We'll be flying out at 08:40 on the Saturday and returning at 19:10 on the Monday, so, as with last year's breaks, we'll have three whole days to fill. The Saturday will be spent in Bergen itself, Norway's second-largest city. Fortunately, a city only has to have 250,000 residents to attain that title, so we don't need to worry about being overwhelmed! We've identified a couple of things to do, including heading to Mount Floyen to get a nice view of the city, and taking a cable car.

We'll be up early on the Sunday morning, taking a bus to Flåm, a lovely, tiny village inside some fjords. We'll spend a bit of time there before taking a cruise on the Nærøyfjord and heading to Gudvangen, another village. That's a day which will be full of beautiful scenery!

On the Monday we'll be retracing some of the previous day's steps, in that we'll be off to Flåm again. This time we'll be journeying from there to Myrdal, a tiny place with next to nothing in it. The reason for the going there isn't to get to Myrdal in itself, but because the journey from Flåm to Myrdal is one of the most scenic in the world.

You would think that planning a three-day break to Norway would be relatively straightforward, but this trip has possibly been the most problematic one I've ever tried to organise! It got off to a good start in early January when I found extremely cheap flights from Gatwick to Bergen with Norwegian for the first May bank holiday. £50 return seemed like too good an opportunity to miss, even though I knew from our previous experience in Oslo that everything in Norway was going to be extremely expensive once we arrived. I figured we could afford three days of Norwegian prices though, and once the flights were booked I started making plans for what we could do.

Having read a lot about it on the internet, I was keen to try the 'Norway in a Nutshell' tour, which aims to give visitors with a limited amount of time in the country a taste of the fjords via a one-day circular trip by train, bus and boat. It looked amazing, and the best thing about it is that although you could buy your tickets altogether as part of a tour package, it isn't actually a guided tour and the entire route is made up of normal public transport. I developed a cunning plan which was going to involve catching all the transport involved in the 'Norway in a Nutshell' tour, but at different times to the ones advertised for the package so that all the trains etc would be significantly quieter. It also looked like it would potentially be cheaper to buy all the tickets individually rather than purchasing the offical tour ticket. I had it all sorted out.... and then I went on the website of the Norwegian train company to double-check I had the timings right and realised that they had just announced rail engineering works on Sunday 1 May which would mean that a crucial bit of train line between Bergen and Myrdal, whose existence was integral to the entire trip, was going to be closed all day. There was going to be a rail replacement bus along part of the line but it wasn't going as far as Myrdal, which rendered it useless. Brilliant.

Several days spent poring over Norwegian timetables later, I managed to develop another slightly more innovative route which will hopefully allow us to still experience the key parts of the tour, but split over Sunday and Monday. It remains to be seen whether all the timings will work out. But at least, I thought, I had now got my one piece of travel bad luck over and done with for 2016.

Hahahaha. No, not quite. I heard my phone vibrating while I was working on Thursday afternoon, and when I went to check it I found I had an email from booking.com about my apartment reservation in Bergen. I thought perhaps they were sending me some instructions about checking in, so imagine my horror when I opened it to find that they were informing me that my reservation had been cancelled... because of an on-going strike by hotel workers in Norway!!! Since when do hotel staff go on strike?! Is this a thing in Norway the same way air traffic control strikes are in France?

Who knows. It was extremely bad luck that the apartment I had booked was linked to a hotel and so caught up in the strike. Also quite bad luck that it was one of those bookings where they take the cash off you as soon as you make the reservation, because now I'm having to negotiate with booking.com about getting my money back. When I first read it I panicked that there would be no alternative accommodation available in the whole of Norway this weekend, but Tim swiftly got on booking.com and managed to find an alternative apartment. Not quite as nice as the first one, but it looked adequate and wasn't going to break the bank. Now we just had to keep our fingers crossed that this reservation didn't get cancelled as well.

