Rosendal Fjordhotel

... train to the first destination, Myrdal. I have to say it's one of the most beautiful journeys I've ever taken, with lakes, Norwegian woods, and mountains either side. It was only when we reached the small town of Finse, 1222 metres above sea level, did I realise that the train was snaking up through the mountains upwards. Myrdal, 866 metres above sea level, was the start of the beautiful Flaamsbana railway journey. The entire village consists of a ...

Now it's on to Bergen and the Fjords by car. An absolutely incredible drive. We decide to take route E16 which turns out to be incredible...although for awhile we are seeing a lot more of Norway's underground......more than 20 tunnels some of them 25 km long......but no ferries to worry about schedules.....and into Bergen just fine ...

Sometimes you just have to do things that feel right at the time. When Amy and I boarded a train at 6am this morning, for an hour 8 ride to Bergen, it just felt like a natural extension of our Norweigan experience. As the first team to check in to the pitstop, we arrived in Bergen at 2pm. The problem is, that the first team departs ...

... drinks being so expensive and all. Meriam joins the 3 of us guys later on and we get a sushi dinner that Thomas' company thankfully pays for - some sort of gift. Good thing too, cause the bill was 400 bucks for the 4 of us - ouch! I wish I could say I spent the remaining days in Bergen soaking up the culture and museums, but that would be giving to much credit to my sleeping habits. Every night ...

... lots of ikea bargains for $1, the toaster was bread shoved between metal tongs on the hot plate and drinks were consumed in disposible cups. Luxury! A few days were spent dodging the rain (yes it came back) as we visited the aquarium, the cute heritage houses and the world famous fish markets where we sampled whale and salmon. We took the funicular up to the top of the mountain where we played in the snow and walked down the track ...

... area surrounding it reminded me so much of Concord, Massachusetts. We were treading on hallowed ground where this genius wrote some of music's finest masterpieces. How cool is that? I highly recommend it. The best part of the day was our afternoon! We were drawn to the red tents of the fish market right down on the waterfront, and just the sight of their latest catch made me want to learn how to cook! My discovery of the day was a crab shell that was full of quality crabmeat ...

... is always busy. There are lots of cool, strange fish and it's all prepared in unique ways, but it's all surprisingly expensive. There are free tastings though. Drinking: I met a bunch of people in Bergen, mostly German's. German's are really cool people. Anyway, we all wanted to drink but our hostel didn't allow drinking!! Plus, you can't drink outside, which you usually can in other European countries. The fine for ...

The last shore trip of the cruise and, again, it was spectacular. We took a train up a steep valley to a deserted little village. On the way the train stopped at a waterfall and everyone got out to take pictures. Then, a woman in a floaty dress appeared on a rock at the top of the waterfall and started singing. She disappeared and we all got back in the train. Weird! At the little village, we changed to a ...

... surprised. The staff was extremely helpful, they had free laundry (very big plus for us as our clothes were about to start climbing glaciers on their own), free coffee (which otherwise costs you about $5), and get this - FREE WAFFLES on Thursdays. It being Wednesday, we decided to stay another night to take full advantage of the waffles (hate fish, love waffles). The following day we played tourist. Took a ride up a mountain on the Furnicular (sp.?) - like a gondola, but on ...

... and making our very own leather balls filled with moss (they look more like pancakes than spheres) After that, we took a walking tour of the historic part of town with a very nice, seven foot tall, gothic, Norwegian woman. After that, we saw the remains of the royal castle. Later that evening, we rode a glass tram up the mountain for a bird's eye view of the city. Sarah purchased some Norwegian moose playing cards to entertain us on the long train rides yet to come.