Flam to Bergen

Friday 18^th May

While sitting having breakfast in the Youth Hostel this morning we glanced out the window and saw a large ship by the station with the word “Cunard” on the side, walking outside we were able to read “Queen Mary 2”, obviously the information we were given that it was due in on Saturday was incorrect.

After breakfast we strolled down to the station area to view the ship which dwarfed every building in Flam.  We then walked up a nearby hill to look out over Flam and the surrounds then walking around the fjord for several kilometres, stopping for lunch beside a small marina before returning to Flam.

Our next stop was the museum devoted to the building of the Flam railway line, condition were really tough for the navvies who dug out six kilometres of solid rock by hand for the 20 tunnels and they had to pay for any dynamite they used as well as the carbide for their lamps out of their wages.
At 3:15 we boarded the catamaran ferry to Bergen and at the moment we are cruising along the Sognefjord at 31 knots (57km/hr), surrounded by dozens of snow-capped mountains and waterfalls plunging down the mountain sides.  The fjord is more than 204 km long and is the longest and deepest fjord in Norway and at its deepest point it is 1300 metres deep and the mountains around it rise to 1700 metres.

We are due into Bergen around 8:00 pm tonight after calling into ten towns to drop off and pick up passengers.  Hopefully we will only have a short walk to our hotel.