Frankies Travels Day 5: Flam

Our trip from Geiranger to Flam was on very choppy seas. We were very noticeably rocked to sleep and I havent slept so well in a long time.

Flam is named after the Flam river, not the afrikaans name for custard. There isnt much like custard here but plenty of river...  And more rain.

We were not able to book ourselves on the Flam Railway, because the cruise line booked it all out and $240pp is unfathombly expensive for a Kr.800 trip. And so, despite our stingy mood, passed one of our most enjoyable days so far.

We elected to a slow quiet morning and slept in a bit. We disembarked at 10 and wandered about town for a while and finally elected to take the hike up to the waterfall. We had a very nice walk through town and found the gate to the Brekkenfossen.  The hike route wasnt long (we guessed probably a coupla hundred metres) but the route was straight up the mountain. Just about directly gate to mountain top.

Fortunately the view at the waterfall was amazing making the stiff walk worthwhile. We were pleasantly cooled down by the light (but constant) drizzle and the spray from the falls.

Once we decended once more (made treacherous by the mud and steep slope) we attempted to continue the walk on to the Flam church. Up the road to go to the church we jad to cross a bridge. Alas the bridge to cross the river Flam was washed away and the road we were on waa actually the drive way of a farmwrs house... Which means it lead to a nosy persons deadend. So we turned back and walked all the way back to town in the drizzle.

Continuing in our money saving plot, we returned to the ship for lunch and a change of our wet clothes for dry. After lunch we returned to shore to visit thw Brewery. We arrived ahead of the rush and MrT sampled a dark Raller and a pale Witbier. While we were there we saw again a couple from Philadephia that we had shared a breakfast table with earlier in the week and we sat and chatted with them for a while. This is their 20th cruise. After they left, I offered to swap our big table for a small two person table with a group that was attempting to move all the furniture around. Instead they elected to share our table and we spent the next hour chatting to them - two Australian couples on a long northern European trip. (one pair grandparents and the other celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary).

We decided to go do some souvenir shopping and browsed copious racks of winter jackets and soft shells and knitted goods and tacky porcelain trolls.

I found a beautiful fine wool scarf and MrT found some gifts for his family.

Now we are sitting in the Mojito lounge on the ship waiting to watch the ship sail out of the port onwards to Bergen which we will explore tomorrow. Our final day on land in Norway.