"Lost" isn’t a word in my vocabulary. "Not sure where I am," is an occasional phrase, but most of the time, I prefer, "on a new adventure." But now and again, no other word but "lost," will fit, and while traveling through Norway last summer, Ann and I discovered that "really lost" could be appropriate.
We had spent five days in Stavanger, on the southwest coast of Norway, visiting family, and then a lovely weekend in Bergen after a four-hour ferry ride along the rocky, fjord-indented western coast. Our plan was a weekend in Bergen, a full-day train ride across the spine of Norway to Oslo, a night there and another train to Stockholm. I had taken the ride in the opposite direction with my daughter many years earlier, shortly after she had moved to Norway, where she still lives, and it’s gorgeous, across snow-capped mountains (even in July) and alongside glaciers, beside lakes and through forests, under some of the clearest, most radiant blue sky you’ll ever see.
A two-hour train ride east of Bergen, a picturesque side trip shows off mountains and fjords via a bus, a boat and another train to the town of Myrdal, where we would meet our train for Oslo. It’s possible to do that section all by itself; it’s called Norway In A Nutshell, and in terms of seeing some of the country’s most exciting scenery, it’s a very special day. That was our plan.
Bergen, once the capital of the Hanseatic League, was one of the more powerful cities in Europe between the 13th and 17th centuries. The league, a loose confederation of traders, merchants and ship owners, was a powerful political and economic force across northern Europe, controlling trade routes and trade rules at a time when the area was more a group of city-states than it was nations.
The oceanside city, touched by the far end of the Gulf stream and because of that an all-weather port, was built of wood. Fires brought rebuilding, and the city’s history is built upon itself, the remains of the Hanseatic League offices serving as the foundations for newer buildings, hotels, restaurants and the ever-present harborside saloons. An old funicular railway takes tourists from the docks to the top of a nearby mountain for hikes, views, meals and the chance to sit in the sun, a summer recreation highly enjoyed by Norwegians, Swedes and other Scandinavians.
Seafood restaurants are everywhere, and in these days of a diverse modern world, we found excellent Indian food, too.
Anyway, on the morning we left, we were wise enough to ship our baggage ahead; for a relatively small fee, someone picked it up at our hotel and sent it across Norway, to our hotel in Oslo. So we were light-hearted and empty-handed when we boarded the train. Two notebooks, a camera and a few sandwiches were easy.
Voss was our destination, where we would board a bus for Gudvangen, a steep trip downhill through a maze of switchbacks. We would meet a boat there for a ride through the Naeroyfjord arm of the great Sognefjord, one of the longest and deepest fjords in the world. We would debark at Flam, whose altitude of two meters (about 6 1/2 feet) is practically sea level. Our train would then climb to 866 meters to Myrdal at a 1-to-18 grade, the steepest regular gauge railroad line in Europe.
That was the way it was supposed to be, the way I did it once a long time ago.
And then. . . .
We got off the train at Voss to look at a large group of comfortable tourist buses. Drivers stood at the welcoming open doors.
"Norway in a nutshell?" we asked as we held out our tickets.
"Yes, sir," he responded.
We boarded. We sat. A few minutes later, with the bus only partly full, we became the first to depart. A few minutes after that, we realized that of the several dozen buses that had been gathering passengers, none was following us. But it was such a nice day. and the bus was smooth, the sky was blue, the forests green. Cows and goats were in the fields we drove past, steadily heading downward, the way the book said we were supposed to go. After nearly an hour, we pulled up at a dock. A small tour boat, its brass polished to a high shine, was waiting, its engine rumbling softly.
A couple of sailors were at the gangplank, waving us aboard. We boarded, accepted coffee from a smiling young woman who appeared to be a combination of purser, tour guide and server. She told us we were about to depart, sailing along a fjord, and would arrive somewhere in about an hour.
When she came around to take tickets, and a funny (funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha) look crossed on her face when she saw ours. We spoke up and mentioned our apprehension that we might be on the wrong boat, going somewhere along a Norwegian fjord, perhaps to a version of Dante’s Underworld, perhaps. . .
"We’re going to Eidfjord," she said in English. "I think I’d better get the captain."
The captain came downstairs, looking serious. "I don’t know how it happened," he said, "but you’re on the wrong boat."
His comment confirmed something we had been thinking.
He went on, "We’ll be at Eidfjord in a while. Let me see if there’s anything we can do."
After a very long fifteen minutes, he reappeared. "We’ve figured it out.You get off there, and someone will show you how to get into town. It’s only a block or two from the dock. A bus will come through about two o’clock. Take it to Yay-lo. (That, we discovered, was the Norwegian pronunciation of Geilo.) At 6 o’clock, the train you originally were on will stop in Geilo and take you to Oslo. You can have lunch in Eidfjord. It’s a nice day to walk around; both towns are nice. You’ll be fine. Have a good day." He smiled, stood up, smiled again and went back to the bridge.
We grinned, sighed with relief, looked out at the beautiful fjord.
"You know," I said, "we’ll miss that mountain climb to Myrdal, but we’ll be on a highway that is parallel to the rail line. Might be fun. And since we had reserved seats on the train, I guess we can keep using them from Geilo to Oslo. Probably nobody missed us."
And it happened just that way, though we still have no idea where the mis-step occurred.
Eidfjord was dozing in a midday sun. We got a couple of sandwiches (we had eaten ours), ice cream and drinks at a café where the major highways intersect. The bus stop was about 50 yards away. We sat outside the café, read for a while, walked around the intersection, learned there were many campgrounds and hiking trails in the neighborhood.
There were gorgeous blue lakes, chilly glaciers and ice fields (we were above the timberline for a while), craggy mountains, much snow, farms, hilly roads, first climbing, then descending. Mostly, the day was sunny and warm and comfortable. Lots of what the Norwegians call huts, which they use for vacation homes, winter and summer.
The bus stopped at the train station in Geilo. A few minutes later, the station master (a woman) showed up. As soon as we spoke, she recognized us as Americans and told us she had just returned from a vacation in Miami. When we told her of our adventures, she apologized profusely, assured us the train would take us to Oslo, and that our reserved seats still would be ours, though we might have to eject some usurpers.
She said we were at the wrong time of the year to visit Gjeilo, a major ski center, training camp for the Norwegian ski team, site of Olympic trials and a very busy place in the winter, though nice and sleepy now. When we asked about a snack, she recommended the nearby Dr. Holms Hotel and pointed us in the correct direction, apologizing again for the problems we had faced.
The hotel, large and luxurious, served excellent draft beer, sandwiches that had the style and flavor of anything that a top-flight kitchen might produce and a general aura of luxury and comfort.
Our train was almost an hour late, but we didn’t care. A day of adventure, of really never being lost (misplaced, perhaps) and a splendid trip across the top of Norway.
And more adventures to come. . . .