....and a ferry.

 

It is considered to be an iconic tourist experience, where in one day, you can enjoy Norway in a Nutshell. The concept was created by a very clever tourist operator who combined a number of existing transport routes to give tourists the opportunity to do Norway in a day. From Bergen most tourist operators package a regular train, ferry, bus and a scenic train experience that starts in Bergen about 8am and returns to Bergen at about 6pm. Conversely, with the help of a subversive dual national American/Norwegian blogger, we discover there is another way of getting the same experience much cheaper.

 

Instead of buying a return tourist package, we book online tickets for each section to travel one way from Bergen to Oslo over two days, for less than half the price of Norway in a Nutshell. From Bergen the train delivers us to ‘the adrenalin capital of Norway’, Voss. From there the tricky part is to find a local 950 bus to Gudvangen and then hopefully buy a ticket on board. As all the Norway in a Nutshell packaged tourists are following the same path we just follow the well-dressed woman with a flag. We successfully buy a bus ticket with a credit card. Easy. The scenery is certainly stunning and we arrive at Gudvangen with plenty of time to catch not a plane, a train or an automobile but … a ferry.

 

Not just any ferry, but the only fully electric powered ferry in the world built of carbon fibre. It silently glides across the fjord surrounded by snow-capped mountains at an impressive 16 knots. With radiant sunshine and no wind the deep green fjord is like crystal. The sides of the valley are resplendent with fresh spring vegetation, massive waterfalls and to our surprise a number of small farms. Sheep and goats dot the shore line. 

 

Arriving at Flam the tour groups all immediately leave on route to the next part of their Nutshell journey, while we enjoy an overnight at a very simple but functional youth hostel. Flam in the evening with only a couple of hundred people there is mystically soulful, but locals explain that when up to 4000 tourists a day arrive on mass in the summertime, it’s a very different story. After a glorious walk around the edge of the fjord we discover a local bakery boasting some of the finest sourdough bread we have ever eaten.

 

Leaving Flam the next day we board the Flamsbana (The Flam Raiway) billed as ‘the most beautiful railway in the world’. The 45 minute ascent, in historic rail carriages, includes imposing scenery. The engineering is almost as stunning as the scenery as the train climbs the steepest standard gauge track in the world.

 

At Mydral we change to catch the five hour inter-city train from Bergen to Oslo which crosses some of Norway’s most popular cross country and downhill ski fields. The dazzling sun continues to melt the snow, filling powerful rivers favoured by both locals and tourists for rafting and kayaking.

 

Norway offers much more than a nutshell. Gilbert Keith says it even better:

 

‘The traveller sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.’

GK Chesterton