It was a fairly early start again. I dragged my suitcase through the snow to the train station. The train from Oslo to Trondheim wasn’t as long as the one I caught in to Oslo, it was only three carriages long.
The trip is a little over 7 hours, with a few stops along the way at some small, regional stations. Staring out the window at the snow-covered landscape was a fantastic way to pass the time, while also editing photos.
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Before getting to Europe I purchased a Eurail pass, and booked most of my trains. Getting from Sweden to Norway proved a little tricky. It wasn’t overly clear what trains were going from Gothenburg to Oslo, or who operated them. I had booked a ticket on a Swedish train from Gothenburg that had stopped part way, where I would need to change trains. I had spoken to the Eurail people in Stockholm and Gothenburg about getting to Oslo, and they told me there were direct trains run by NSB three times a day, and my ticket was valid for the trains, but they couldn’t reserve a seat for me. I just had to jump on.
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After Lausanne our next stop was in Milano, Italy. We were travelling by train through the alps and had organised to make a detour on the way over to Zermatt. We caught our first train to Visp where we found some luggage lockers for our bigger bags, and a convince store for coffees.
Since visiting Paris for the first time in 2009 I haven’t been much of a fan. I enjoyed a lot of it, the museums mainly, but there was a lot that didn’t enjoy. When I went back in 2015 I was determined to like it, but Paris fought back, and I figured I didn’t need to go to Paris again.
I was looking forward to going to somewhere in France other than Paris on this trip.
After the morning, that turned into most of the day, trip to Nara we caught the train back to Kyoto Central. Mum headed back to the hotel, dad and I caught another local train just a few stops to visit Fushimi Inari Taisha. It is a very popular place in Kyoto to visit for locals and tourists. Again, there were people everywhere. There were a lot of people walking around in traditional kimonos, some were locals having what appeared to be graduation photos taken (mortar board, certificate), others were tourists (speaking Chinese, or American). Dad and I joined the throngs people on the walk up the hill through the torii gates.
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