2 DAYS Across NORWAY By Train (Norway in a Nutshell)

2 DAYS Across NORWAY By Train (Norway in a Nutshell)

west coast. We’ll travel by train to Voss where we’ll get on a bus to Gvangan. Then we’ll hop on board a ferry to Flam before getting on two more trains to finally reach Oslo. This trip promises non-stop scenery. The trip starts in Norway’s second largest city, Bergen. Famous for its rain more than 6 ft a year. Its stunning views were what captured our attention. And the best views around can be reached by finicular, which for less than $20 round trip is well worth your time and money. It takes less than 10 minutes to climb the more than 1,000 ft up the side of the mountain Florian. At the top, you’re rewarded with a perfect panoramic perspective over Bergen. Meanwhile, back at sea level, we stayed at the very comfortable Hotel Norge. We booked this trip as a package, including accommodations and transportation with the help of our friends at Railbookers. We’ll go over booking options along with what we paid later. For now, it’s time to start our adventure. Our ultimate destination today is Flam, but we’ve got three legs to get there. Looks like a beautiful day for a train ride, a bus ride, and a ferry ride. The trip we’re going to take between Bergen and Oslo, or vice versa, is referred to as Norway in a nutshell. And that’s probably the most popular training trip you can take in Norway. But we’re going to find out. Is it worth all that popularity or is it just a bunch of marketing hype? Norway in a nutshell is a self-guided tour of some of Norway’s best scenery using only public transport. It’s mostly by rail, but there’s a bus and a ferry, too. We’ll tell you how to book it for yourself. But first, we’ve got a train to catch. It’s definitely going to be a transportation marathon, so get ready. We’ve got it all. We’ve got boats. We’ve got trains. We’ve got planes. No, we don’t have planes. No planes in this one, but they’re coming soon. Sorry folks, no planes in this one. Now we better board this train before we miss it. You see, the last time we traveled through Europe by train, we were not very successful. So, we’re going to do our best this time to be on time for each of these trains. This leg is scheduled to take an hour and 10 minutes. And despite the busy station, our car was relatively empty. We had assigned seats on this leg. There was, of course, plenty of space for our luggage. The bathrooms were large and clean. And if you’re looking for a boost, no problem. There’s coffee available. How’s the Norwegian train vending machine coffee? I’ve had better coffee, but at 35 croner, pretty good deal. As we mentioned, Norway in a nutshell takes advantage of public transportation, which means there are locals on board in addition to tourists like us. But both locals and tourists can enjoy this non-stop scenery, particularly if they’re on the left side of the train. Norway really has to be one of the world’s most beautiful countries. And as you’ll see, this trip will allow you to experience some of the highlights in a fairly easy way. This first leg got us excited about what we’re about to see. When we pulled into Voss, everyone in our car got out and followed these signs to the bus stop. We had about 30 minutes here and the crowd at the bus stop swelled. Our empty train car from Bergen must have been an anomaly. This is a lot of people. We were worried about finding seats. Bus boy, it’s your time to shine. Just waiting. Do you deny it? Nope. Are you a bus boy? A boy who buses. A man who buses. A bus man. The buses are scheduled to leave at 10:10. And just before 10:00, they arrived. We loaded our luggage and found space at the back of the second bus. Turns out there was no reason to worry. They operate several buses on this route, so finding space is no problem. And this leg should take about an hour and 15 minutes. There’s a footrest, luggage storage above the seats, and reading lights that only work when the bus is turned on. And that’s well, that’s about it. At 10:13, we were on our way. And now we are in this center of course now until you can see this old stone church. Now it’s possible to do the entire nutshell in one day, but we’d encourage you to follow our lead and break it up. Doing it all in a single day involves something like 14 hours of travel. We’re spending one night along the way, and we’d recommend you do the same, but more about that later. Both sides of the bus offer equally impressive views. You really can’t go wrong in either side. Pack your own water. Is there a bathroom on this bus? No bathroom, but there is a stop. We also brought snacks along with us. And unlike the train, it felt like this bus only had tourists on board. I’m sure locals can use it, but they may choose a different mode of transportation, especially given the fact we turned off the main road about 45 minutes after leaving Voss. You see, we’re making our way up to the Stallheim Hotel for a 10-minute photo stop. The hotel is beautiful, but as we’ve come to learn, it’s all about the views in Norway. [Music] I got to say, I’m sorry we’re not staying here. This looks pretty nice, but uh it’s on to Goodwag from here. But not before picking up a complimentary snack for the road. Best part about this stop a complimentary lepa. A traditional Norwegian flatbread. Let’s try it. Looks to be filled with maybe sugar. Cinnamon sugar. It’s like a bread filled with cinnamon sugar. Oh yeah, that’s good. I feel this is Norway’s answer to the stroop waffle. Thumbs up. Like it. We returned to the main road and it was this section just after the Stallheim Hotel on the way into Gudang that the true majesty of Norway began. These mountains are hard to capture on camera. They’re just incredibly beautiful. [Music] The camera lens just isn’t wide enough to capture it. With waterfalls seemingly at every turn and so much to see, it was impossible not to have your eyes glued out the window. And about 30 minutes after leaving Stalheim, we arrived