Norway – MegaPost 1of2

Unfortunately, time has gotten away from me again, and after a blog update every other day, I’m seeing that I haven’t updated in about a month (I had the others queued up and posted automatically).

After Turkey, MS and I flew to Norway.  Unfortunately our close friend was moving out of the country that week, but we met plenty of helpful hosts through AirBNB, and had a wonderful time.

Our basic itinerary was: Take the high alpine train from Oslo towards Bergen, stopping at Myrdal to take a fenicular rail down to the city of Flam, on an inland fjord.  We took a quick boat ride on the fjord before returning to Voss (mmmm, fresh water!) to catch the remainder of the trip to Bergen (this itinerary thus far is called “Norway In A Nutshell” and is part of a package deal).

After a few days in the charming city of Bergen, we flew to Bodø (north of the arctic circle!), caught a quick ferry across to the Lofoten Islands, where we hiked to the village of Å, and stayed in a rorboer (fisherman’s hut, on the water).  We did an excellent scuba dive in Ballstad, and then hopped up to Stamsund where we were able to board the Kong Harald ship – on the Hurtigruten line.  Due to high costs (though using our student discounts!) we cruised up to Tromsø and had a nice few days in this northern university town.

Feel free to ask questions of the photos below, in the comments section, or by email!  Here’s the first of two sets of photos:

Trains that cut through snow / ice in the winter to clear the tracks:

Oldentimes manual train track traverse method!
 
Intriguing wheel design, not totally different than we came up with at Energy Cache!

This South Korean was riding around the world on his motorcycle.  Sweet!  (BMW)
 

Fjord with sheepses:
 

 

Fjords.  Easy to travel straight down, not so easy to traverse.
 

MS with Knute Rockne’s memorial in his hometown of Voss, Norway!

MS with other locals in Voss:
 

Love me some signs.

Please, DO NOT touch the swords (which are for sale)!
 
In-flight airline menu item:

Beautiful islands on the flight north from Bergen!

Come to think of it, yes, it would be cold to drive a wheelchair in Norway in the winter.

Loverly town sign pose.

About midnight at the middle of August:
 

Sign!  Easy enough: Live Cable, Anchoring (your boat) forbidden!

As dark as it ever got for us:

Cod liver oil factory in the village of Å:
 

And fish drying racks EVERYWHERE.  Thank goodness we didn’t visit between January and April when the racks ALLL around town are ALL full of hanging fish.
 

So serene! (Click for lager; email me for full size, or similar ones)