It’s been a lovely visit to Bergen. This morning, we are catching the 8 am train to Oslo. Met our tour group and headed over to the train station which was a very short distance. We boarded the train and found our seat. As we were waiting to go, we saw an advertisement for Smart Waste. From what our guide explained, Bergen has a groundbreaking approach to urban waste management. You take your food waste, plastic, paper, general waste to a designated area, drop the garbage in a color coded bin and an underground vacuum waste collection system pulls all the garbage and recycles to a central processing center. No stinky garbage cans sitting around.

As we left Bergen, we started climbing in elevation. Glued to the window watching the view of green countryside and quickly turned into tall mountains with waterfall. They told us the ride would be approximately 7 hours to Oslo and if you see something you want to snap a picture, do it quick. There are 180 train tunnels from Bergen to Oslo. No, we didn’t count them, BUT I did have several pictures of a tunnel entrance.

We recognized one of our stops because we were just there last week. Voss. We saw the hotel that the nazi’s occupied because the train station is right there. Voss is northeast of Bergen. Now we’re heading higher into the mountains were you see avalanche sheds and big steel fences to protect communities from landslides.

The natural beauty of this country is endless. The steams flowing by were a magnificent blue in color. Most were snow melt and not from a glacier. You can tell if the water is clean and clear, it’s normally snow melt. If it’s milky in color (can be milky turquoise), it’s called glacier flour or rock flour. A fine, flour-like sediment created when glaciers grind against bedrock.

We traveled up a valley where little houses dotted the landscape. Sheep were grazing in green meadows with waterfall coming down the mountains behind them. As we got higher, there was snow on the ground and a fog in the air. The highest stop on this trip was Finse (just under 5,000 ft). The hotel is where the cast from Star Wars stayed (Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back). Specifically, the outdoor scenes for the ice planet Hoth were filmed in Finse, including the area around Hardangerjokulen glacier.

Enjoyed the scenery at the high elevation. We’re above the tree-line, just low shrubs. Several alpine flowers blooming this time of year.

We left the alpine area and started coming down the mountains to farming communities. The farms in Norway are good-looking and seem to be very well kept. We saw many as we drew closer to Oslo.

We saw ski jumps coming up. Holmenkollbakken is a large ski jumping hill in Oslo. It has hosted many Nordic World Ski Championships and also hosted the 1952 Winter Olympics. Do you believe, it was opened in 1892. The hill has been rebuilt 19 times with important upgrades. Between 2008 and 2010, the entire structure was demolished and rebuilt. It remains a prominent venue for major ski jumping.

We have arrived in Oslo. It’s a sunny day with blue sky and temps in the mid 70’s. We arrived at the train station and walked across the street to our hotel (Clarion Hotel Oslo). What a great location. Checked into our room and decided to go to an early dinner since we did not have lunch. Our hotel had a restaurant on the top floor with a spectacular view of downtown Oslo. We had a delicious dinner and really enjoyed watching the motion of people, trains and trolley’s and we watched from our dinner table. As we looked out the window, we started planning where to walk this evening.

We headed right towards the Opera House. A huge building covered by Carrara marble from Italy. The building appears to rise out of the water, as if it were an iceberg. The structure contains 1,100 rooms in a total area of 530,000 sq ft. The main auditorium seats 1,364. It’s the largest cultural building constructed in Norway since Nidarosdomen was completed in 1300.

We walked up this enormous marble ramp to the top of the Opera House where you could stand on top of the building and admire the rest of the harbor area. As we were walking down, you could notice all these angled edges that would direct water to different areas if it were raining. The marble also had a rough surface so it was not slippery.

We continued to walk and saw fountains and gardens. Stopped to visit with a group of Norwegian’s that had a tent that said Jesus on top. Enjoyed talking with them and they thanked us for encouraging them.

We walked some of the downtown and then back to our hotel. Interesting elevator system in this hotel. You walk up to a kiosk with your keycard. Swipe your card for id and then put what floor. It tells you which elevator to enter (there were elevators numbers 1-5). When you enter the elevator, there are no numbers to push because it already knows where you are going. I’m sure it’s good for security and love the technology. Creative.