Woke up at oh-dark-thirty this a.m and it was raining in Bergen. Room service breakfast arrived ca. 6 a.m. and we got about getting ourselves to the pickup point by 7. We ate, dressed, packed our toiletries and electronics, checked all the drawers in the room to be sure we hadn’t left anything behind, and got to the pickup point by 6:45.
Since I’m using a walker this trip and the other couple we’re traveling with has him in an electric wheelchair, they’d laid on a van to take us to the train station. Needless to say, we got wet getting our carry-on stuff, plus ourselves, a folding wheelchair and folding walker into the van. The drive to the station was clearly too far to walk, though we’d been told it was nearby and walking might be required.
At the station there was a wait that seemed interminable (but wasn’t) since we were wet and train stations aren’t heated. I sat in the walker which was a blessing. Eventually we got on the train and it pulled out of the station smooth as silk. The train from Bergen to Oslo is nice, plenty of leg room, clean, and runs on overhead electricity trolley-style as many European trains do.
The trip took 7 hours and the scenery was outstanding. Lots of wooded canyons with lakes in the bottom, or streams. Plenty of little weekend places dotting the hillsides, and as we climbed up to the high level plateau snow became prevalent until, up top, the lakes were still frozen over and it is almost May. This trip is one of my favorites, even though I slept through part of it because of the early get-up.
I mentally stereotype Norway as a string of seacoast towns and fjords, yet we motored steadily east toward Oslo through a lot of non-coastal country which reminded me of Switzerland, if not quite as tidy. The train stopped at several hamlets along the way but was only at each for perhaps 3-4 minutes before gliding away.
Another train trip it reminded me of, one we’ve done twice, is the Canadian train from Jasper townsite in Alberta which heads west via Prince George to Prince Rupert on the BC coast. That trip is less developed but has similar gorgeous scenery.
Something I noticed was the prevalence of medium-sized, absolutely square windows in newer houses along this route. I’ve seen them elsewhere in Europe but it never caught on in the States.
We’re in a downtown Radisson Hotel in Oslo tonight and tomorrow night, after which we fly home. The other DrC’s cough is better, we’ll take it easy here in town. My head is already at home thinking about all we have to get done before leaving for WY by way of SLC. It is a busy spring for us.
