Norway's View

Under Northern Skies

Takes two trains and a boat deep into the heart of Norway for a tryst with the fjords

Slartibartfast totally deserved that award. I couldn’t get this thought out of my head as we sailed from Flåm on a snaking finger of the Aurlandsfjord. The venerable master planet-builder from Magrathea had so enjoyed building the serrated coastlines and glaciated hills of Norway in the cult sci-fi comedy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that he rebelled when he was asked to make Africa instead. Thrilling to another precipitous hanging valley disgorging yet another spectacular waterfall, I could only applaud his craftsmanship.

The fjords of Norway are some of the most stunning natural formations in the world. The gracefully brutal way in which the glaciated uplands of central Norway fall in precipitous stages to the spectacular snaking fingers of the North Sea was always going to enrapture a fjord-virgin like me, but even blasé Norwegians cannot resist cracking a grin. John, a baby-faced young giant I met on the Bergen railway from Hønefoss to Myrdal, was excited to hear I was on my way to a fjord ferry. “Ah, it’s absolutely beautiful,” he crooned, before whipping out his iPad to show me map coordinates and pictures of the Sognefjord.

A blond child of the Bergen coast, this on-leave airman was complaining when I sat down. What’s the use of this train, he complained? Only two weeks off from the barracks, and already seven precious hours would be wasted in this slow tourist train. As we passed each thickly-forested mountain and emerald lake under sighing conifers, he would tell me how it’s all so beautiful that he no longer even bothered looking out. He’d rather listen to his MP3s of classical concertos and try to sleep.

The stunning Fjords force even blasé Norwegians to crack a smile

But you can’t keep a good landscape down. Especially when seated beside an excited tourist like me. Soon he was talking away as rapidly as I was taking pictures: “See that mountain? Behind it is one of the best ski slopes. Wait for it, wait for it, just beyond that turn!” and “You should go cycling here. Cycle for days through the wilderness. But don’t worry. You’ll get great 2G networks everywhere. Norwegian law makes sure that you’ll remain connected no matter how cut off you are!” Pretty soon, he told me with pride, it will all be 3G, and not just in the cities. The archetypal Scandinavian, equally at home in nature and in technology.

I was on one of the most popular tours in Norway, through the gradually rising uplands west of Oslo up to the high mountains near Myrdal. From here, I would change trains and board the historical Flåm Railway, which would take me to the mouth of the Aurlandsfjord, a snaking branch of the Sognefjord, the largest and longest fjord in Norway.

The train to Bergen leaves Oslo early in the morning for a seven-hour cross-country romp to the west coast. This summer, due to an ongoing overhaul of the Oslo Central Station, the train wasn’t leaving from the capital. This meant an hour’s scenic drive northwest to Hønefoss in a comfortable coach past the rolling hills and the massive lake of Tyrifjorden. The driver was humming along to eighties pop (Tears for Fears and the like) and the rain was mildly etching patterns on the window as the scenery rushed by. At pretty Hønefoss, we got off the bus and got into the train, on one of the most scenic railway lines in the world.

It’s easy to see why. The visitor is immediately struck by how close the wilderness areas are to urban settlements in Norway. An hour out of Hønefoss, and the train was burrowing its way through high, heavily forested mountains and past rushing rivers with nary a house in sight. And though I could feel John’s pain, I would have preferred the train to go even slower. An Australian photographer who was crouched near a large window by the free coffee-vending machines, furiously clicking away, shared my opinion.

The train kept climbing up a gentle but steady gradient as we headed west for the vast high plateau of Hardangervidda, where tundra-like conditions persist all through summer. This entire area is heaven-sent for people who love the outdoors, and going by the number of Norwegians on the train armed with giant duffel bags full of climbing and hiking gear, the country evidently loves to head out at the drop of a piton.

“It’s the climate,” said John, “You can’t believe how dark it gets in the winter.” And yet, even that doesn’t dampen, or rather freeze, their enthusiasm. As we pulled into the high Alpine pastures of Gelio, where there isn’t much of a distance between the platform and the ski-lift, John informed me that winter is when cross-country skiing, the national passion, really kicks into gear.

Gigantic ice-sheets covered the Fjords as recently as 10,000 years ago

The train climbed above the tree-line, and to our left stretched out vast lakes, miles and miles of them, interspersed with high, rocky hills. Soon we were on the plateau itself, and the lakes gave way to snow-fields, spectral under a lowering sky. Dark clouds obscured the peaks, hanging like a heavy veil over the land. Punctuating the white and grey were occasional groups of log chalets, some of whose chimneys were smoking. Most of these are the summer houses of families who live in the more temperate coastal areas. John pointed out the house his own family owns, high up a rocky ridge, not far from the rail-track, as the train rushed towards the highest point in the line, the snowbound town of Finse.

