The Train - The Train!

The charming village of Flåm (pronounced Flum) sits eight hours inland through the breathtaking Aurlandsfjord in between towering peaks. We had no idea how spectacular this would be.


View from our veranda – a beautiful sunny day.


This place is beautiful!

After breakfast we took the world-renowned Flåm Railway through magnificent scenery past roaring waterfalls and breathtaking scenery. Absolutely gorgeous and it is the “most dramatic train ride in Europe”.

Flåmsbana Train


The train climbs over 3,000 ft through 20 tunnels for 12-miles across numerous bridges with stunning views in every direction. 


Waterfalls everywhere we look

The train stopped at Kjosfossen waterfall for photos while a Norwegian woman danced on the bluffs to Norwegian music. 

 We stopped in a tunnel to get off to view the falls.


 Kjosfossen waterfall – look for the Norwegian dancer in red.

Our last stop was at Vatnahalsen, a mountain alpine hotel where we had tea, waffles, jam and free time to enjoy the fantastic views.


Tea, waffles and Rasberry jam.
Look closely and see people on the path below.

Here comes our train for the trip back down to our ship
Small village as seen from the train

After 4-hrs of spectacular scenery, we reached Flåm again and our ship for lunch.

Today we had lunch at the pool grill - the roof was open and it was 70 degrees!

Our beautiful lunch view
 

After lunch we walked around town enjoying the sites, sun, and beauty. We cannot decide if Flåm is more beautiful than Geiranger or not. We have decided they are equal.

At 5 PM we set sail from Flåm and we got many beautiful pictures for your viewing pleasure, more than we can include. This place was the most picturesque, idyllic place we've ever seen. It was hard to stop taking pictures.



One more unique village and more...ok, that's enough.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Around, Around and Around We Go!

Image
Good morning all! This morning we woke up to a beautiful sunrise from our cabin as we approached our Rome (Civitavecchia) port which is approximately an hour and half from Rome.  You may be wondering what the mystery was about Rome that I indicated in yesterday's blog.  Well, since we've all been to Rome, we decided we didn't want to brave the crowds and congestion of Rome, so we pre-arranged a tour guide to take us into the countryside where one of the previous Pope's had lived (Castel Grandofo).   As we departed the port and approached a roundabout, we decided we didn't need to visit that location. After several around, around and around again in the roundabout and discussion with Matteo (our guide), we decided to go to Orvieto, a beautiful hilltop village. It was a long ride through the beautiful Italian countryside with a few villages along the way.   At one point we saw a sheep scampering along the highway all by himself.  We hoped he got back to his flock, and
Read more

Slowly arriving in Cannes

Image
 The first leg of our cruise is from the port of Tarragona, Spain to Cannes, France.  It is such a short distance that we traveled very slowly.  At one point the monitor in our cabin said we were traveling at .05 knots.  So, at a snail's pace we arrived at Cannes.  It was a beautiful day and it looked like someone sprinkled glitter on the ocean. Cannnes is a tender port which is always a challenge, so we did as we were told and waited in the theater for tickets to get on a tender.  Their organization left a lot to be desired and required patience on our part.  Finally, we got on a tender and when arriving at the port we met up with our private tour guide, Edith.  We jumped in her van, and she started driving through Cannes informing us all along the way about Cannes.   Cannes There was a lot of road construction, and we were glad to get past that and enjoy the beauty of the beach road as it left Cannes behind and brought us to the 16th century town of Artibes.  The town is surround
Read more

“The Most Beautiful Spring Garden in the World”

Image
Today was a gorgeous, sunny, chilly day. This was our last adventure on this cruise and our last tour where everyone got to attend the annual tulip festival at Keukenhof Gardens - “The Most Beautiful Spring Garden in the World” . The gardens cover over 100-acres and are covered in spectacular tulips everywhere you look. Nearly 1-million visitors a year attend this event and today was not the exception. We arrived from our ship at 9:15am – like arriving at Disneyland when they first open on the weekend – and boy were we grateful to beat the noon time crowds! It was hard to make much progress walking around because we were lured into stopping every few steps to take a picture.   It was so beautiful.   There were millions of tulips of every variety and color, so hopefully you won’t get bored looking at tulip pictures.     Between the 3 couples, we probably took over 100 pictures and sorry you can’t smell them. On our last night at dinner, we reminisced about our week together on
Read more