Flam is a little village which has become world famous because of the railway. The permanent population is about 300, but it attracts thousands of tourists during the day, including cruise liners. We are booked into a great little hotel, right at the end of the village overlooking the fjord.
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| Our hotel. We had the best rooms, at the top on the far end, looking out at the view! |
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| Unfortunately when we arrived, our view looked like this! |
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| Parked outside was the P&O cruise liner Ventura, disgorging 3,700 passengers into Flam! |
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| Dinner in the Viking pub, with amber fluids. |
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| To our great relief, toward evening the Ventura slowly drew away and sailed off. |
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| Once Ventura was gone, we had a much nicer view! |
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| Next day we followed one of the many walks up onto the hillside above Flam. |
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| Rambling over the slopes. |
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| A typically fishy Norwegian lunch. Fish, eggs, potato salad, ... |
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| Looking back at Flam, with our hotel visible on the right. It is not a big place. |
Flam is a nice relaxing change from the big cities, at least it was once the cruise ship had left. It is completely transformed each day once the trains start arriving and hundreds of tourists flow into the town. When the cruise ships are there it is even busier. It must be great for the shops and restaurants to have all those people in town, but in the evening it is much more peaceful.
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| Kevin capturing a boatload of thrillseekers heading out of Flam. |
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| The big electric boat (centre), with our ferry to Bergen parked behind it. |
The "Future of the Fjords" is a a totally electric, carbon-fibre catamaran which does short cruises out of Flam (photo above). It has an 1800 kWh battery which allows it to cruise at 16 knots for up to 40 kilometers before it needs a recharge, and they can recharge it in 25 minutes! Must have a massive battery charger. This morning as we were walking past it the crew came out to tell everyone that there has been a technical malfunction, and they would all get their money back. So there were a lot of disappointed customers, who had come to Flam for the day but would not be getting their cruise. Later in the day it appeared to resume operation so we assume they fixed it.
