Day 4 (June 25): Oslo -> Flåm -> Aurland

We got up before 7am to pack up and grab food made for us at the front desk. We checked out shortly thereafter and crossed the street to the central train station in Oslo to head up into the mountains toward Bergen. We will be in Bergen in a couple of days but today we got off the train at the Myrdal station near the highest point on that route. There was still so much beautiful snow along the last hour of that train ride which was about 4.5 hours total.

Many others got off in Myrdal too with the goal of taking one of the steepest and most beautiful train rides in the world down to Flåm and it takes almost an hour. The tracks were put down in the 1800's and have stunning sights of numerous waterfalls whenever the train is not inside a tunnel (there are about 20+ tunnels). The train stops at one of the falls (Kjosfossen) for 5 minutes to allow everyone to get out onto a viewing platform for photos and June is a wonderful month for heavy water flow!

We eventually got down to Flåm which had two cruise ships in the fjord. It was busy.. We were met by our host at 29|2 Aurland and whisked away on a 10 minute journey to the hotel/farm in a much more mellow setting away from the chaos. We got a tour of the property and could see/hear several waterfalls.

We decided to move our legs after sitting on the trains and grabbed some bikes. After a short 1-2k bike ride we stopped at the hiking trail for the falls with the most water flowing right now. There were two horses guarding the trail after 100 meters. They allowed us to pass without any Monty Python puzzles such as the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. After a few hundred meters we were in the spray getting wet from the falls and walking on muddy ground as a result. It felt good because it is hot here today and they've had 3 good weeks of sunshine.

After the falls we continued about 1/2 mile to a viewpoint from above of the farm we are staying at as well as views of the other falls we can see from the farm. There are several others visible up on this hike as well. We could also see the town of Aurland which is about 3k from the farm. It sits on the fjord and we will be venturing there for some kayak time on the water.

We sat at a communal table for dinner with a couple from Australia and another from Northern New Jersey. We had lots of laughs including fútbol vs soccer while we ate trout tartare followed by a goat dish (the goats come from a neighboring farm) and a dessert (with sprinkles of chocolate for me but really a dessert for more traditional lovers of fruit dessert). After dinner we sat out by the wood fired hot tubs - it takes 8 hours to heat the local water daily for these - and watched the sunset for over 90 minutes looking toward Aurland and the fjord. From our chairs we could visibly see 8 waterfalls and definitely hear the one that we hiked at earlier in the day.