Traveling the Aurlandsfjord

We woke up early Friday morning, on our way to Flam inside this fjord. I opened the drapes over the door to our veranda to the sight of a vertical wall of rock that reached higher than I could see from inside. I wasn't awake enough yet to think of getting out my camera and taking a picture, but if I had it probably would have just looked like a closeup of a much smaller but relatively flat piece of rock - there was no way to provide any contrast to show its scale. Spectacular!

We were slowing down for our arrival in Flam, a pretty charming village (I believe around 400 residents) that is about 8 hours inland. It is a very well known scenic spot, with sprawling green valleys surrounded by towering peaks.

Heading into port:

And a few from in the port:

Flam itself is in a landscape that is so amazingly steep that the only way up is by a narrow road that is full of switchback turns. There are farms perched on practically vertical hills, carved out of this dramatic terrain. Until more recent times, with the introduction of tunnels under the mountains, the area could be isolated from the rest of the world for up to eights months each year by roads that became inaccessible.

Heading up the mountain:

We actually had a kind of adventure on our excursion in Flam. We headed up to an overlook with a sign that said Aurlandfjellet. Spectacular views, I will post some pictures below. We were supposed to be there about 20 minutes or so, but 10 minutes into it we heard that another bus trying to ascend had gotten stuck. The driver was trying to make one of the hairpin turns and caught the undercarriage of the bus on the ground. The entire road was therefore blocked. No one could go up and no one could go down. It took a couple of hours at least for a tow truck (or something) to get up there and get him unstuck. Instead of 20 minutes for us at the overlook area it turned out to be well over two hours, meaning that we weren't able to make our second planned stop in the town. But it was still all good. Amazing scenery, amazing weather, people to talk to and get to know.

And heading down:

Arriving back (finally!) at the ship, we had dinner - of course - and then went to experience some of the entertainment on board. And, as it happened, were in the front of the ship just in time to catch an amazing sunset. Then on to more music to round out the day. The ship headed out of Flam a little after the 'back on board' time of 5:00pm, and on we started to Stavanger.