20260606 Saturday, June 6, 2026 Scenic Oslo to Bergen Train Ride and Embarkation Viking Neptune in Bergen

20260606 Saturday, June 6, 2026 Scenic Oslo to Bergen Train Ride and Embarkation Viking Neptune in Bergen

Experiencing jet lag can sometimes be helpful if you have to get up super early after flying many time zones eastward.  In this case, we end up waking up at 3am, but since we had to wake up at 4:45am to prepare to check out of the hotel at 5:40am, this was convenient. 

 
There are about 120 Viking Neptune passengers who participated in the Oslo Scenic Train pre-cruise extension.  This made for a bit of confusion in the hotel lobby this morning.  There was a cart with paper bags, sandwiches, orange juice in bottles, single serving yogurt containers and a large tureen of coffee for a DIY breakfast take out station.  

It was a bit disorganized, but we did manage to grab breakfast bags for the train ride.  The sandwiches were oddly a pressed ham and cheese sandwich with lettuce and mayo, so more of a lunch sandwich, but when in Norway…. At least it wasn’t fermented fish pickled in lye. 

 
It was a short walk from the hotel to the rail station where we boarded our train.  The Bergensbanen runs from Oslo to Bergen on a regular schedule, and it makes up to 14 stops along the way to pick up and drop off passengers, so this is a commuter rail more than a scenic tourism train.  

The cars reflect this purpose.  The seating was functional but no nonsense, and equivalent to an airline premium economy seat or low end domestic business class with 2 by 2 seating arrangement on either side of the coach.  There is a shelf overhead, and very limited underseat storage.  There are 220v EU electrical outlets under the seats, but no USB power.  We were prepared this time and brought both a type F European plug adapter and a 65W USB multioutlet charger to keep our devices charged for the day. 

 
Unlike the Rocky Mountaineer, which had dome car seating for maximum sight seeing, these coaches just had standard passenger windows, which were not very clean or particularly large.  If you were seated by a window, you could get a decent view of your side of the tracks, but not the other side of the train.  It was possible to get a view out of the boarding door windows between cars, but these tended to get monopolized by people.  The other area that could provide viewing for photography was the dining car, which had windows on both sides of the train, but there were signs posted on every window urging people not to hog the windows and share the view. 

During the start of the trip, heading out of Oslo, the outskirts of town and suburbs were pretty unremarkable.  The vegetation is very similar to what we have in Western Washington, and outside of the city, there are lots of agricultural plots that are plowed regularly and in various stages of planting and growing.  Due to the more mountainous geography, the farm plots tend to be very hilly or restricted to relatively narrow valley floors.  

Further into the countryside, the views remain similar to western Washington or Southeastern Alaska in terms of geology and plants, although at higher altitudes, there is a predominance of pine forests instead of fir forests. 

 
As the train ascended in altitude, stubby birch trees supplanted the pines, and as the train headed into the mountains, snow fields emerged and trees disappeared altogether, replaced with bolder fields, moss and shrubs.  

At its highest altitude of over 4058’ above sea level, it is mostly snow fields, boulder fields and low tundra.  This was the most visually interesting portion of the journey because it was such a dramatic contrast to all the rest. 

Coming down past its peak, the geology and vegetation return, although descending into Bergen does take the train along what are clearly fjords. 

 
The trip takes about 7 hours, covering 496km, reaching a peak altitude of 1237m and passing through 182 tunnels.  Although the train is not optimized for tourist scenic travel, it does allow travelers to see parts of Norway that are inaccessible by any other transport method, and showcase the geographic and biologic diversity of Norway.  

A box lunch was provided.  This included one hot beverage, and bottled water, but no soft drinks.  Soft drinks and beer were available for purchase in the diner car.  

We were transferred from the Bergen train station to the ship by bus.  This took about 20 minutes.  Checking into the ship was pretty easy and quick, aside from the delay associated with having to go through security screening like at a TSA check point in the USA.  

When we had arrived, our friends Mark and Jan, and Doug and Sandy had boarded the ship a few hours earlier.  They had all arrived to Bergen earlier and had spent a day or two exploring the town and getting over jet lag.  They had all embarked on a ship’s orientation tour while we were getting unpacked.  

Doug and Sandy were able to snatch up reservations for Manfredi’s when they overheard another couple cancel their reservations for tonight at 7:30pm.  We ended up dining with Mark and Jan in the Restaurant, which requires no reservations and offers table menu service.  Most ended up ordering a special chicken breast entree while Ben opted for a regional lamb with cabbage dish.  

After dinner, Ben and Janet walked into Bergen to explore in advance of tomorrow’s organized tour.  

We concluded our evening watching a performance by Tor Jaran Apold, who is an acclaimed Norwegian violinist performing a number of arrangements of Nordic music which was quite good. 

 

The ship remains at dock in Bergen overnight. Tomorrow we have a bus tour of Bergen scheduled for 1pm.  The ship will set sail for Eidsdal, Norway (216 nautical miles) tomorrow at 3pm.