We left fairly early the next morning, as we had tickets for the Flåmsbana. It’s a rail line that was opened in 1941 and traverses some picturesque scenery. It goes through 20 tunnels, 18 of which were dug by hand.
We got stuck in a tunnel for about 45 minutes on our way to the Flåm. It seemed that there was some emergency repair work being done on the tunnel that we were in. We thought, we had left ourselves plenty of time but because of all our delays we ended up boarding the train with only 10 minutes to spare.
It was a pretty ride. But since the cruise ship was in town the train was packed.
On the way to our next place, we had a ferry crossing.
Got back on the road to Sogndal. We had a 2-bedroom cottage. It was a cute place. We had dinner at the cafe there, which was quite good.
Since we only had a 2-hour drive, the next day, we looked for something to do in the area for the following morning. I found that the Nigardsbreen Glacier is Norway’s most accessible glacier, and the visitor center was only an hour drive from us. Will and I did not want to do another guided glacier hike, but we found a great compromise, the Nigardsbreen viewpoint hike. You drive from the visitor center and then jump on for a 15-minute boat ride across the glacier lagoon. It’s then just a little over a mile hike to the glacier viewpoint. It was the perfect option for us. And our timing worked out. As we were leaving the visitor center that afternoon the rain started again.
You can also hike from the lagoon parking lot instead of taking the boat. The ranger had told us it was a lot of ups and downs and because of all the rain it was really slippery. The boat was only about $7/each, so we thought it was worth it.
We spent the night in Olden near Loen. It was an apartment that looked right onto the fjord and such a beautiful view. Kendall was crazy enough that she took, a quick jump into the fjord to test out the water temperature.
