FAO Kruzseeka

Thanks again for the advice on Norway.

My co-pilot/navigator (wife's cousin's husband) and I have just started to plan in detail and looked at the Thomsons excursions online.

The whole day FLAM railway trip is £128 each :eek: - is British Rail running it ?

There is a half day variant at £98 per head.

Any experience of one, compared to the other ?

I suppose if we are willing to pay the £98, we might as well go the extra £30 for the full monty.

Beans and toast for weeks afterwards to recuperate financially !!!

Thanks again for the advice on Norway.

 

My co-pilot/navigator (wife's cousin's husband) and I have just started to plan in detail and looked at the Thomsons excursions online.

 

The whole day FLAM railway trip is £128 each :eek: - is British Rail running it ?

 

There is a half day variant at £98 per head.

 

Any experience of one, compared to the other ?

 

I suppose if we are willing to pay the £98, we might as well go the extra £30 for the full monty.

 

Beans and toast for weeks afterwards to recuperate financially !!!

Hi WCM - glad the other info was useful but I'm not sure quite how helpful I can be on this one.

First of all although we've done the Flam railway journey - there and back on a DiY jaunt - we haven't actually done the Thomson trip.

I would say it's one of those things we felt we had to do - you get to a place and you think you just have to do the 'must see' sights from there like going to Petra or Ephesus. And there is no doubt it is stunning with absolutely breath-taking scenery. We have been lucky to have been there in decent weather although I suppose there is the risk of mist which would seriously affect the views.

To try to help you I have read up Thomson's description of the two excursions to see if there are any points worth considering and also found amongst my holiday info collections a local Flam walking map we must have picked up on one visit.

From this map I can see that the £96 trip takes you almost the whole of the railway trip up from Flam just stopping short of Myrdal so you don't miss out on anything much in terms of the journey up the valley. It would also include the stop at the waterfall where the Siren (?) sings to you and you can take some photos. You get off there then walk a reasonable distance down the valley and pick the train up again three stops closer to Flam. From my map it looks as though you might have walked about one third of the way before rejoining the train and travelling the rest of the line back to Flam so retracing your route from there. Just shown it to DH and he says he'd love to do that! Think you'd have to be reasonable walkers though.

The other trip takes you all the way up to Myrdal (nothing there other than the station - it reminded me of a wild west location but wet and boggy with snow patches!). Anyway it's only for a connection for the train to Voss (not been there but assume it has some Nordic charm and scenery) then to Stalheim. Last time we went we did the Thomson tour to Stalheim and the Naeroy Valley then via the tunnel back to Flam (coach all the way). That was a half day trip and would seem to be the second half of the 'big one' you are considering.

I must say it was very scenic and we thoroughly enjoyed it stopping at the Stalheim Hotel for coffee and cake. Here is the website - the views it scrolls through on the home page will give you an idea of the magnificant views. We sat looking down the valley having coffee. Magical! Then we travelled down it!

http://english.stalheim.dnn.gasta.no/

I suppose if you look at the cost of the full day trip and added on what we paid to do the Naeroy Valley as well and throw in your lunch (at inflated Norwegian prices!) it's not bad value.

The only other option is to adopt a Diy for the train but that's just up and back and I probably described to you the potential for disappointment if there are a number of ships in and a lot of pressure with pre-bookings.

Wouldn't like to advise really but hope my thoughts may help you to decide.

When do you go WCM? Spirit is in Bergen with us on 11th - will have to discipline myself and not allow the conditioned response to walk up a Thomson gangway! :rolleyes::eek:

Thanks for that.

According to my calculations Spirit arrives Bergen on Thursday 10th July, at sea the next day, back Newcastle Saturday 12th.

Thanks for that.

 

According to my calculations Spirit arrives Bergen on Thursday 10th July, at sea the next day, back Newcastle Saturday 12th.

It's June we're there WCM. Pity - would have been good to say 'Hello'. ;):)

And we are there August, would have been nice to meet up :)

WCM, we have booked the double train journey for our cruise, much the same price as yours.

We really wanted to do it and paid it a couple of months ago so the price is already forgotten and we look forward to the pleasure ;)

WCM if you can get 10 people on the roll call to share with you, you can book online and it will cost you under £40!

Unfortunately our Flam railway excursion was cancelled last year due to the fire in the tunnel but our friends had done it the year before and thoroughly recommended it. We were told that the train journey itself was wonderful and the coach trip back along the hair pin bends was definitely worth doing. Yes it is expensive but it was the first excursion we booked last year and it was a shame we didn't get to try it for ourselves.