At 4,009ft, even in high summer the temperature at Finse was frigid. Not that I got too long to savour the chill. The train stops for all of a minute—like it does at most stations—mostly to let off people with skis, and to let on people with skis, even mountain-bikes. In fact, for a while, a rough but serviceable bike track had been ghosting along the railway line, along with a more distant motorable road. Now Norwegians love tunnelling through solid rock, so while the road stayed mostly subterranean, the bike track kept up, passing under a sheer cliff here, skirting over a snow-field there. The train breezed past a couple of bikers, head down, pedalling over a dream-like land of grey, black, white and silver.

The tunnels began after Finse. Not through rock, but made of boards, to shield the tracks from encroaching ice-fields and snow drifts. They’re not really of much use in the summer— except to give maddeningly tantalising glimpses of the country—but are absolutely necessary to save the tracks from getting snowed in during winter.

Finally Myrdal. By this time, John had already added me on Facebook, all the while grumbling about the train’s slow wi-fi connection. He had also almost infiltrated the Oslo air force base, in his quest to show me his quarters. As I hurried towards the door, he reminded me to climb the hill of Fløyen above Bergen for the view. I wished him a happy holiday.

The Fjords are the real stars here, rising sheer up by about 3,200ft from the sea

The red Bergen train disappeared into the gigantic cliff face to the north, after disgorging a gaggle of hikers and tourists. We waited around in the stinging drizzle and shivered in the cold until the retro-looking chocolate-coloured Flåm train arrived. When it first came into being, in 1940, sixteen years in the making, this 20km line was a vital link between the fjord-side villages of the Sogn district with Bergen and Oslo via the Bergen line. Climbing a precipitous 2,840ft in this short distance, it remains a marvellous feat of engineering. Now it is a purely tourist train, complete with recorded voiceovers in three languages (including Japanese). Strategic stops allow travellers to admire landmarks such as the stupendous waterfall of Kjosfossen, complete with a lady from the Norwegian ballet school playing a huldra, a legendary ghostly seductress, dramatically silhouetted by the raging waterfall. 

After that brief stop, the train left the upper plateau and continued downhill, into the deep and verdant Flåmsdalen valley, past the giant waterfalls of Rjoandefossen and Brekkefossen. A lot of people who take the railway usually disembark at Flåm and spend a few days hiking the various trails that lead to other subsidiary valleys and glaciers or up to the many peaks that fringe the plateau. Many more, like me, continue onwards, either to Sognefjord, or to Gudvangen to catch a bus back to the Bergen line.

The train ran past the tiny, pretty village of Flåm with its tiny seventeenth-century church, and sped on by the Flåmselva river towards the end of the line at the Flåm harbour. The ferry service that runs from here to Gudvangen used to be a busy passenger ferry, but since the creation of the massive Gudvanga tunnel, it is now a tourist service.  

There could possibly have been better days to take the ferry than that drizzly, overcast afternoon. I had a plastic poncho, so I headed up to the top-deck, past a horde of excitable Japanese tourists who, for some reason, seemed more taken with the many seagulls than with the spectacular beauty of the area. The rugged mountains here, at the western end of Norway, were the first to be inhabited, and were home to the old Norsemen and the latter Vikings. As soon as we set off from the harbour, one of the oldest villages in the area appeared on the far coast of the fjord, nestled between two steep flanks of the fjord. Settled since about 300 AD, Otterness is a collection of farms dating to the eighteenth century. Abandoned now, the period flavour of this charming rural outback has been preserved as a museum village.

We passed a waterfall a kilometre, rival waterfalls fighting for our affections

But the fjords are the real stars here. Towering sheer up by about 3,200ft from the sea, it’s difficult to imagine that gigantic ice sheets many times their height covered much of this land as recently as ten thousand years ago. When the Ice Age glaciers retreated, they left behind this magnificently fractured coastline, which today seemed finely chiselled and polished. The Aurlandsfjord is of course one of the many subsidiary fjords that lead into the gigantic parent, the Sognefjord, which slashes through western Norway like a huge gash. The sea is a lot wider there, and these ferry boats wouldn’t cut it in those waters. Larger cruise-ships and speedboats ply those waters right up to the coast. The Aurlandsfjord is much narrower, and the mountain walls steeper.

Meanwhile, on the ferry, the excitement continued. The sizable Japanese contingent’s love affair with the gulls had intensified. They were taking turns feeding the birds and taking photographs. This soon resulted in a massive flock following our boat, screeching, diving and turning away in formations that reminded me of old footage of planes on bombing runs. The birds were also getting in the way of everyone’s photograph-taking, irritating people no end.

