From Iceland to Norway!!  ‘Arctic Circle Tripping’ part 2 (March 2022)

Side Note – If I had to do it again, I would’ve really packed light for this trip because it was very evident that we’d severely overpacked when we were getting off & on the train.  So tiring!

 

 

Accommodations – I chose to stay @ the Scandic Byporten – Hotel Oslo Central Station, which is within a 2 minute walk to the train station, & had a very small standard twin room with breakfast.  Men (or ‘brush cut’ ladies like me!) could also get a haircut @ the cute little barbershop in this hotel, too!  This room we booked on the Southwest Airlines app as you can book hotel rooms & cars through them also.  

 

 

 

This Scandic was clean, nice & small.  We bought the rate that included what turned-out to be a wonderful buffet breakfast @ at a restaurant adjacent to them called Egon.  

 

Food – We only ate @ Egon Restaurant.  The dinner was wonderful & $, the free breakfast buffet was extensive & just as good.   

 

Side Note – If you’re ever checking-out of a hotel & you need to leave your luggage for a few days, always check with the hotel.  A lot of them will store your luggage safely until you get back.  The Scandic Byporten had no issue keeping 4 bags of ours until we returned from Flåm & Bergen, 4 days later. 

 

The next morning, we got up @ o’dark thirty to take the Bergensbanen to Flåm for a night & then on to Bergen.  I’d bought the scenic train tickets off of the vy.no website tickets.  We had very good seats on both train rides, & was super curious to see if either of these rides came even close to our very 1st scenic train ride in Switzerland, the Bernina Express.  

 

We easily found the train & our assigned, 1st class seats on the Bergensbanen.  The train wasn’t crowded.  (Thankfully all signs in the airport & train stations have an English translation underneath the Norwegian language description).

 

I didn’t sleep much the night before in anticipation of this scenic train ride.  I was so looking forward to it!  Whereas the scenery from the windows on the Bernina Express quickly turned gorgeous, it took almost 90min of riding on the Bergensbanen before the scenery turned into beautiful sights to behold!  

 

Later in the trip, the train’s food bar opened.  Floyd & I shared meatballs, mashed potatoes w gravy & a little side of green beans – which tasted & looked very much like Ikea food.  It also wasn’t included in the train tix price.  

 

Our stop was the ‘Myrdal Station’, & once we got off, the Flåmsbana train was right there.  

                                                  

Flåm, Norway 

Is a beautiful little town discovered when I was looking for scenic train rides to take & came across the The Flåm Railway, aka Flåmsbana.  There was a possibility that this was one of the ‘Most Scenic Train Rides in Europe’, & I was definitely going to make a reservation for us!  We were going to take the train trip almost in the middle of Norway’s winter.  How exciting because trust me, #coldvacaysaredopetoo! 

 

The Flåmsbana reminded me of an ‘old school’ train, it was open seating & not crowded @ all.  It was 45min – 1hr of riding through the most breathtaking mountain views that were heavily laden with snow.  It was also actively snowing & that didn’t stop the train @ all.  There were several cute, snowy little villages viewed from the large windows, also.  Where the Bergensbanen made no stops for passengers to get off & take pictures, the Flåmsbana did make 1 stop @ Kjosfossen waterfall (frozen @ the time).  

 

 

*** We also missed our train out of Flåm back to the Myrdal Station to catch the next train to Bergen because I had selected the wrong departing station!!  I was almost in tears!  So be sure when you’re making a reservation that you’re choosing the correct station!  That 1 mistake cost us more money because the train from Flåm only goes out so many times/ day.  Since we missed the departure, that eventually made us late getting to Bergen.  We were only spending a day & a night there, & that was actually enough time for us to see what we wanted to see. ***

 

Flåm is hands down the most adorable little village EVER that was nestled deep between tall mountains & sitting on the shore of Aurlandsfjord.  It was early March & there were NO crowds.

 

I chose the Flåmsbrygga Hotel & it ended-up being a very short, direct walk (4-5min) from the train stop.  I was super nervous as I approached the hotel as it’s not at all beautiful on the outside, but our ‘twin room with balcony’ was super cute!  It was very comfortable & we weren’t disappointed.  Our view of the fjord from the Flåmsbrygga balcony, was really nice & our rate included a small, but good buffet breakfast the next morning.