Kirukkalkal

Next day morning, the breakfast was quite good though. We drove to Fleischer’s hotel, returned the car and walked to platform in time to catch the train to Oslo. The train journey was about 5.5 hrs and the initial portion of the journey was through the snow-covered mountains and it was quite spectacular to see the terrain through with the train was going. It felt like taking a train to the NorthPole! The whiteness and the wilderness were a bit scary sometimes, but quite dramatic. The Oslo station was one heck of a busy location. The Forenom Aparthotel was quite modern with just enough amenities for a reasonable price, way better than the Voss Hostel! The location of the hostel was not that far from the train station and the city center.  After checking in, we walked around and took a bus to the Viking Museum. It was a modest museum with mainly 4 actual Viking ships that were excavated and preserved for the viewers. Since we arrived with le

After the breakfast at Nes Gard, we continued on Hwy 55 further down until it ended at Hwy 5. We took the Hwy 5 towards Flam and continued on E16 towards Borgund Stave Church, another Stave Church that is much bigger than the one we visited in Lom. Unlike Lom, Borgund Stave Church is not in use for church functions. It is preserved as a museum. The entrance fee included a guided tour. The visitor center for the church also had lots of details about the origins and the architecture of the Stave Churches.    From there, we continued to Flam and were in right time to catch the cruise to Gudvangen. This is where we could see a commercial shopping center with huge stores catering to the large number of tourists there!  The cruise to Gudvangen was on a ferry that is completely battery operated. During the 2-hr cruise it was quite cloudy/rainy and in spite of that, the mountain views were amazing with several waterfalls on the way and the small villages

Started off with a scrumptious breakfast at the Hjelle Hotel. Our plan is to continue on the Hwy 15 towards Lom and proceed to Hoyheimsvik for our stay at the Nes Gard .    The drive on Hwy 15 from Hjelle to Lom was something that we were skeptical about because a stretch of the road goes through a high altitudes and authorities wouldn’t open the road until late spring or in summer as the snow can be too treacherous for the drivers. We lucked out and the roads were open just a few days before.  This stretch of the road was a bit scary as it appeared like tundra with almost no one in sight traveling on those roads for miles at a time, but the serene beauty of the landscape cannot be explained properly. There were not many high peaks as we seemed to have come to such an altitude that all one could see was the snow and ice, but the weather was a sunny that made it a bit more comfortable. Slowly the climb down those peaks showed signs of vegetation and greenery. By t