Over the hills and far away

Tuesday, 20 January 2015

At 9am this morning we were standing in light snow at Drammen Station, looking across the river at Norway's oldest brewery : Aass Bryggeri, with a great train journey ahead of us.

In fact the journey from Oslo (or Drammen in our case) to Bergen is considered one of the most scenic train journeys in the world, and I can only say that the photos we got do it no justice at all. These photos are in no particular order,  shooting through the train window isn't ideal (although in a few places I did jump out onto the platform), in real life the scenery was breathtaking. As an added bonus high up in the mountains the sun was shining and the sky was blue - in fact it all looked so lovely we wanted to pull the emergency brake and leap out and frolic in the snow.

The whole trip was mesmerising. From little things such as cars parked at stations with snowdrifts on their roofs that were larger than the cars themselves , to horses in thick blankets standing around on snow-covered paddocks enjoying some sunshine and hay,  to bigger things like snow piled so high in so many places that it was only the roofs of houses which were just visible.  We climbed high up to the highest station in Norway - Finse (above left), then down to Bergen where the snow was replaced by steep mountains dropping straight into the water.

And then after 6 hours we were in Bergen. We would have happily travelled another 6 if it had stayed light.  We were met in Bergen by our lovely AirBnB host who walked us to the place we are staying right in the centre of town in the cutest street ever..

And here we will be for the next two nights.  It was only 3.30pm when we arrived so we had time to take the historic Fløybanen (funicular railway) to the top of a nearby hill for a few photos before returning to our apartment which looks like it is out of the pages of some high end scandinavian design magazine.