By Friday evening we hadn't had any more worrying emails from booking.com, so we concluded that all our bad luck was definitely over now and set our alarms for 3am on Saturday morning in preparation for the journey to Gatwick. At least we were confident that driving at such an antisocial time meant we would be spared the chaos on the M40 and M25 that almost ruined our trip to Lapland at Christmas. Everything went like clockwork and we actually arrived at the airport nearly 30 minutes earlier than planned. Result

At this point I need to explain that we hadn't checked in online. Normally we would do that, but with Norwegian it doesn't seem very straightforward; you can only check in once it is 24 hours before your flight, and online check-in isn't available for all their routes. I had given up trying to figure it out on their website and decided that we would just queue to check in at the airport, although we were only flying with hand luggage. So when we got to Gatwick, the first thing we did was try to find the Norwegian check-in desk.

This seemed to be more difficult that you would expect, because there weren't any helpful displays telling you which desk numbers related to which airlines. As we wandered around the terminal, however, we did notice a number of self-service check-in machines which were displaying the Norwegian logo. Seeing as didn't have any baggage to check in, we figured we'd used one of those.... but every machine we tried seemed to be broken and displayed an error message like a browswer which couldn't connect to the internet once we got halfway through the process.

We found the proper Norwegian check-in area after a while and were pleased to see that there wasn't a queue. When we approached one of the staff, however, he explained that the airport was experiencing a system problem and so they weren't able to check anyone in. Aha, so that explained why the machines weren't working and why all the display boards were blank! It didn't sound like it was anything too serious though, because he suggested we come back in 10 minutes once the displays had switched back on. We found a convenient place to sit and waited.

It was about 6am when we arrived at the airport. 6.30 came and went, and the displays still weren't on. It was clear that the airport must be experiencing a serious computer failure, although you wouldn't have been able to tell from the announcements, which just blandly apologised for "any inconvenience caused" at irregular intervals. 7am arrived, and the scene in the terminal building was becoming increasingly chaotic as more and more people turned up to the airport and no one was able to be checked in. By the time it got to 07.30, I was seriously worried. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 08.40, but there were no announcements about whether flights were actually cancelled, or whether the system failure was just affecting check-in. I decided to switch my phone on to see whether I could find any useful information online, and when I did I found I had a text from Norwegian telling me that my flight to Bergen was on time!

Oh dear. If only I had checked in online in advance! Then we could at least have tried to make our way to the departures area and see whether they were letting people through security. As it was, even if the systems came back on in the next split second, the queue of people waiting to check in for Norwegian was already so enormous that it seemed highly unlikely we would be able to make the flight if it was on time In what may be the first time anyone has ever had this thought, I said to myself "It's such a shame we're not flying Ryanair!" If it was Ryanair, I could just have checked us in via the app... an app... perhaps Norwegian has an app!

It turns out Norwegian does have an app I held my breath as it downloaded because it wasn't clear whether it was just going to allow me to check the status of flights or to actually check it. Once it had installed, I was delighted to see there was a "check-in" option, but would it let me check in now that my flight was only a little over an hour away?! Fortunately it did Within about 30 seconds I had two electronic boarding passes for the 08.40 flight to Bergen.

Phew! We made our way to security where there was an enormous queue but thankfully it started moving pretty quickly. The barriers where you were supposed to scan your boarding passes weren't working, so they had to have people manually checking them. I think the systems must have been starting to come back online at this point, because once we got through security we did find a display telling us which gate our flight was on. Although clearly not everything was back in working order, because when the staff at the gate were supposed to be checking our passports and boarding passes they had nothing to check them against, so were reduced to writing down our names and seat numbers on a piece of paper!

It turned out the flight was delayed, ultimately by about an hour, but at least that gave some more passengers chance to get to the gate. I think they had organised some sort of manual check-in, but the lack of computers meant some people had been allocated seat numbers and others hadn't, so in the end they had to give up on reserved seats and allow people to sit where they liked. The Norwegian staff were really helpful and at least told us what was going on, which was a big improvement.

