Category Archives: Travel Tips

Listening for the Siren on the Flam Railway

Nobody goes to the Sognefjord without riding the Flam Railway. It’s only 20 kilometers, but they’re all vertical kilometers. The average gradient is 1 to 18.

The math meant nothing to me until I got on the train and looked out the window.

The trick is to avoid crowds. Going off-season helps, but there are still cruise ships. In early June, we bought tickets only after asking the friendly agents for advice. They know exactly how many cruise passengers are getting off their boats and clamoring for seats at any given time.

Our reward was having plenty of room on the train to spread out and rush from side to side of the compartment to take in the ooh! and aah! views.

The 50-minute trip snakes through 20 tunnels, each one a feat of Norwegian engineering. But it’s pretty much impossible to get a good picture of a tunnel. The train is privately run now, but it’s not just a tourist train. When it was opened in 1941, it made tiny mountain settlements accessible and provided much-needed connections to main railway lines.

The ride passes countless waterfalls, but the highlight is the Kjosfossen. The train stops for a few minutes and passengers step out onto a platform for a photo op with 93 meters of watery spectacularness. OK, I made up that word, but it fits.

Who knows how many gallons of water roar past the platform, especially in spring when snow is still melting at higher altitudes? We took pictures.

Then, Twilight Zone music started blaring from loudspeakers and a lady in red emerged in the waterfall mist above us, dancing and beckoning. She must have had her own dancing platform, halfway up the waterfall. An amplified voice proclaimed a legend about a water sprite who tries to lure men to join her in the Kjosfossen–a Norwegian siren.

The sirens of Greek mythology were beautiful women who tried to lure sailors with enchanting music, crazing them into crashing their ships on rocks.

I hoped the siren’s platform was dry and she didn’t slip. And I wondered if the job paid well. It looked like fun. And she probably didn’t have to hear the blaring music above the roar of the falls.

At the top of the train ride, at Myrdal, some people got out to connect with the Bergen-Oslo train. My son realized that he could rent a bike and ride the switchback road back down the mountain to Flam. I handed him my gloves and hat and sent him on his way. Later, he reported that the bike ride was actually pretty gentle if he took it slow. He said it was the bike ride of a lifetime. If I went back when the roads were clear, I’d do it.

The scenery on the trip down was the same, with no stop at the Kjosfossen.

While we waited for our biker in Flam, we amused ourselves in various ways.

Flam has a lot of shops, cafes, and an excellent historic railway museum.

Is the Flam Railway really worth all the Norway in a Nutshell hype? Well, this part of the Nutshell only takes a couple of hours if done independently, and I would do it again. I’d like to see it in the deep snows of winter, and I’d like to do the bike ride down in good weather. But I would not like the train ride in lockstep with a big group, which is what you get if you book a Norway in a Nutshell tour. I can’t stand the feeling of being herded from one place to another. Still, I know the tour would be an efficient and exciting way to get out into fjord country.

Really, though, I was happier when we were wandering on our own around the Sognefjord. There’s stunning scenery and hundreds of waterfalls everywhere.

And I like to spend time with the locals, including the sheep.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

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Shakespeare’s original Globe Theatre burned to the ground on June 29, 1613. It was rebuilt in 1614 and operated until about 1642, when the Puritan movement in England closed theatres, and demolished in 1644. The American actor and producer Sam Wanamaker organized a group that worked tirelessly for decades to build a replica, based on drawings and best guesses. Construction had begun when Mr. Wanamaker died in 1993; performances began in 1997.

I finally made it to the Globe this month, and I’ll go again every chance I get. Lately I am rediscovering London, after avoiding the city for years because of the expense, the crowds, the pollution, and on and on. I’ve been tootling around the English and Welsh countryside instead, loving the small towns and villages and historic homes. But London is still glorious.

I saw a wonderful production of Shakespeare’s “A Misdummer Night’s Dream.” Of course, photos are not allowed during performance, and I would not want them to be. But I did snap some photos before the performance began. The “rude mechanicals” were Globe staff members in this production, and they regaled the audience with jokes and instructions before the show got underway.

My vantage point was from the uppermost gallery, with a roof and wooden benches–still cheap as theatre tickets go, but not as cheap as the “groundlings” places at 5 pounds apiece. It’s standing room down there, as it was in Shakespeare’s time, and there’s no shelter from the rain. It rains a lot in London. No umbrellas are allowed, but people wore raincoats and ponchos, and obviously had a good time. The rain was only on and off, and not many people left during intermission. It looked like a lot of fun down there. I would do it.

But I was glad enough to have a thatched roof over my head, a plain wooden bench and the cushion which I hired for a couple of pounds extra. After a day chasing around London and standing in museums, the old dogs were barking.

