Day #165 - Norway - Fjords

Norwegian Fjords

The Norwegian Fjords

Turning the corner

On the shore - before we started

Looking out the back of the boat

The Kjosfossen Waterfall - the Flam Railway

Thursday, August 26th

To my Aunt Emily - thanks for your email. Thinking about you today. Hang in there - sending out some inspriation your way.

I love bounce-back days. It makes me concentrate on what's really important. I know that if I get rest, eat properly, exercise, and just stay focused on the next goal --- everything will fall into place. Wake up thinking - "Be good today". You don't have to be great at anything. But, if you are good every single day -- that will eventually make you great.

Anyway, I'm feeling inspired right now. I'm sitting in the lobby of my hotel and this guy is playing the piano in the room next door. He's playing tons of Beattles songs and old rock. It's really good.

Alright - to my bounce-back. First, I went to bed last night at 10:30pm and woke up this morning at 9am. Next, I went down and ate the buffet breakfast - which included tons of multi-colored fruits and vegetables. (On my 6 hour+ train ride to Bergen yesterday, I sat behind this Sierra Club tour group. It was made up mostly of 60+ year old people. It must have been their first day - you could feel the newness in the conversations. It was fascinating to me just to sit back and watch the dynamics of the group take shape. A couple (both doctors), and a professor from Stanford were most near to me. I couldn't help but listen to them the whole day. I gained immense knowledge and never said a word or read anything. The reason I even bring this up is because the doctors went on and on about eating 'multi-colored' fruits and vegetables. By the way - these people were very educated and extremely well spoken. The docs live in Philly and went to Princeton and the professor said she had Thanksgiving with Sandra Day O'Connor - the first female member of the US Supreme Court)

After breakfast, I signed up for a tour to one of the fjords. I used my location in Voss to my advantage. I was able to reduce the cost of the trip by $75 because I didn't need the Bergen-Voss transfer. Worked out great. All I had to do was walk out the front door of the hotel and I was at the train/bus station. This tour would consist of a bus ride, boat ride, and 2 train segments.

First off - what is a fjord? A fjord is a long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea surrounded by steep cliffs.

My tour started with a 1 hour bus ride. Here we saw an area called Stalheimskleiva. This is a 1.5km section of road that winds through 20 hairpin turns at a gradient around 20 percent. We were able to look down into the valley and get some incredible pictures. We next made our way to the boat. We started out into the Naeroyfjord. This particular fjord was recently added as 1 of 2 fjords in Norway to become part of the World Heritage List as an example of the best fjords in the world. Wow! Your riding in this small boat and towering over you on each side are these amazing cliffs. Very dramatic scenerey. The Naeroyfjord is one of the most narrow fjords in Norway - so the cliffs were close. I truly don't think my pictures can help you fully appreciate the vastness of the journey. Looking at postcards of the area really drives it home - a little bitty boat amongst these giant cliffs.

We next transferred to a train - the famous Flam Railway. This railway is 20 km long, goes through 20 tunnels (18 of which are hand-made) up this steep slope, and is considered one of the marvels of engineering in all of Norway. It only took 1 hour - but was great. We had a stop where we could get out and take pictures of this amazing waterfall - the Kjosfossen Waterfall.

Our final segment of the trip was from Myrdal to Voss on the Bergen Railway. I had actually been on this segment of the trip from yesterday. I hadn't mentioned it before, but the journey from Oslo to Bergen was filled with endless trees, lakes, rivers, mountains -- it reminded me of driving around in Colorado or Montana.

I made it back to Voss around 5:30pm. I went out for a 40 minute run and then stretched some. I went down to the hotel for dinner. I opted for the salad bar versus the full buffet ($80). Although I would have preferred something a little different, I got more multi-colored fruits and vegetables in the system. I've got my quota on these food groups for about a week.

I'm now in the hotel lobby, listening to the music, and finishing up this blog. Tomorrow I'll go north to my next hotel - which is on the largest fjord in Norway - the Sognefjord