Your trip to Bergen will be incomplete if you don’t visit fjords during your trip. You can book your Fjord tour from https://www.norwaynutshell.com/. You can plan your itinerary based on the number of days you have during the trip. Sognefjord, Aurlandsfjord and Naeroyfjords are the most popular fjords of Norway. These fjords are not directly accessible from Bergen but you can visit the fjords as a day trip from Bergen. The fjord tours are very expensive and I had only one day during the trip to explore the fjords. Norway In a Nutshell day trip to Aurlandsfjord and Naeroyfjords fjords is a popular day tour in Bergen. It is not a guided tour and after booking the tour you will get set of tickets to travel to different destination. The cost of the tour was NOK 1740.
My trip started at around 8.40 am. I went to the Bergen railway and boarded a train to Myrdal. The duration of the train journey was about 2 hours 10 minutes and I reached Myrdal at around 10:51 am. I received my train ticket as a voucher from the travel company. I will strongly recommend to choose the window seats during this train ride because the view is absolutely beautiful. The train will pass through some beautiful lakes during the journey. You will also see some beautiful colorful towns on the way to Myrdal. During the summer season the weather is usually foggy and the visibility is not that great. The visibility was not that great towards the 1st hour of the Journey but it just got better when we were about to reach Myrdal. At Myrdal the weather was perfect and it was sunny.
At Myrdal I had to switch to another train. After the train arrived at Myrdal I had only about 7 minutes to get into Flam Railway train. Thankfully the train was waiting for us at the opposite platform. Flam Railway train was smaller compared to Bergen Railway. The train was shorter in length and it looked old. All the compartment of the Flam Railway train was full of tourists and I was lucky to find a window seat for myself. The flam railway connects the Bergen Railway with Flam. The distance between Myrdal and Flam is 20km and it takes about 1 hour to do the entire journey. Flam railway is the third most visited tourist attraction in Norway and the railway is used exclusively for tourists. After traveling for about 10 minutes we stopped at Kjosfossen Station. Kjosfossen waterfall was located just adjacent to the train station and everyone went out of the train. We saw a spectacular dance performance by a lady in the background of the waterfall. The dance show was very unique experience and everyone really loved it. After stopping for about 10 minutes all of us went inside the train and we entered the tunnel. The view from the train was spectacular and most people were looking outside of their window throughout the entire trip. After traveling for about another 10 minutes we saw first glimpse of the beautiful valleys. The colorful houses were complementing perfectly to the blue sky and beautiful green valley. The time flew very fast and we reached Flam at around 11.50 am.
Flam is a beautiful small port town and it is considered as the gateway to Norwegian fjords. Flam is located near Aurlandsfjord. Aurlandsfjord is a narrow extension of Sognefjord and it is popular tourist destination of Norway. Sognefjord is the biggest fjord of Norway and it is also much more wide compared to other fjords. After reading tons of article on the internet I decided to skip Sognefjord because it is quite wide and the view is not that spectacular compared to narrow fjords like Sognefjord and Aurlandsfjord. I flew my drone and took some brilliant pictures of the small town and the fjords of Norway. Flam is a great place to grab your lunch during the trip. The food stalls are located behind the tourist information center and you can get all types of food here. There are lot of souvenir shops located inside the tourist information center. It’s a great way to spend your time at Flam because you have to wait for about 1.5 hours for the fjord cruise.
Our fjord cruise was scheduled at around 1.30 pm. The cruise ship was much bigger in size and there was enough space for all the tourists. I will strongly recommend not to sit on the chairs situated at the outside deck of the ship. You can grab a spot near the railings of the ship towards the front side because most people will eventually stand throughout the journey and if you sit then you can’t see anything. We traveled first along the beautiful Aurlandsfjord. Aurlandsfjord is an extension of Sognefjord and it is much narrow in size compared to Sognefjord. The fjord reaches at an approximate depth of about 1000m and it is surrounded by tall mountains on both sides. Some mountains around the region rise up to height of around 2000m. The width of the Fjord is about 2km and you will not see many people living around the fjord. The fjord cruise was absolutely brilliant and the weather was perfect. The sky was clear of clouds and the visibility was perfect. Thanks to the amazing visibility the mountains and the fjord looks absolutely beautiful. I took tons of video and photos throughput the fjord tour. After cruising for about 1 hour we took left turn and entered Naeroyfjord.
Naeroyfjord is much narrower compared to Aurlandsfjord and some section of the fjord is only 500m in width. Naeroyfjord is listed as UNESCO world heritage site and the length of the fjord is 18km. It’s difficult to compare the two fjords because both of them were very different. After traveling on the Aurlandsfjord for about 1 hour the scenery became very repetitive and I dint enjoy Naeroyfjord that much. At the start of the trip the boat was really crowded and there was not enough space to take photographs but when our ship was cruising along the Naeroyfjord I saw most people just sitting on the benches. Naeroyfjord gives great opportunity to take some nice photos because it is much narrower compared to Aurlandsfjord. The ship was much less crowded towards the last half of the trip and I used this opportunity to take lot of nice photos of the surrounding. You will see some small camping area and small houses near the banks of Naeroyfjord.
We reached our final destination Gudvangen at around 3.30 pm. Gudvangen is a small town located at the end of Naeroyfjord. I didn’t spend much time at Gudvangen because our waiting time for the bus was only 10 minutes. We started our bus ride from Gudvangen at around 3.40 pm and the bus journey took around 1 hour 15 minutes. The route was absolutely beautiful and we crossed some amazing landscape on our way to Voss. The road was full of downward hairpin slope and it was really tough to drive along this kind of road. Our bus stopped near a waterfall for about a minute but the driver didn’t let us go out of the bus. We also crossed the steepest section of the road which is called Stalheimskleiv. Stalheimskleiv is one of the steepest road section of Europe and the length of the section is 1.5km. We crossed Sivlefossen and Stallheimsfossen waterfall on the way to Voss town. The road was full of downward slope and we crossed lot of hairpin bend on our way. I had to hold onto my seat very tight because the bus was taking lot of sharp turns throughout the trip. After riding the bus 30 minutes along various hairpins we finally managed to move out of the tricky section of the road. The last 30 minutes of the ride was along the beautiful valley and I fell asleep during this part of the trip. The bus reached Voss at around 5 pm.
Voss is a very small town known for adventure activity like paragliding and kayaking. During the winter months it is a favorite skiing destination among locals and tourists. Vangsvatnet is a beautiful lake located near the Voss town. I spent around an hour at the lake and took the train back to Bergen at around 6 pm. Voss church is a beautiful church located near Voss town center. The architecture of church is very unique and it is a must visit place among tourists. The train ride from Voss to Bergen took about 2 hours and I reached Bergen at around 8 pm. It was a great day trip around the beautiful fjords of Norway. Fjords are the major tourist destination of Norway and it shouldn’t be missed during your trip to Norway.
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