Norway 2015 – Day 4

Well, the nice weather and blue skies left us – we had a rainy day today…  not rainy enough to ruin the day, but admittedly nature viewing is better done when skies are clear!! This is the last rain-free shot we managed before the weather changed around 9AM.

We got “up close” to a glacier today… not close enough to touch, but closer than I was anticipating.  It was a comfort-stop at a cafe looking up at the Bøyabreen glacier. Examining the post cards for sale, it’s not as majestic as it once was, but it was still very neat to see!

After that, we visited the Norwegian Glacier Museum which I think was skippable - more fun for kids than adults, the audio visual films were boring and the Ötzi display felt redundant since we visited the Ötzi museum in Bolzano in 2014 (that museum I DO recommend! wholeheartedly!)

I thought the most interesting part of the Glacier Museum was the building itself.

Lunch was another pit stop in the middle of nowhere… we had sandwiches at the mall in Sogndal. I don’t care for shopping centers even at home – much less on vacation! It really bursts the being-on-a-foreign-vacation bubble. I had ham & cheese again, with bread so dry it could be mistaken for crackers.

We later drove through the Lærdal tunnel which is longest road tunnel in the world – 24 km.

The afternoon was taken up by the Flåm Railway optional excursion. We were supposed to do this tomorrow, but because of a fire in a tunnel a few weeks ago and subsequent detours the bus must now use, the itinerary had to be changed around and it made more practical sense to do this today. 

The train ride was “cute” but expensive (72€), still not with skipping because the alternative would have been to stay in Flåm which is little more than a fabricated shopping village for cruise ships.

There was a Celebrity Ship docked in Flåm – and it blew my mind! SSSOOO HUUUUGE!

 

Hard to take nice pictures from a moving train:

 

Because of this addition into our day, it makes it a long one – fine by me! Better this than working right? But a few people on the tour were a little annoyed because we won’t reach the hotel before 8:30 – 9PM.  While I generally don’t like eating so late – it’s only one day, and supper is (yet another) buffet so dinner doesn’t need to be big and long.

The best part of shoving this activity into today is that tomorrow we’ll have more time in Bergen to enjoy the town – we easily gained 3 hours.

As I type this, we are cruising the Nærøyfjord but it’s so rainy and foggy the there is nothing much to see! We have 2 hours on board so we’ll walk around a little later in hopes of a nice glimpse of SOMETHING, but I figure that since tonight will be especially late, it was a good opportunity to write up my blog for the day.

I plan to upload this post at the hotel tonight, so far we’ve been lucky with the wifi…  except now that I’ve said it….