At last, we were sitting on the tarmac and the pilot started his welcome message, giving us some details about the upcoming flight to Bergen. Suddenly there was a bit of commotion a couple of rows ahead of us. A man stood up and said "Are you all going to Bergen?!", then he and his wife started frantically trying to gather up their baggage. It turned out they were supposed to be flying to Copenhagen and had accidentally got on the wrong plane They managed to get off before the doors were sealed - though goodness knows whether they got to Copenhagen or not - but I guess that illustrates what sort of breaches in security are possible without computerised checks at the airport!

Anyway, with that the trauma of the day (and hopefully the entire weekend!) was over and we were finally on our way to Bergen It was actually a very pleasant flight, and as the aircraft began its descent towards Bergen we had a beautiful view of snow-capped mountains.

Bergen airport seemed very efficient and we were through passport control within minutes of disembarking from the plane. I had pre-bought tickets for the airport bus online to save money and an airport bus was conveniently waiting right outside the terminal building as soon as we stepped outside. Things seemed to be improving

The journey into Bergen took less than half an hour, so we had soon arrived and were able to start exploring the city. Our first priority was to find some food, as it was now 1pm and we hadn't eaten anything except a muffin on the plane. We made our way to the city centre, but it seemed that a marathon had been taking place in Bergen this morning, so everywhere was extremely busy. We eventually gave up trying to find somewhere we could get a table and went to Burger King instead. Burger King was nice, although at 240 krone (approximately £20) it was definitely the most expensive fast food Tim ever hopes to have in his life!

Next task was to find our replacement apartment. This turned out to be quite easy, as it's located not far from the main train and bus stations, and the complicated check-in instructions they'd sent us with door codes all worked like clockwork. The apartment itself is a bit small (and has bunk beds!) but it's definitely a lot better than nothing.

Just down the road from our apartment is the Domkirke, Bergen's cathedral.

It's not very ornate as cathedrals go, but we thought it looked very Norwegian somehow.

The first place we wanted to make sure we saw in Bergen was Bryggen, the historical wharf area.

It consists of a series of Hanseatic houses, which were originally built in fourteenth century, although most were destroyed by a fire in 1702, so the current buildings are much more modern.

Some of them looked very old based on how crooked they were!

All of the buildings today are occupied by shops, hotels and even a night club!

We walked along the edge of the water until we got to the Bergenhus Fortress.

This is the site of an ancient Norwegian fortress, which continued to be used for defence up to WW2. Today it is mainly a park, where you can walk around and admire the various buildings and statues.

We noticed that Norway isn't quite as far ahead with spring as we are in England - these daffodils looked like they had only recently come out, and all the trees were still very bare.

At the edge of the fortress there was large statue of King Haakon VII, who was king of Norway during the war. The statue shows him looking out to sea with his binoculars.

All he would see today if he looked out to sea was a large cruise ship! Although there was a ship that looked a bit more military in the harbour too.

As we turned around to walk back into the centre of Bergen, we had some beautiful views of the hills behind the city.

We spotted some more Hanseatic houses - these ones looking a little more solid as they were made from bricks.

The centre of Bergen seemed very pleasant.

Although it is the second largest city in Norway and it had been hosting a marathon today, it didn't feel overly crowded.

We found the street where we were supposed to have been staying in our original apartment. It looked rather posh, with some formal gardens stretching up to the national theatre.

The theatre itself was a somewhat strange building, with this rather frightening statue of Henrik Ibsen outside.

Having already walked along the Bryggen side of the harbour, we decided to stroll along the opposite side. Some of the buildings on this side weren't as scenic, but as we got to the end of the peninsula we did get some amazing views out to sea.

We took a slightly different route on the way back and passed all sorts of buildings which made us want to stop and take our cameras out.

Bright colours are definitely popular in Bergen.

