The train journey to Bergen is promoted as one of the most scenic in Europe, it is also very dramatic, climbing to over 1300m and crossing the highest mountain plateau in Europe. It didn’t disappoint.

The journey took about eight hours but the time passed very quickly, there was so much to see. We started off climbing gently through woodland and pasture and stopping at small towns along the way. We saw huge lakes and for a while we followed the course of a fast flowing salmon river. After a couple of hours we started to climb more quickly, the forrest gave way as we cleared the tree line and looked out over scrubland and tundra. There were lots of small lakes along the route with isolated cabins alongside them, we guessed they were summer cabins, lots of them had private boat piers and more than a few had saunas on the beach as well.

Eventually even the scrub gave way to a stone plateau with streams and ponds, at the edge of the plateau hills rose up with snow capped peaks and a number of glaciers. It was memorising.

Throughout the journey we had the use of a complimentary drinks machine serving tea, coffee and hot chocolate. There was a cafe onboard as well but it was 6 carriages further along the train. Terry and Jenny struck out to investigate but reported back the cafe wasn’t worth the effort so we made do with unlimited hot drinks.

We arrived in Bergen at about 7.30pm having completed a fairly steep drop from the height of the plateau to the waters edge in the fjord harbour.