in Gurvangan where we followed clear signs to continue our journey. This time on a ferry. We’ll sail for 2 hours through three fjords to reach Flam and that’s where we’ll spend tonight before continuing on again tomorrow. Wood Bagen has toilets, a couple cafes, but Rick Steves calls it a nothing to stop for town, so we’re not stopping. on the flop. There’s plenty of space to store luggage on board. And if you’re hungry, there’s a cafe along with plenty of seats inside, but we wanted to take in the view, so we headed outside. There are no stairs on board. Instead, this is just one giant ramp. There also no chairs out here, so wear comfortable shoes. There’s a lot of standing on this ferry. The train is spectacular. The bus is spectacular. Will the ferry live up to it? Let’s find out. As usual, we were on our way right on time. All of these fjords were formed by glacial activity millions of years ago, and they’re absolutely incredible to see. The the sheer uh cliff faces are mindblowing. This is one of the most beautiful landscapes on planet Earth. Nare has been called the most outstanding natural attraction in Norway. [Music] It’s on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and it’s easy to see why. At more than 12 mi long, its beauty is stunning. It’s surrounded by mountains towering up to a mile above the water, which reaches depths of up to 1640 ft. It’s definitely showing off its beauty today. We really lucked out with the weather. We’re traveling in late June and haven’t seen much rain, at least not yet. Making this trip in summer is your best bet for good weather, of course, but you’ll also be fighting more crowds. [Music] And spotting other fairies along the way was a great reminder that we’re truly experiencing Norway by public transport. But there’s something special about ours. You see, not only is this catamaran absolutely silent, but it’s also a zero emission vehicle. [Music] By now, it’s almost 1:00 in the afternoon, and we’re hungry. So, Suzanne went downstairs to the cafe where she got us two hot dogs and a beer to share. [Music] Lunch was quick. We didn’t want to take our eyes off of these views. On the final push into Flam, we passed Arlland Vangan, which is famous for its goats cheese. We’re going to try it later tonight at dinner. [Music] Most passengers were continuing their journey onward to Oslo, so they had a train to catch, but we have other plans. We left Bergen at 8:30 this morning and arrived here in Flam about 6 hours later, and that means we still have plenty of time to explore. Great first day. made it here to Flam, which is our stop uh overnight. Uh tomorrow we’ll make our way on to Oslo. We’d booked a room here at the Freim Hotel located right in the heart of town, but we didn’t want to stay in this room too long. There’s just too much to see out there. So, while you could cover the entire route between Bergen and Ozo in a single full day, we chose to stay overnight in Flam. Give ourselves some time to explore a little. So, we’re we’re going on a hike. I don’t know about you, but this is just absolutely incredible. Watch out for the cow poop. The best part of taking this break was the chance to see Norway a little closer. So far, we’ve been moving so fast we’ve missed these details. We even caught a glimpse of the train we’ll be on tomorrow. [Music] But at this point, we were ready for a workout. It’s time to climb. Is it time to burn off those hot dogs one step at a time? Yes, it is. Burn off those dogs one step at a time. The Brea Fosson waterfall hike is a short distance from Flom and is a great way to stretch our legs at the end of this day. I think I finally understand why they said don’t go chasing waterfalls. After about 20 minutes of steady climbing, we reached our destination. At a bit more than 500 ft over the valley, we enjoyed a commanding view. The view from the top is always worth the effort. That was a pretty steep climb, which makes sense. were on the side of a fjord, as you do in Norway. As we began our hike back down to town, the rain started in earnest. There’s no bad weather, only bad clothes. We’re both wearing the right shoes. That’s most important. And got the right outer layer for the rain, which we didn’t expect until later. But hey, you know, Norway’s got a Norway. You know what I mean? I got toilets everywhere in Norway. This country is just incredible in terms of infrastructure. You got nothing to worry about, you come here. Norway for the win. Before long, we were back in town right near the train station where we’ll leave tomorrow. Well, never seen this before. That’s a That’s a device to wash train windows. That’s a good sign. Hopefully, we’ll get some good views tomorrow. You might have heard that Norway is expensive, and it definitely is. There’s a grocery store in town and some takeaway spots where you can eat on the cheap. We’re going to treat ourselves tonight and eat out at a restaurant. So, let’s check it out and we’ll let you know what it costs. We ate at the local brew pub. Their menu featured local dishes made with ingredients from nearby farms. like this salad with goat cheese from the town we’d seen in the ferry earlier today. I had the lamb sausages, which I’ve been dreaming about ever since. And Suzanne had the pork wing, which was equally delicious. Now, sure, everything is expensive here, but this meal is one we’re going to remember for a long time to come. And that’s a wrap on day one. It was so jam-packed. I don’t know why they call it a nutshell. It It needs a name that’s way bigger than that. This was a lot. But we’re going to head to bed now to wake up tomorrow for another journey. This time, two trains on the way to Oslo. The sun continued to shine well into the night. It won’t set until after 11:00 tonight. And the next day came quickly. Sunrise was before 4:00 a.m. We enjoyed a buffet breakfast with international and local favorites before striking out on another adventure. We are about to hop on the Flams Bana. It’s