As are churches with roofs like this one.

I think the award for best view of the day goes to this one though, because of the snow

These houses might have won though if they hadn't had a car park in front of them!

Back in the centre of town, we found the statue of Ole Bull, a famous Norwegian violinist and composer who was born in Bergen.

From there we had a bit of a steep uphill climb to get a view of the Johanneskirken, an imposing red brick church which towers above the town centre.

At this point it was feeling suspiciously like rain, so we decided to quit while we were ahead and go back to the apartment for a rest and some blog writing. Bergen is beautiful and I'm very glad that despite everything we managed to get here

We were quite tired after our early start yesterday, but there wasn't time for much of a lie-in this morning because we were off on an adventure to see the fjords We had tickets for a bus that left Bergen at 08.45 and would take us to the small town of Flåm. Flåm is located at the end of the Aurlandsfjord, and so has a very scenic location in what is already a very scenic country. From there we would be able to take a boat along the Aurlandsfjord and into the neighbouring Nærøyfjord. All we needed was for all the transport connections to work. And for it not to rain!

We didn't get off to a very good start with the latter, as we got caught in a torrential shower which appeared to start as soon as we stepped outside of our apartment in Bergen. It wasn't far to the bus station though, and we had a a whole three hours on the bus to dry out. Luckily the bus was warm and quite comfortable, and we enjoyed a spectacular journey through the mountains. The bus passed through numerous tunnels and each time we emerged in a new valley the weather seemed to vary between sunny and raining. There was still a lot of snow on the mountains and at one point we drove past a big lake which looked as if it had been frozen all winter, with the ice just starting to melt in places. The bus made a brief stop in Voss, which looked like a beautiful place.

The snow on the mountains looked almost too perfect to be real.

We arrived in Flåm promptly at 11.45 and immediately had a fantastic view of the fjord.

During the summer Flåm is a tourist hotspot but there were no cruise ships in the fjord today and we seemed to have arrived before most of the other tourists.

The village itself is quite small but it is in a spectacular location.

We wandered around for a while to enjoy the views...

...and then made sure we knew where our boat would be leaving from, before finding a cafe to have lunch.

By the time the boat was due to depart at 13.30, a few more tourists had arrived via the Flåm railway, but it still wasn't overly busy. The boat was quite relaxed, with no set seating; there were piles of plastic garden chairs on the deck which you could rearrange and sit wherever you liked.

It didn't really matter where you sat, because the views on all sides of the fjord were equally beautiful.

One slight annoyance (apart from the people with selfie-sticks!) were the seagulls, which persistently circled the boat for at least half an hour. I think some of the tourists must have been throwing them food.

The sides of the fjord were incredibly steep and rocky.

We passed occasional hamlets which seemed to be in very inaccessible locations.

The most exciting point of the journey came about an hour in, when the boat turned a corner from the Aurlandsfjord into the Nærøyfjord.

This is a really narrow fjord, only 250m across at its narrowest point.

You can probably tell from the photos that it was rather windy! So much so that the plastic chairs began blowing about the deck and the staff had to come and collect them up.

We passed numerous waterfalls as we made our way along the fjord.

The good thing about the wind was that it became a bit quieter on deck, as some of the worst selfie-stick offenders went inside to stay warm

Two hours after we set off, we began to approach Gudvangen, the village at the far end of the Nærøyfjord.

Again, the snowy mountains here were amazing.

Gudvangen itself is a very small place, but there was a cafe where we were able to warm up and get a coffee. We didn't stretch to cake as it was £7 a slice! There were lots of coaches waiting in Gudvangen to pick up tour groups from the boat. We made our way up to the main road to catch the public bus back towards Bergen.

