A quiet leisurely morning as our boat does not leave for Flåm (pronounced “floom”) until 11:55AM. Mother Nature must know we are heading home as it is raining off and on this morning, sometimes fairly heavy for a few minutes before stopping. There were even a few bolts of lightning to spice up the morning.

Luckily it was not raining when we waited dockside for the boat to appear. I was surprised to see how many people got off and how few got on for the next leg of the trip which took 1.5 hours. The fjord got narrower as we approached Flåm with some dramatic vistas and waterfalls to see.

Flam was really bustling with tours. There were a lot of tourists from India and Asia. We had a 2 hour layover before our next leg of the journey, a ride on the famous Flam Railway, considered to be one of the premiere train rides in the world. We chose to have our main meal there as this would be the last place where food options were many. We chose a Rick Steve’s suggestion and ended up in a cafe where the pizza looked good.Unfortunately it was big enough to feed a family of four and we reluctantly had to leave half.

After lunch we passed the time by going through a local railway museum which had some very good pictures and descriptions (in English) about how and when the Flam Railway was built in the early 1900’s. It is somewhat an engineering marvel, going 16 km from sea level to almost 900 meters in elevation, requiring 20 tunnels to be hand dug through the stone and reaching an 18% grade in some places. And it was built in three years! Try that today.

The ride from Flam to Myrdal takes about one hour and goes through some really breathtaking scenery. I can see why it is considered one of the top train rides in the world. That is as far as the train goes.

We then had to wait about 55 minutes to catch the regular train from Myrdal to Oslo. Unfortunately this portion of the trip takes 5 hours, but we had prepared for the journey by buying some of those good Norwegian pastries in the local bakery in Flam.

We arrived in Oslo on time at 11PM and were able to catch the fast train (which leaves every 10 minutes) from the rail station back to the airport and our hotel for the night.

It was at the airport hotel that we ran into the first snag of the day. It was 11:30 PM and there were at least 10 people waiting to check into the hotel. Where did they all come from at this time of the night?  To make matters worse there were only two staff members handling the check-ins. It was painfully slow, taking 25 minutes to get a room key and our luggage that had been kept in storage.

We have a 7:20AM flight in the morning so it was brush your teeth and fall into bed!