Flåm Norway

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One trip we did on our recent cruise to Norway was to take the little train in Flåm from the tiny little village at the bottom to the top of the mountain to Myrdal where there was still a covering of snow. You can change trains here that connect with other large cities in Norway. We decided to do the tour on our own rather than the ships tour who charged around £15 to walk you from the ship to the station! They charge for this from the ship was £58 but do do it ourselves it cost £43. There is only one station in Flåm so it is not like you have to hunt it down. It is only a very small village with a couple of hotels, restaurants tourist shops and a micro brewery. The round trip too just over an hour and a quarter and you are only at the top for 6 minutes before the train returns to Flåm. What you are rewarded with though is some beautiful vistas of the fjord, the mountains and the incredible railway tunnels that were hand dug out of the mountain. There had been a settlement here since around 1340 and Flåm literally means flood plain. The river flows down the mountains to empty into the fjord. It is surrounded by high mountains on either side which are reflected in the fjord. The journey up was very interesting and we made a couple of stops on the way up to pick up passengers and drop some off. They were mostly skiers and locals. We also stopped at a scenic stop to take photos of a frozen waterfall which was quite pretty. Work started on building Flåm railway in 1924 and was finally finished in 1940. There are twenty tunnels, one bridge and stops at ten stations in the summer months less in the winter months. The engineering of this train line was complicated by the fact that its gradient is 1:18 very steep in places and rises to 2831 feet or 873 metres. The photo is of the stop in Myrdal at the top before the scenic journey back to Flåm