steep cobbled streets, tight corners and tourists walking down the middle of the road. 

We finally managed to get close enough to our apartment just as rain started bucketing down, so we were drenched as we unloaded the car, par for the course for the Norway leg of our trip!

Peace and quiet but not for long

Ålesund to Skei

The wind had picked up and so it was a really miserable day as we left Ålesund to start our two day drive back to Bergen.

A few tunnels and a couple of ferry rides later we arrived in Skei, a small town with some nice views of the fjord and surrounding mountains (I guess you can say that about almost anywhere in Norway though). 

There was a gap in the rain so M headed out to explore but that didn't last long as the rain returned and he decided it would be more enjoyable to sit downstairs at the bar with K.

The hotel we were staying at was huge but there was hardly anyone there so we thought we were in for a very quiet night. However as we were having a drink and admiring the view two huge buses pulled in and dropped off a heap of tourists, what a shame as we no longer had the place to ourselves!

Cold and raining

Ålesund

The weather in Ålesund was pretty miserable, it had been raining all night and this continued all morning.

K stayed in the warm hotel while M took a walk up the 418 steps to the Aksa viewpoint, to find a closed cafe and a group of wet tourists who'd taken the hop-on hop-off bus to get there.

The weather cleared up a bit around lunch time, so we walked around the harbour area. 

Later in the day M did some more exploring, ending up at Hessa, Ålesund's westernmost island.

More fjord cruising

Innvik to Ålesund

The hotel we stayed at in Innvik was operating as a vaccination centre for the locals to get their fourth covid shot so while we ate breakfast the older citizens of the area slowly wandered past to get their shots.

We drove up over the mountains, past ski resorts and patches of snow on the mountain sides to reach Geirangerfjord where we had a cruise/ferry booked for 2pm. On the way down we stopped at a popular viewing area where we could see the town and fjord in the valley below, even though the weather was drizzly the view was still spectacular.

The town of Geiranger was busy with cruise passengers, we've seen quite a few cruise ships in the fjords up to now, it's amazing how deep the fjords are and the sizes of the cruise ships that can travel them.

The car ferry took us through to Hellesylt, and along the way we saw some quite impressive waterfalls, as well as small farms and villages. many of which had been abandoned over the years due to their remoteness and the difficulty of surviving the winter. 

From Hellesylt we drove through the rain to our final destination of Ålesund, a fair sized town on the coast, which once again had some huge cruise ships in the harbour.

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

Balestrand to Innvik 

A slow start to the day as the cruise we had booked didn’t leave until 12 and the town of Balestrand very small. There were only about 12 of us on the trip and it was two days before they stopped cruises for the end of the season.

It took us about an hour and a half to travel the length of the fjord, where we saw the usual sights of small villages, canyon walls covered with trees and waterfalls. 

We reached the small town of Fjærland to find a bus waiting for us to take us to the glacier museum. We were left there for an hour (when half that would have been sufficient) and then taken to a viewing area for the Jostedal glacier.

The glacier wasn't close enough that we could reach the ice, so it wasn't as spectacular as the ones we'd seen in Iceland, though we learnt at the museum that it's part of the largest ice cap on mainland Europe.

We made it back to Balestrand around 4.30pm and drove three hours north to our evening destination of Innvik, only to find we ended up driving right past the glacier museum and the glacier viewing area we had visited earlier - we could have saved a lot of time if we'd planned it better!

In the little town of Innvik we once again had a room right on the fjord with a glorious view of the water from our bed.

I hope we can afjord these ferries

Eidfjord to Balestrand

We woke up to a second cruise ship visible through our window. We could see the small boats ferrying the passengers to waiting buses to explore the area. 

We had 11.30am tickets for the Flåm Railway, a train that goes from Flåm, up the mountain to Myrdal and then returns. It is known as one of the most beautiful railway journeys of Europe, often taken as a side trip by people travelling between Oslo and Bergen.

It was drizzling with rain when we arrived and we were pleasantly surprised to find that the train wasn’t busy at all, which meant we could easily choose where to sit and move from side to side to see the views as needed. It was a 2 hour return trip and by the time we got back to our car the rain had really set in as we headed off to Balestrand where we were to stay that evening.

We are now getting used to the road petering out in front of us and our gps saying “take the ferry”, sure no worries we know that we will line up for 5-10 minutes and be efficiently delivered to the other side of the fjord whilst enjoying a break from driving. We have no idea how much these frequent trips are costing, the car hire just said they'll take it out of our deposit. 

Balestrand is a pretty town right on the water. It also has an interesting church that was used as the basis for a church in the movie "Frozen", not that we've ever seen the movie or recognised the church. 

Our room at Balestrand had a "sea view", meaning our outlook was directly over the fjord and you could easily think you were staying in a cabin on a ship.