Simply Batty: Norway in a Nutshell

Hanging with the locals

While the Norwegian Tourist Board itself refers to the tour we made of the world's longest open fjord, the Sognefjord, a "Nutshell" tour, it seems unfair to cram the magnificence and splendor of Norway into something so small as a nutshell, or even think of it as such. As I found with Zion National Park, or the coast of Kaua'i, so it was with this brief glimpse of fjord country: there is no way to recapture the magnitude of beauty, the resonating depths of feeling one experiences in such an area of natural wonder, unless one experiences it for oneself. So, with that understanding, I won't attempt to describe the experience in many words. (And, actually, Suresh's cousin did a remarkable job herself of describing this tour here and here and here.) Even the photos below can't do the place justice.

On the other hand I would like to add that although Aditya and Rohan are very good travellers and enjoy most things, they seemed to enjoy the fjord tour the least. I think it was because much of the appreciation of the tour required the ability to sit for hours on trains or boats, and being boys of action, after the first couple of hours, had little patience for the act of simply sitting back and soaking in the natural beauty. I suspect they would much rather have hiked a Norwegian mountain, swum in the fjord, and gone boating in Bergen. Perhaps in a few years, they will be better able to be satisfied with just seeing and not be compelled to smear themselves in a new place in order to appreciate it. :)

Train from Oslo to Myrdal