Bergen to London

Today is the end of my Scandinavian adventure. All of it has been great, but the train trip to Bergen and the fjord cruise are the highlights. My flight to London departed at 7:10am so I had to be up early ... and miss the buffet breakfast which was really good yesterday! Oh well, the perils of travel. 

The flight took 2 hours and I managed to snap a few pictures along the way. These are of the fjords as we left. 

This is a HUGE wind farm off the English coast. I think it was near the Thames estuary. 

And then here are some pictures of the landscape as we approached Gatwick. 

I sat next to a young American couple on the plane. Although we didn't say anything on the flight we had a good chat as we trekked our way to border control. They had an 8 hour stopover in London before heading on to Ireland. They were excited about seeing what they could fit in. 

On the train to Bergen I also chatted with an older Australian couple from Victoria. They are part way through a mammoth European adventure. They got off the train before me at Flam. I wasn't sure of their plans after that. Well today as I approached the queue to border control they were in the line immediately ahead of me! They are a lovely couple and it was nice to see them again. 

Beautiful Bergen

Today was my one day to explore Bergen. I began by getting early up to beat the breakfast rush. After a very respectable breakfast buffet I headed out to explore. 

Quite by chance I had heard about Floibanen, the funicular railway that goes up the side of one of the mountains surrounding Bergen. I decided to give it a go.  

It only took about 8 min to get to the top but the views were spectacular! Why wasn't this on my to-do list? 

These photos show only a fraction of the view. It made me realise that Bergen is much bigger than I had realised. After that I did more exploring. I found a fortress, lots of gorgeous alleys and an interesting museum about early Bergen. 

In the museum there was a great exhibition on runes. One piece of information made me immediately think of Em and Ash. Aparently board games were played and the inscription on a runic stick said "there's no knowing what may come of hectic diceplay". Wise words. 

Before leaving Australia I booked a short fjord cruise. In fact, that was the other reason for coming to Bergen. My cruise commenced at 2:30pm and lasted 3.5h. Well worth it. What I loved most were the houses perched precariously on the sides of mountains or the small towns nestled in between the rocks.  So many towns were incredibly isolated.

Another early night tonight for me. I have an early flight in the morning back to the UK. 

Expectations well and truly exceeded!

The Scandinavian leg of my holiday was inspired by a segment I saw on TV about the Oslo-Bergen rail line. Today I made that journey. Wow! 

There are a few things to share like the friendly Australians and Americans I met, or the excitement as the snow got deeper and deeper, or the packed train. But I think this is an occasion where I should just let the pictures tell the story. 

What more can I say?