Fun Norway fact: everywhere we go, there is someone telling us where the nearest place is to have a swim (generally a fjord). And likewise, there are locals (or other Scandinavians) swimming at almost every point in the water, little ladders poking out in many places. I guess when it never really gets hot – why wait to swim? (Or why swim at all, if you are a delicate lizard?)
We left Oslo on Friday, destined eventually for Bergen, but not until we traversed the dramatic Norwegian landscape. I take deep offense at paying markup for something I could book for myself with a bit of effort – and that was how I felt about arranging our scenic passage from Oslo to Bergen – aka the Norway in a Nutshell tour. This the time-worn tourist trek between the two cities takes you from Oslo on a train up through a mountain pass, down on the world’s steepest railway, the Flamsbana, and then a boat through fjords, followed by a bus ride, and a final train into Bergen (or the reverse).
It’s a representative sampling of Norway’s wild topography – mountain passes, fjords, waterfalls, and lots of trees.
You can pay way extra if you let a booking agency handle everything (why tho), or you can book tickets for various trains, boats, etc individually if you are willing to battle with your potentially cranky credit card and the European credit card processing system. I chose to fight and my credit card only occasionally spurned me with nonsensical irregularity, and ended up victorious after the ferry company’s very helpful customer service.
Because I have a bus curse and a disdain for other tourists on buses, we’re not doing the train-train-boat-bus-train of the Norway in a Nutshell route, we’re doing an alternative called Sognefjord in a Nutshell, which has the first train-train-boat part, spending two nights in Balestrand in the fjords, and then a final boat through the Sognefjord to Bergen. It means we skip the really narrow, dramatic Næroyfjord, but how different can these be?
The first train: Oslo to Myrdal. It’s pretty standard for the first hour, but then you get into wild mountain lakes, lots of trees, and eventually….snowy passes. In hindsight, I am not sure why I thought there would not be snow up at elevation, but there it was. Feet and feet of snow, and some very abandoned train stops by research stations. We had only just left the snow behind.
At Myrdal, you switch and take the Flamsbana to the tiny tourist trap town of Flam. Before the pandemic, you could not book this online (according to several sources I found from 2018 and 2019). Now – I could! The train ride is barely an hour and very scenic. The rail line was built originally in the 1930s to service goods to the town of Flam, and now it’s a tourist train. I’m game, because it’s super pretty, and also half empty this time of year.
It even stops at a waterfall for pictures, where a mountain spirit lady comes out and dances and tries to tempt interested parties into the mountain wilds forever. We all survived her dancing wiles and piled back onto our train car for the rest of the ride down into the valley.
The train ends in the small town of Flam. We have an hour to spend here. It’s a bit chilly (hah! finally my clothes are weather-appropriate!) and there are many little stands and bakeries here to refuel and relax. I got a big hunk of warm cheesy pesto bread from the bakery because bread at home hates me and we people watched in the cold until it was time to board.
Flam is a great place to spend a night or two if you don’t mind being in a tourist trap and want to do fjord activities. By this point in our trip, we have moved around and done lots of things, so we’re here to just chill – and that’s why we’re headed to Balestrand.
We catch our ferry to Balestrand, a swift boat that takes just over an hour to arrive. Notably, it has a small cafe on board that will sell you hot dogs, sandwiches, hot drinks, and ice cream: the staples of the tourist diet. My cheesy bread was superior, but I will be back for this cafe when we leave.
Balestrand is a smaller resort town, home to a Swiss Chalet-style hotel, the Kviknes, the favorite of Kaiser Wilhelm II and also the town’s claim to fame. Why is it Swiss? No idea. The town has a few hotels and is a charming intersection of smaller Norwegian town and tourist things.
The Kviknes was more money than I cared to spend and it’s not even in Norwegian style, so we went with the more affordable Balestrand Hotel, recommended by the guidebook. Unbeknownst to me at the time of booking, they’re hosting an adults-only (read: young drunk adults, and literally why I hate going to adult night at the zoo) camp for the weekend. Most of the time, this was fine and somewhat hilarious, except for the bumpin’ party they had downstairs that woke me up briefly at 2AM on Saturday night (the hotel was very apologetic).
They had also recently installed a sauna at the waterfront, and people were enjoying swimming in the water and then sauna-ing all weekend long. I guess when there is no such thing as warm water season here, you really just jump into the cold ocean any chance you get. As a lizard, I would die. Our room overlooked the fjord and we passed the time with many games of bridge and walks around the small town.
Generally, tourist town food is kinda meh, but we found some real gems in the handful of restaurants around the town (or at least, what was open before high season commenced). The Kviknes has a dress code for dinner (formal attire, no sandals or shorts), which we discovered on Sunday when we went there for our breakfast. We are Too Poor for this hotel.
Balestrand has a really neat little heritage walk along the shores of the fjord, which was nice even in the all-day rain we endured on Saturday. I think the fjords are best in the rain, with the clouds spilling over the mountaintops and mist passing across the water. And I am saying that even though my walking shoes got thoroughly soaked – which could have been prevented had I brought my Serious Shoes with me, but I didn’t want to lug more shoes around, so I chose moist suffering.
The town’s history is pretty deep despite its size – it also has a great cidery (which we sampled many times, but it is closed on offseason weekends), and is home to lots of cool dragon-style homes on the heritage walk.
Our boat to Bergen on Sunday is a continuation of the one we boarded on Friday, but alas, we do not have tables this time. I had a small veggie sandwich and we passed our four hours on our boat admiring the many fjords and islands on the way to Bergen.
