Fläm is a small village and the last station in the railway (the Flämsbana) that links the main line Oslo – Bergen from Myrdal to Sognefjorde. From Oslo a very comfortable and modern train climbs to almost 2000 meters and crosses the fields still covered in snow as you can see in the first lot of photos.
In Myrdal, 5 and a half hours later, we leave the train and board the Flämsbana which took us onto an amasing train journey through tunnels and valleys. We dropped from 1700 meters to sea level in 20 km and apparently it is the steepest train ride without special gearing to avoid the train from slipping in steep descends.
We stayed overnight In Fläm and walked all the way to the Rjukanfossen water falls. You can see how far it was by the length of the name…. Fläm is situated at the end of Sognefjorde, one of the longest fjords in Norway. The average depth of the fjord is 800 m and the deepest 1,300 meters, according to the captain of the ferry that took us to Bergen.
Rjukanfossen (fossen means waterfall) is a waterfall of 104 metres in the west of the industrial town Rjukan.
The waterfall is a part of the Måne River a major tourist attraction, being one of the first floodlighted waterfalls by electricity produced by the same waterfall. In 1905 Rjukan Falls was built out to produce hydro electrical power for the saltpetre (Potassium nitrate used to make gunpowder) production when Norsk Hydro was established.
