Boring tunnels is also hard in the muddy Dutch soil. It was used in Amsterdam for the new Noord-Zuid-lijn, which had tons of complications and went way over deadline and budget by an enormous amount.
Although if there's a part of the country that is suitable for boring, it's probably Maastricht, which is in the tiny part of the country that has actual hills.
-The Lærdal tunnel is a masterstroke of tunnel engineering; at 24.5km/15miles long, a major issue would be that it is simply mind-numbingly boring to drive through it, with the likely consequence that drivers' minds drift and accidents result.
To counter this, the tunnel is broken up somewhat by three caves blasted out at regular intervals; these are lit by coloured lights and go a ways towards breaking the monotony.
Still mind-numbingly boring, though.
To give an idea of how prevalent tunnels are in western Norway - going from where I live in Hareid down to where my mother's family comes from, Voss - a 400km/250mi drive - just over 100km/62mi are in tunnels, including the Lærdal tunnel and the Eiksund tunnel, which was until recently the deepest subsea road tunnel in the world at 290m/950ft deep. (Steepest grade: 9.6%. Engine braking is your friend.)
Fascinating stuff, I've always been interested in tunnels and tunnel boring machines. As a teen I built an underground fortress of solitude in the unimproved desert near my house using cinder blocks for support that folks had dumped in the desert after finishing a block wall job. There was mortar mix as well so nearly two thirds of the interior walls were both brick and mortar. It was great fun to go into it during a hot day and cool off. It quickly became rather over run with snakes and scorpions who also appreciated its cool interior[1].
But my strongest memories of the place are about how good it felt to be carving a "space" out of nothing but dirt. It was almost magical in its ability to feel like creating something from nothing, even though it was just digging. Had the dot com crash not happened it was on my schedule to build a basement for my house. I got to see a two story basement (two levels down) in Palo Alto and it was really amazing to me. Almost like having an additional house to do with what you want.
[1] Always made the first visit after an extended absence pretty interesting.
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