The setting on the Thames, a few hundred yards from the site of the original Globe, is part of the revitalised South Bank nightlife area. It’s lively and fun and feels perfectly safe, at least along the river walk. St. Paul’s Cathedral, which earlier that day held a Service of Thanksgiving for the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, looms majestically across the Thames.

Outside of London (tootling around in a rental car) we took in some other Shakespeare sights, including my favorite, Ann Hathaway’s Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon. Long live the Bard!

Affordable Europe: The Old Farmhouse, Windsor

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I chose The Old Farmhouse because it is close to Heathrow–a good place to unwind after a long flight or to depart without stress. I don’t like paying exorbitant airport hotel rates for rooms that are just OK at best. After three nights in this house, I’m hooked. I’ll go back any chance I get.

The Old Farmhouse is a destination in itself–peaceful flowery grounds, just three guest rooms, and a cooked-to-order breakfast that comes with a huge fresh fruit plate. No one actually lives in the house–the very professional staff arrive in the morning to bustle around making breakfast and cleaning, cheerfully answering questions and generally being friendly. They’re on call the rest of the day and night.

It’s actually a 14th and 15th century house, modernized over the centuries but keeping the historic charm that brings Anglophiles like me to England. It’s not rock-bottom cheap, but it’s about a third of the price of a comparable nice hotel in the town of Windsor–and way less than anything in London. I spend my trips to England using my National Trust pass to visit historic houses. It’s a real treat to stay in one.

My bedroom had ancient beams–complete with original wood pegs from the days when there were no nails.

The entry has a beautiful and very old fireplace, decked with flowers in spring.

There’s a pretty lounge downstairs with comfy sofas and a piano. Wifi is free and fast.

Is there anything I didn’t like? Well, I have to say that flights out of Heathrow begin at around 6:30 in the morning. But Heathrow planes fly over all of Windsor. And there are not that many flights. The Old Farmhouse must be on one of many flight paths.

When we left, it took about 25 minutes to drive to the rental car return at Heathrow–which I had saved as a location on my GPS, because finding it is confusing. Heathrow is huge, and the car rental is not only at Terminal 5, but way outside the terminal. I think a taxi ride to the Heathrow departure level for a specific terminal would be a lot faster. I understand there is also a bus.

The location makes for an easy daytrip into London. An inexpensive train ride from Windsor to Paddington Station takes about half an hour, including an easy change at Slough. Trains run every 10 minutes. We had a rental car to drive to the station, less than two miles away. But the location is so close to Heathrow and Windsor that it would also work with taxi rides, kept pretty inexpensive by following the advice of staff and calling a particular company.

Hampton Court Palace, where Henry VIII kept everybody shaking in their boots in the 1500s, is a 30-minute drive from Windsor. Henry’s Great Hall is intact, complete with some wood carvings of Anne Boleyn’s initials. Most of the marks of Anne’s time as Queen were removed along with her head, but even Henry VIII was not able to control every detail.

Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe and the British Isles!

Affordable Europe: La Ferme du Chateau

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Over the years I’ve grown more adventurous in places I find to stay. The internet has made it easier. When I first started traveling, I used to pore over guidebooks, trying to read between the lines of outdated reviews. Of course there were rarely pictures. Now, a huge selection of lodging is easily accessible to anyone with a computer or even a smartphone. And I haven’t yet even dipped into Airbnb.

A few years ago, I needed a place to stay in Versailles. You couldn’t drag me back to either of the two places I’d stayed before. One time, I scored a halfway-decent last-minute rate at the very grand Trianon Palace Hotel. My room, in a modern annex, was a lot like like an elevator shaft: tall and narrow, cramped, with a sliver of window looking out at the parking lot. True, there was a luxurious spa with a pool, and the breakfast buffet (included) was spectacular. But I was not sorry to leave. Another time I stayed at one of the better older hotels in town, and found it dated, cramped, noisy, and still pretty expensive. Plus the employees were surly, even for France.

Third visit was the charm: I reserved a couple of nights at a 16th-century farmhouse which had been in the same family for several generations. It was only a few minutes’ drive outside Versailles, in the little farming community of Garancieres.

I found myself in an enormous room under hand-hewn ancient beams.

There was only one other guest room. Service was personal and the room had everything I could want.

Breakfast was served in a charming farmhouse parlor. The lovely owners spoke very minimal English, but breakfast was delicious and efficiently served up.. A friendly dog and cat wandered past. Outside, the air smelled of fresh-mown hay.

I guess I could get used to 5-star hotels, as easily as the next person. But there are downsides: snooty fellow guests, snooty employees looking for tips, a lot of time spent waiting for waitstaff to get on with the business of feeding impatient tourists like me. When in Versailles, I want to beat the crowds into the palace. I guess folks willing to pay 5-star prices like to linger and enjoy the expensive ambiance.

I just looked up La Ferme du Chateau–it’s still in business, and I’d stay there again in a minute. In fact, maybe I will! Time to start dreaming of France.