No Nutshell Norway

March 28th 2023

Look, I had this all planned out.

Take another weekend trip to tie a bow on my time here, do the famous Norway in a Nutshell: Historic trains, ferry through the fjords, winding mountain roads, then a few nights in Bergen.

But then there's snow. Too much of it, and on the train tracks, apparently. Train's cancelled. I frantically shuffle trains around and eventually manage to find a train that gets me to Bergen before the day is over — without the historic, or the ferry, or the mountain roads, but I'll take what I can get.
So I'm on the evening train to Bergen. We've been waiting at a station in the middle of nowhere for a solid three hours now. The main building here is a bright yellow hut with a large sign reading "Geilo Taxi" and that's about it. It's getting very late, I'm feeling pretty far from everything and the book I'm reading sends my thoughts spiraling about what on earth I'm going to do with my life. So, yeah. One of those nights.
I eventually make it to Bergen at three in the morning and take a bus with the Saturday party crowd. From there I just have to find some keys in a shed in someone's garden and very quietly make my way into their home. The true AirBnB experience.
The world looks a lot brighter after a good night's sleep. At least metaphorically speaking — the weather is still pretty dark and rainy. I duck into museums wherever I can, but there's only so many museums to visit in a day — by the time I get home I'm thoroughly drenched.
One more night of sleep manages to fix the weather as well, and on the morning of my last day here it almost feels like spring.
I have Skillingsbolle for breakfast and lunch (separate occasions) and criss-cross the small city center again, revisiting all the things I just passed in the rain yesterday. The narrow wooden alleyways of Bryggen are very charming in the sunlight, and the harbour looks much nicer, too.
I even manage to be about the only person visiting Håkonshallen today — so I take a few minutes standing alone in the 13th century hall, taking in the beautiful tapestries and the viking banquet music they pipe in from the ceiling. It feels very grand, and like a good way to end this trip.