Our Visit to Flåm

Since we have a rental car and it was going to be another beautiful day, we decided make a day-long adventure of driving to Flåm. Flåm is a tiny village on the Aurlandsfjord arm of the Sognefjord. Even though it is tiny, it beauty makes it one of the most popular attractions in Norway. One of the things Flåm is famous for is a scenic train ride through the Flåm Gorge. 



Because we wanted to see as much of "fjord country" as possible, we decided to make the long loop around from Dragsvik to Vangsnes to Vik to Flåm to Sogndal to Hella and then back to Dragsvik. This route involved three separate ferry rides - the way that people move around across the fjords. 





The ferries are beautiful, efficient and on time! Because they are electric, they are totally silent. 



Our trip today took us through at least 10 tunnels - truly engineering feats. One of the tunnels was 15 miles long! You can only envision that people would have not traveled very far from their farms or villages before there were the ferries and tunnels.





After a stop at the Flåm Bakery for coffee and a delicious cinnamon pastry, we decided to drive up the Flåm Gorge instead of taking the scenic train. 





We were both surprised that the "drive" was basically a one lane road that eventually turned into gravel. The road twisted and turned with plenty of corkscrew turns. What made it really interesting was there were lots of bikers coming down at us - each time, I was praying we wouldn't hit a biker as they barreled down on us. 





But the scenery was truly beautiful and because Greg has "nerves of steel" driving abilities, we made it safely there and back!



After we left Flåm, we had almost a two hour drive back to our cabin - we passed so many beautiful scenes around every turn. One of the most surprising things is we see apple orchards everywhere on the hillsides. The small trees are planted like a grape vineyard and they are full of ripe fruit. Who knew that the temperature and climate of the Western Fjord section of Norway is perfect for growing fruit?




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