Thursday 13th September

We did the Hardanger in a Nutshell day trip today. The first leg of the journey was by train from Bergen to Voss, which is a very pretty place. Sadly I didn’t take my own photos so I’m borrowing one. Just before the train gets into Voss you see the lake:

and the rather impressive-looking Fleischer’s Hotel.

From Voss we transferred to a bus to Ulvik. This journey offered some incredible views:

One of my favourite panoramas:

Higher up the twisting road:

Finally we arrived at Ulvik, another pretty little place. Norwegians just don’t seem to do ugly. From here we transferred to boat to experience the (at the moment rather menacing) Hardangerfjord:

Scenes from the boat journey:

Approaching another narrow passage, you can just see a little village through the gap:

More scenery:

On the boat trips the viewpoint constantly changes. If the boat is travelling fast you have to grab every shot as soon as you see it, which isn’t always easy in a strong headwind! The following photos show the same place but the first is from closer and the second from further away:

We loved the boat trip, but it was rather windy on deck:

We arrived at Eidfjord, where we visited the Hardangervidda Nature Centre

Our ferret Lucy has relatives here:

Then onwards to the Fossli Hotel, Vøringfossen for a photo opportunity. My photos don’t do the scene justice. You have the waterfall running down from a high plateau which then meanders along a valley:

Perhaps a video will show it better:

Afterwards we were bussed back to Eidfjord where I took a couple of photos before we got back on the boat:

Then we were back on the boat to take in more beautiful scenes:

You can probably guess from the photos that at this point it started to rain quite a lot, so I left the deck and went to sit in the warm, dry indoor compartment.