So not all of our travels are glamorous.  Here’s the rest of the story.  : )

We arrived on the stunning Flamsbana railway – with all our luggage and wine in hand. We had rented a little red cottage that was supposed to be 5 minutes from the station and right on the water.   We were super excited.

All of the other train passengers were part of different tours or cruises. They had buses or guides with placards waiting to meet them and whisk them away (with no luggage in sight).  Frank and I waited for them to disembark so we didn’t get run over and then struggled off of the train.

We realized that we had no idea where to go and didn’t see any “little red cottages” at all – and I realized (much to my chagrin as champion travel planner) that I hadn’t even asked the address – I had assumed it would be right there.

We finally spied our cottage WAY across the fjord. Oh no!

Frank, wondering what I had gotten him into, decided to take matters into his own hands and approached the lone taxi.  Unfortunately he was already booked AND the only taxi in town.  So we settled in to wait for him to return to pick us up.

What had been a beehive of tourists just 10 minutes before was a ghost town.  Just me, Frank, and our wine.

Finally, Jostein (whom we have gotten to know fairly well by now) returned and loaded us in.  Since we had a car, we decided to take advantage of it and hit the market on the way to the cottage.

We frantically zipped through throwing things in the buggy in case our new home was in the middle of nowhere.  Frank said he didn’t care what we had for dinner – he just needed a beer.

Jostein waited patiently and drove us round and round until we stopped by a row of lovely red cottages. He even helped carry our suitcases down the stone path and get us all unloaded.  Thank goodness for Jostein!

Exhausted and sore, we cracked open one of those bottles of wine and savored the views – spectacular. Sometimes being a traveler is hard work!

P.S. We have since learned that there is a walkway along the water straight to our cottage – although admittedly, would have been a challenge with luggage. But easy to get to town.  Whew!