Day 2: Oslo

The plan for the day included a boat trip onto the Oslofjord. We took our time in the morning and got moving slowly, to walk down to the piers with the plan of visiting the Nobel Peace Center before our boat trip.



So worth the time! It wasn't a very big exhibit, but it talked a lot of about Nobel, and the influences that may have led him to create the prizes. It situated the prizes in their history, to what was happening in the world, for many of them.

Two things moved me:

-- the gallery with tributes to all the Peace Prize laureates. I don't know if my photos will do it justice, but felt like a sacred space, like walking into a church. I'm not religious, but places of worship that are being respected have a special quality of silence, and this place had it too.


Because I'm a bitch, I sought out Henry Kissinger's plaque and spit on it. LOL, no, I didn't, but I certainly pretended to. I hate that man. He's a war criminal who never answered for his crimes.

-- seeing the actual medal.



There was a pretty flower display in the stairwell, and I glared at the National Museum though the window since I knew I wasn't going to be able to have time to get there.



Note: sorry about the selfies. I could remove them, but tbh, I'm writing this here before sending it family and they do want to see selfies, LOL.

After that, we walked around the piers for a bit -Starbies for Linnea!- and then back to to pick up our boat for the tour of the fjord.



A word on smoking. OMG. Iceland was worse this time than two years ago, and it was worse then than in '18. Scotland was bad. Norway was pretty awful. The difference with the US is that nobody moves away to smoke, they just stand right next to you. With winter clothing, the smell is sometimes awful.

That's what happened on the boat. We got there early and found great seats. And a woman came and sat next to us and we were enveloped with a smoking stench like I'm not sure I've ever smelled before. I gagged and dh started to sneeze, it was that bad. She reeked (and went out to smoke some more.) We ended up giving up our great spots and spent a lot of time outside or in less awesome seats. What was funny? This British guy saw we'd given up our spots and went to sit next to her. A minute later, he'd moved as well. She basically created empty seats all around her.

The nice thing is that this pushed us outside! Some photos.

Cute little lighthouse! I want to live there... I mean, who wouldn't?

David, chilling.

How I looked a lot of time when outside!

House and geologic layers!

Oslofjord

Opera House and sculpture from the water-side.


We walked back to the hotel and ended up just hanging out that evening, having gummi worms and Pepperidge Farm goldfish for dinner, we were that tired!

Day 3: to Flåm by trains!

Early up the next day since we had a train out of Oslo just past 8am. Our hotel was right next to the station, which was nice, and we were able to board the train towards Bergen without incident. We were not going all the way to Bergen that day, however!

This route is supposed to be one of the prettiest in Europe and it went high into the mountains, giving us some views of snowy mountain tops and very cold very small train stations in the middle of nowhere! The weather continued to be fabulous, so the snow was bright and the skies blue! A long section of the line was under snowsheds, which was kinda cool.

In the middle of nowhere, ie a small station called Myrdal we got off the Bergen train and boarded the much older and quainter train cars of the Flåm railway! More about the train and how the line was built!

Lots of elevation lost quickly, in tunnels and incredible views of the mountains, the river the line follows, and most importantly, the line itself on the way down.

One funny/WTF incident. Dh and I were sitting across from each other and at one point, he got up to move to an empty area -no seats- on the other side of the car to take some photos. The second he was out of the way, this family of three -mother, father, and twentysomething daughter- swooop in shoving our camera bag on the seat out of the way to get closer to "our" window, all three of them completely invading my personal space. Then... the daughter tried to use my head to stabilize her shot. I moved -lady, I am not your fucking tripod- and she hissed in annoyance. I mean, really?

We got to Flåm, checked into our hotel and went back out to explore the railway museum and the very cute but very small little town. We found where our boat would be the next morning for the fjord tour and I had possibly the worst hamburger I have ever eaten, though dh said his fish and chips was ok. Not much night life in town (not that we go for night life, but it's nice to pretend) so we turned in early.

Next day, we'd be taking a boat down a section of the Nærøyfjord then a bus and train into Bergen.

A lot of these are taken from a moving train, sigh.

The Oslo to Bergen line.




The Flåmsbana ie the Flåm line.
The start of the line in Myrdal.

The waterfall must be spectacular when it's running! The ice was pretty damn impressive!



Bits of the line.


From Flåm


I'll post links to the photos dh took with the real camera once we've got them sorted!