A Bike Ride in Flam

This is Flam

And here we are in the middle of it

Um, I am guessing the Reindeer shed their skins every year? I know enough now that there are no reindeer in Fjordland.

The pink daises threw me a bit..

I read on someone’s blog that it was the Queen of Norway’s birthday recently.
I was sitting at table full of people and brought it up. “I hear it’s the Queen’s birthday today!” I said. “No, wasn’t that yesterday?” They asked. “No, I read it was July 4.” “But, it’s July 3rd, we celebrated it yesterday,” they replied. This went on for awhile. “But I thought she was turning 70, or 80 or something…Wait, who are you talking about??”
“Sascha, the concierge.. who were YOU talking about?” Um, the Queen of Norway.. Well, happy birthday, to both Queens.

The big tour here is a train ride up and down the mountain. Which I was excited to do, with my bike as we did before, and ride down. If I had a great day somewhere, I am always tempted to go back and do exactly the same thing. Is that wise? Can you ever re-create the same amazing day? Or should you just start a new day. Well, Roque decided that for me, when he accompanied me on bicycle and saw the ticket price for the train.

NOK 190 = around $35, one way plus a bike fee, probably.

I wonder what would have happened if I had known the exchange rate when I got on the bus the other day. But I had already done the train ride, and although I would have loved to get some new pictures of the Red Lady, it was time for a new adventure in Flam.

Luckily for me, the Red Lady wasn’t even spotted this year.

Here are some photos of her from 2 years earlier. Her apparition at the waterfall where the train stops was one of the most wonderful things I had ever seen. There must have been two people dressed in red, because she seemed to flit around the waterfall like the spirit she was supposed to be. (The waterfall has a legend of a red lady spirit – I am not sure of the details)
Accompanied by music, the scene is surreal.

Me and Roque got on our bikes and rode up the mountain.

The scenery was idyllic.

This little village had every flag at half mast. There was a funeral going on. When we returned the funeral was over, and the flags back to normal.

There were so many gushing waterfalls

We biked up and up, and then started to climb.
We climbed the most beautiful alpine meadow, sat in the grass and soaked up the sunshine and the tranquility.

The meadow was covered in little wild strawberries. It couldn’t have been more idyllic.

When we returned I put $20 US into this exchange machine, in hopes of ice cream money.

This is what I got in return. 4 big coins and 2 small coins. I couldn’t believe it.

All to support my new Norwegian ice cream habit. I was choked. I put the coins in a very safe place and went straight to the ship, muttering something about not spending any money here, better be pure gold, blah blah blah.

I took a nap, and set the alarm just in case I felt like an ice cream before we sailed away.

It was rough waking up, but I was determined. I thought: Astrid, (another blogger and Norwegian expat) is all the way in the south of France and would kill for a real Norwegian ice cream. I’d better wake up, and go outside and eat one.

This cost one and a half of my big coins. I reckon I can squeeze 2 more future ice creams out of my coins.

The sail away, and the rest of the evening through the heart of Fjordland was beautiful.
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