about an hourong train that’ll take us up 3,000 ft up the side of the fjord. Some amazing views there before we hop on the other train today onto Oslo. So, hope you’ll join us for another day here on Norway in a nutshell. I don’t think that’s our train. I think our train is over there. Is that right? Yeah, that’s our train. That’s our trip. You know, somebody’s always going to be first in line and today it’s Suzanne. We really weren’t sure what time to show up. There’s no assigned seats on this train, so we wanted to be here definitely early. Now, we arrived at 7:45 for our train’s scheduled departure at 8:20 this morning. It’s an hour-long trip up to Mirdall. Our train is the first one out of Flam this morning, which is a great hack we’d recommend to you to avoid crowds. You see, Flom is a major cruise destination, and these trains can fill up with cruisers. It’s a really good idea to book an early train before the cruise ships are even in port. There was space at the front of our car for suitcases, and our backpacks fit easily over our seats. This is a really cool older train. The best advice we dug up encouraged us to sit on the right side of the train for this leg, but more about that later. In no time, Flam was behind us, and we were in the beautiful countryside where we’d hiked yesterday. Now, every phone with a camera was aimed out the windows. This was the best scenery we’d encountered yet, and that’s really saying something because we’ve seen so much already. The Flam Railway is a true engineering marvel. It’s the steepest railway run on regular gauge in the world. 80% of the journey is at an incredibly steep 5 1/2% gradient. The line is a mere 12 1/2 m, but we’ll pass through 20 tunnels that twist underneath and through mountains. [Music] This is absolutely one of the world’s most beautiful train journeys. Construction began in 1924, but wasn’t finished until 1940. [Music] You can still spot the road used to build the railway. [Music] We stepped off briefly at the Shasvasan Waterfall where everyone who wants gets a free shower. Well, that’ll wake you up. Our destination, Mir Doll, is where you can connect to the main line to Bergen or Oslo. This town is inaccessible by road. The only way to get here is by train, which made it even more impressive to see the massive crowd we encountered as we stepped off. Everyone got here by rail. And that right there is why you want to take the first train. There’s a lot of hype around this train. It’s been named the most scenic multiple times and my standards are kind of high, but I got to say jam-packed scenery start to finish. Go for the right side of the train, but it’s not like the left side is disappointing at all. It’s sort of divided into thirds. I would say the beginning third is good on the right side coming up. The middle third good on the left side and then the final third good on the right side. So that’s why I think people say the right side, but you’re going to be happy either way. On to Oslo. The train that brought us up the mountain began its journey back down. And we waited about 30 minutes for our train to arrive. The train to Oslo should come out of that tunnel right there any minute now. [Music] This will be the longest leg of the journey. It should take about 5 hours to reach Oslo. This is the first time since the train from Bergen when we had assigned seats and we’d upgraded our this leg of the trip to plus class which affords a bit more leg room and free coffee and tea. The bathrooms on board were clean and for lack of a better word forested. There were also plugs at each seat. And once more we easily found space for our luggage and settled in for even more amazing scenery. Now, it was during this leg that I became most grateful we’d broken up our trip with an overnight in Flam. Had we continued on yesterday without stopping, I might have fallen asleep and missed some of my favorite scenery of this whole trip. Because we’re climbing even higher, we’re anticipating alpine views, and we certainly were not disappointed. A quick reminder here, this is late June. These landscapes couldn’t be more different from the ones we’ve seen so far. We’re arriving at Finsa. This is the highest point on this line at 4,200 ft. Sometimes the scenery should just speak for itself. [Music] But as impressive as the views outside were, we decided to explore the train a bit. There’s a car specially built for families, complete with a playground. How great is that? But we discovered what we were looking for, the cafe car. There’s a selection of snacks along with a menu with cold items and one with hot items. [Music] Suzanne ordered the lasagna. But if you’ve watched this channel before and you saw this menu, you knew I couldn’t pass up the meatballs. [Music] We lingered in the cafe car over views that didn’t let up as we sper to Oslo. Now, before we talk about what we paid for this trip, let’s start where we began. Is it worth the hype? Most definitely. It has to be one of the most jam-packed with scenery. It’s also relatively accessible, well organized, and as a result, fairly easy for most tourists to do. But that means a trade-off. You won’t be alone. Expect crowds and big ones. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go. Follow our lead and travel early in the day. That way, you may have a better chance at finding some elbow room along the way. you on the rails. [Music] It’s gone. Only husbands will understand. Can’t miss the shot. Hiking paused. Are you going to miss the shot? Not going to miss my shot. Rick said this was the sun belt compared to Bergen. I don’t know if I was expecting such an intense hike. I was not fully expecting that we were going to be taking a uh a true hike. I thought it was a little walk around town. So, I am not dressed appropriately, but it was totally worth it. What’ you think of the Flams Bottom Bottom Bono? Let me try that again. behind the scenes. It’s how the magic happens. You like long layovers between our trains. Why?