And with good reason, for we were in beautiful waterfall country. I think we passed about one waterfall every kilometre, and once we’d turned off into the even narrower Nærøyfjord, the greatest of them rolled into view. The burly Sagfossen waterfall plunges for about 1,900ft from cliff-top to the sea in four raging tiers, with a boom that echoes off the surrounding cliffs. Nærøyfjord is special, and Unesco recently named it a World Heritage Site, recognising its unique beauty.

This profusion of waterfalls resulted in the mini migration of people on the deck from one side to another, as soon as one was spotted. Sometimes rival waterfalls fought for people’s affections, and one particular bunch of Italians was very distraught, throwing up their hands in exaggerated frustration. But the further we went, the quieter everyone seemed to become. This awesome land was having its effect. Soon the Italians were posing with the Chinese, and the Japanese were taking time off from feeding the gulls to take pictures of the Spanish who were now trying to feed the gulls. It was one of those times when you smile despite yourself, when everything seems right with the world. Slartibartfast so deserved that award.

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The Information

The tour

Fjord Tours of Norway offers several excursions around the fjords. I travelled on the popular ‘Norway in a Nutshell’ tour. This can be done in a variety of ways: as part of an Oslo-Bergen roundtrip via the Aurlandsfjord and Nærøyfjord, which takes up to 48 hours, or by lengthening the duration of the trip by breaking journey at some of the places along the way.

The uniqueness of the tour is that it uses the country’s top-notch public transport system, including two exceptionally scenic railway lines and the public ferry on the Aurlandsfjord. TheBergen Railway runs across Norway from Oslo to Bergen across the Hardangervidda plateau, and takes about seven hours to complete the journey. On the tour, you get off the train at Myrdal station and change to the Flåm line for an hour-long train ride to Flåm. Tourists typically transfer immediately onto the ferry for their onward journey to Gudvangen, but you could choose to stop in Flåm for a day or two. The surrounding mountains are a paradise for hiking and biking (there are as many as 10 well-marked hiking routes of different gradients).

Aurlandsfjord and Nærøy-fjord are branches of Sognefjord, Norway’s largest fjord. The cruisefrom Flåm to Gudvangen on these two fjords is completed in about two hours. The village of Gudvangen is another great place to stop. An old Viking village, it is flanked by the giganticKjelfossen waterfall and is a gateway to the surrounding fjord country.

From Gudvangen, a connecting bus takes passengers through some spectacular scenery to the lakeside town of Voss where you rejoin the Bergen Railway and complete the journey to Bergen, the stunning maritime second city of Norway.

Fjord Tours also organises other trips in the area that explore the extensive fjord systems of the country. For more information, see fjord-tours.com.

Where to stay

In Flåm, try the pretty Heimly Pensjonat guesthouse (from NOK395; heimly.no) near the Flåm harbour. In Gudvangen, stay at the Gudvangen Fjordtell (NOK570; gudvangen.com). In Bergen, stay at the centrally located Best Western Hordheimen (from NOK510;hordheimen.no). A good choice in Oslo is the charming Cochs Pensjonat near the royal palace (from NOK500; cochspensjonat.no).

Special passes

• To make your trip cheaper, you could get yourself a Fjord Pass. For NOK140, it covers two adults and one child under the age of 15 for an entire year of travel. It entitles you to up to 20% discount on standard rooms (including at the hotels mentioned above), as well as incentives such as a 10% discount on car rentals and up to 25% off on certain activities. For a list of hotels and other activities, see fjord-pass.com.
• When in Bergen, get yourself a Bergen Card (NOK200 for one adult for 24 hours and NOK260 for 48 hours; NOK75 for one child between 4 and 15 for 24 hours and NOK100 for 48 hours; visitbergen.com). This gives you considerable discounts at sights around the city, and you even get into some of them for free.
• In Oslo, get an Oslo Pass (available for 24-, 48- and 72-hour durations; from NOK270;visitoslo.com). Among many other benefits, this generous pass allows you free unlimited travel by bus, tram, underground, boat and local trains within Zones 1 and 2 of the city. Also, it allows you free access to most of the museums in this museum-rich city, as well as discounts at the ones that aren’t free. Hotel bookings are also discounted with the help of the pass. 

How to book

Rail Europe is the official sales agent of Fjord Tours in India (raileuropeindia.co.in). The company will also help you tailor your itinerary and advise you on the passes that you might need to make your travel cheaper.

Since the best way to get around Norway is by train, it makes sense to get an Eurail pass for the country.This will entitle you to substantial discounts on train fares (e.g. you get a 30% discount on the Flåmsbana) as well as discounts on certain boat-crossings as well as inter-city buses. The company is also the sales representative of the train companies of Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, so you can also use this opportunity to get a Scandinavian Eurail Pass.