We depart with our driver, Jānis, for a long day of touring. The day might be as long as 15 hours. We depart at 0720. We travel in the luxury of an all-electric Mercedes touring van. Norway is rapidly removing nonelectric vehicles from its roads.
The drive to the train is picturesque. We change altitude often taking us from gorgeous views of fjords to barren snow-covered peaks well above the tree line. In parts of Norway, the tree line is at a very low altitude!
We are 'treated' to electric car long distance driving. We must stop at a gas station for 40 minutes to charge the vehicle.
Jānis delivers us to Geilo stasjon to catch our first train. This first train runs from Oslo to Bergen. We take it from Geilo to Myrdal in the direction of Bergen.
Most of this ride is above the tree line and parallel to one of Norway's largest lakes. Much of it through tunnels like the one at the end of this station.
The number of tunnels and avalanche caves is amazing. Here we are entering an avalanche tunnel.
This is both a working train and a tourist train. Shortly into the seriously downhill run, the train makes a five-minute stop at a waterfall, well, frozen waterfall at this time of year. Do you see Carol in the window?
The downhill ride, wholly on the brakes, has many picturesque moments.
In Flåm, we lunch at a small bakery/cafe in the visitor center building. The white pizza is divine.
Our boat, The Fjords, catamaran takes us on a cruise on Nærøyfjord from Flåm to Gudvangen.
Jānis is waiting as we arrive in Gudvangen.
It is a long return drive to Oslo. Along the way we pass through Norway's second longest tunnel and many others as we cross over and under several mountains on our return to Oslo. We stop twice to charge the vehicle.
Jānis does well. We return in 14.5 hours. At some points in the day he had indicated it might have been more than 16 hours.
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