Marlow's Trip Report for Friday

Friday, May 1, 2009, 9:00 a.m. We have been on a boat for an hour proceeding north and slightly west from Bergen. I think the boat may be a catamaran. When it picks up speed the front end lifts considerably. There are about 80 passengers. We are on the upper of two levels. It has an outdoor deck. We are heading to. visit the longest fjord in the world. The trip there is taking us through wide channels and narrow passageways where we go very slowly.

Last night, we had dinner at To Kokers (Two Cooks). It is on the second floor of one of the antique, wooden, pitched-roof UNESCO buildings. The clientele is locals not tourists. The ambience is rustic and warm. The walls are rough-hewn timbers painted pastel colors. The old floorboards are worn and slightly uneven. Dinner was excellent: jerusalem artichoke soup, herb-coated sauteed angler fish medallions with dollops of various side dishes (pureed this, roasted that) and blackberries with vanilla ice cream again with dollops of this and that (chocolate dipped gooseberry, blackberry mousse, fresh pineapple wedge).

10:00 a.m. After two hours of boating to the north we are turning east to go into the Sognefjorden for the next two hours. The scenery has gotten more dramatic the farther north we have gone and there is increasingly more snow on the increasingly taller mountains. At times, it looks like we are cruising through the Canadian Rockies.

10:45 a.m. We were just now out on the deck toward the front of the boat. The on-coming wind is so strong you can lean forward into it at a 45-degree angle without falling down. The scenery continues to get more dramatic: steeper cliffs, taller waterfalls, icier snow caps. And tiny picturesque communities. They sit on relatively small patches of green, cleared of trees, the trees probably used to construct the buildings. Eight, nine or ten structures. A spired church. A cemetery. Small scale. Painted Dijon mustard, butter yellow, ochre, brick red, cinnabar. Whoever the occupants are of these remote clusters, they have excellent asthetics. Their camera-ready villages are like something from a fairy-tale.

Noon. After four hours, we are turning south to enter the final hour of travel. In this narrow channel is the most spectacular scenery: green, moss-covered cliffs, multiple cascading waterfalls, silhouettes of fog shrouded mountain peaks receding into distant valleys, seals sunning on the narrow shore and wind so strong it could almost blow you off the deck, but when the boat stopped, as it did a few times, and we stood in the sun it was a perfect climate: warm, sunshine and blue skies, gently breezy. Our next destination is Flåm. There, we will wait for 90 minutes.

2:30 p.m. We are now in Flåm. Sitting in our first of two trains today. Waiting to begin the uphill journey to Myrdhal. We will zig-zag up the mountain and climb about 900 meters (2700 feet).

4:00 p.m. Okay, we have arrived in Myrdhal. In appearance it seems like we are at 14,000 feet elevation. It is craggy stone peaks, heavy laden with snow, the sun reflecting so brightly you cannot open your eyes. But the altitude is only 3000 feet.

We are now sitting aboard our train back to Bergen. It will take two hours. The scenery remains blindingly bright.

Today for lunch we ate things we snitched from the hotel breakfast table this morning: swiss cheese on seeded multi-grain bread, green grapes and Walker's shortbread biscuits from Scotland.

5:00 p.m. Tonight after we arrive in Bergen we will have dinner with Sam and Kathy. This afternoon, they returned from a two-week-ish cruise in the Arctic circle. We can't wait to hear their stories. It is because they are ending their cruise here that we decided to begin our trip in Bergen.
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