We have packed a lot of travelling into today, but it was definitely worth it

For today's journey we were retracing part of yesterday's steps, taking the 08.45 bus from Bergen to Flåm. The aim of today was to complete the bit of the 'Norway in a Nutsell' tour which we missed out on yesterday; the railway between Flåm and Myrdal. The weather wasn't quite as good today as it had been yesterday, and so it was fortunate that we had a day of activity which mainly involved being indoors. It was pouring with rain as we left Bergen, and that theme continued as we made our way through the various valleys and tunnels from yesterday. There was one slightly sticky moment when our bus got stuck in a traffic jam outside a tunnel where there were some ongoing road works, but in the end it only resulted in a delay of about 20 minutes and we arrived in Flåm just in time for our trip on the Flåm railway.

The Flåm railway is a 20km stretch of track between the small village of Flåm and the even smaller hamlet of Myrdal. So far it doesn't sound very exciting, but Flåm is located at just 2 metres above sea level, while Myrdal is located at 864m, and so the track has a very steep gradient. It's also supposed to be one of the most scenic rail journeys in Europe, so we were excited to give it a try.

I was a little bit worried that the train was going to be really busy, but either because it was a fairly rainy Monday in May or because we had chosen a different train to the official one timetabled for the Nutshell tour, we ended up with only a handful of other tourists in our carriage. I had researched online which side of the carriage would be best to sit and the answer seemed to be that it was the right hand side as you travel from Flåm to Myrdal, but actually there were brilliant views on both sides of the train at different points, so it was lucky that the carriage was empty enough for us to switch sides whenever we needed to.

The train began climbing quite steeply as soon as it pulled out of the station in Flåm.

There was multi-lingual commentary in Norwegian, English and German throughout the journey, which was really useful in telling us what to look out for as we pulled in and out of the various tunnels. One such piece of advice recommended that we look to the right to see this spectacular waterfall.

As we travelled further uphill, we were treated to views of increasingly rocky mountains capped with snow.

Unfortunately because the sky was white with clouds today as well, it's hard to tell what is snow and what is sky in some of the photos

The train continued to pull in and out of tunnels...

...and we had some lovely views back down into the Flåm valley as we turned corners.

We lost track of how many waterfalls we saw.

About twenty minutes into the journey, our train paused at a small station where there was a passing place for the train coming down the mountain.

Then we were off on our way again

The higher we climbed the more we were surrounded by snow.

One of the most impressive sites which the train commentary pointed out to us was this track winding up the mountain.

The highlight of the journey, however, is supposed to be when the train makes a five-minute stop at the Kjosfossen Station, where a special viewing platform has been built across the enormous Kjosfossen waterfall. I had seen some pictures of it online and it looked amazing... but what I hadn't bargained for was that in May it would look like this...

Yes, it was 2 May and almost the entire waterfall was completely frozen!!

But in some ways perhaps it looks more impressive like this than it does in summer

After Kjosfossen, there was only another 15 minutes or so until we reached the final station, Myrdal.

As we got nearer and nearer it became so snowy that we could easily have believed that it was Christmas and we were in Lapland again.

The brochure for the Flåm railway warns tourists that there isn't a lot to see or do in Myrdal; "the attraction is the journey and not Myrdal", the website explains.

They certainly didn't lie when they said there wasn't much there, but the landscape was really beautiful.

Improbable as it seems, Myrdal is actually a station on the main railway between Oslo and Bergen. Within a few minutes of getting off our train from Flåm, we were able to get into a normal train on the main Norwegian rail network, which would take us directly back to Bergen. The journey on the main train line was spectacular in itself, as the track descended for another half an hour through the snow, then began to follow the path of a steep gorge.

Once back in Bergen, we just had time to grab some food before heading off for the bus back to the airport. There were no difficulties with check-in this time around, and rather amazingly Norwegian Air offer free wi-fi on their flights, so we've been able to update the blog from the skies

Norway is definitely not a cheap country and some of the prices on this holiday have definitely made our eyes water, but we have had a brilliant time this weekend and it must surely rank as one of the most beautiful places we have been