Day five, and I stayed one night in the tiny Fjord town of Flam (pronounced 'Flom' as it's got dots above the 'a'), having taken the train from Bergen to Voss, the bus from Voss to Gudvangen - down the steepest road in Norway apparently, and then two hours on the boat in the fjord to get round to Flam. Not such good weather as the Hardangerfjord yesterday, but in a bigger boat which went along at a more leisurely pace.
On the boat I met the first Norwegian so far who didn't speak much English. Every other person I've approached, I've asked if they speak English, and they've said 'Yes - of course' and looked at me as if I was mad. This guy pointed something out to me in a village that we were passing, explaining it in Norwegian, but then could only say the odd word when translating it into English. He probably spoke as much English as I speak French.
Going along - as in the Hardangerfjord, there were waterfalls with huge vertical drops pretty much every time you looked to the left or right, as well as occasional evidence of huge landslides and rockslides.
Another superlative for Norway - Europe's most northerly pears, cherries and plums are grown in the fjords, warmed by the gulfstream.
As we approached Flam itself, there were a few dolphins popping up near the boat, and we passed a tiny village which had a stave church built specially to house a maximum congregation of fifteen to twenty people (which is what the Norweigan man was pointing out).
The town of Flam itself is just over the nearest hill, by the water.
Flam's a small place, but as expected quite touristy as it's the halfway point of the very popular 'Norway in a Nutshell' tour. I stayed in a decent hostel, which was made up of lots of small cabins. Even managed to get some laundry done.
The next day involved taking the 1 hour train ride from Flam at sea level up to Myrdal at 865 metres. The train line was completed in 1940, and is quite a feat of engineering - tunnels, cliffs and lots more waterfalls to contend with.
Having got up to Mrydal we were on the main Bergen <-> Oslo line, and I had a further five hours to go to get to Oslo. The train didn't seem very fast, but it was quite impressive in its organisation - one carriage with separated compartments for families with babies; one for families with small children, half of the whole train carriage was a wooden play area complete with slides, climbing frames and climb-in houses; several boring standard carriages for me and almost everyone else.
Along the way we must have passed about a trillion tall trees along with lots of bluewater lakes. When the train stopped at the town of Ai, I was tempted to get off, but I forgot to bring my Ali G hat, glasses and beard!