Watch this video to experience “Norway in a Nutshell!”

Over the course of two days, we’ll make our way across one of the world’s most beautiful countries: Norway. We’ll travel through fjords, over treacherous mountain roads, and across beautiful glacier-fed rivers. And we’ll do it all on public transportation.

We’ll start in Bergen, on Norway’s west coast, where we’ll step onboard a trai to Voss. From there, we’ll board a bus to Gudvangen. Then, we’ll travel by ferry to Flam. We’ll spend the night there before waking up the next day for two more trains, carrying us all the way to Oslo!

In this video, you’ll see everything you can experience on the ultimate Norwegian Travel adventure: Norway in a Nutshell! We’ll even tell you exactly how you can book your own trip!

Book your own adventure:
https://www.railbookers.com/GreenerGrass

Check out our last Norwegian Public Transport Adventure:

0:00 Introduction
1:32 Day One
12:56 Day Two
19:22 Pricing & How to Book
20:20 Bloopers

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Music:
Scandinavian Lakes – Claude Signet
Pictures From My Childhood – Bonn Fields
Lakehouse – Ran the Man
Streak of Light – Candelion
Sultry Sun – Ealot
Nectar – Dye O
Wait Up Sundown (Instrumental Version) – Arch Tremors
Drommaren – Sandra Marteleur
Phoenix (Instrumental Version) – Ludlow
Positano – Ran the Man
Constellation (Instrumental Version) – Loving Caliber
Just One More Day – Kikuro
Misty Light (Instrumental Version) – The Eastern Plain