This is the last port of this cruise, and to be honest, it feels like we haven't seen that many places this time. Not that I'm complaining. Our cruises of a lot longer than 15 days, so this one has been relatively short. Overnight stops in Bergen and Alta were unusual, and spending two days in Alta was brilliant. But now we are at Flam.
Flam is a World Heritage site, and understandably so. The scenery is magnificently dramatic. Stood on the deck of the ship, we were surrounded by towering snow topped mountains, all lined with numerous waterfalls spilling down near vertical sides. Mist and wispy clouds rose near the tops, adding to the grey sky and giving everything an almost mystical air. The valley floor leading up from the fjord is scattered with brightly coloured wooden houses which look tiny against their surroundings, and if it wasn't for the lack of sun, it looked exactly like the pictures in the brochures.
We've been before. The main attraction here is the Flam railway. One day we should book ourselves on to it, it's not that expensive. I looked it up, it's about £46 per head, and involves a 1 hour journey each way to the Myrdal mountain station. But not today. Today we decided to walk up to the Brekkefossen Waterfall again.
We've done it before, and sort of remembered that we could walk on up past it. We are a little bit limited with regards to time, because Peter and I have been summoned to attend a tea party event in honour of one of a loyal passenger's 89th birthday. Peter had painted his gift (commissioned by Saga) and had to be in attendance during the presentation.
I really should get fitter again. My excuse is that I didn't walk much last year, Plantar fasciatis, and I'm sticking to it.
Still, we got to the top, took loads of photographs
After lunch we started to go further up. But the path was really quite scrambly and slippy. And we remembered that we had tried this before on our last visit and decided then that there was no benefit, so we turned and made our back to the waterfall, where ate lunch and talked to a couple of Norwegians with a three legged dog and a motorhome.
Out the bottom, we took a slightly different route back to the ship. A loud noise, like an incoming jet filled the valley, we looked up, trying to see an aeroplane, until Peter spotted the source of the sound. One of the many frozen waterfalls was having a mini avalanche. Really cool to see.
We were back well in time to change and make ourselves presentable for the birthday event. Then we had to change again to go back out on deck for the sail away. Flam is the longest fjord in the world, and takes a long time to sail out of. The captain announced that deck 7 forward would be opened to allow passengers to an excellent view as we cruised along the fjord. We were curious, so we had to go and find out where it was. The scenery was everything we expected it to be. Amazing.
We have a couple more days left on board now until we get back to Portsmouth. Barring anything out of the ordinary, that's it for this cruise. Next blog post should be for our next cruise in July; "An Arctic Summer" on the Spirit of Adventure. We'll be coming back to Norway, and then on to Iceland. Cooooool!
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