Norway Guide
Bergen and the western fjords
If there's one familiar and enticing image of Norway, it's the fjords: huge clefts in the landscape running from the coast deep into the interior. Wild, rugged and serene, these water-filled wedges are visually stunning; indeed, the entire fjord region elicits inordinate amounts of purple prose from tourist office handouts, and for once it's rarely overstated. The fjords are undeniably beautiful, especially around early May after the brief Norwegian spring has brought colour to the landscape.
The fjords run all the way up the coast to the Russian border, but are most easily – and impressively – seen on the west coast near Bergen, the self-proclaimed "Capital of the Fjords". Norway's second largest city, Bergen is a welcoming place with an atmospheric old warehouse quarter, a relic of the days when it was the northernmost port of the Hanseatic trade alliance. It's also a handy springboard for the nearby fjords, including the Flåmsdal valley to the east, where the inspiring Flåmsbana mountain railway trundles down to the Aurlandsfjord, a small arm of the mighty Sognefjord. Lined with pretty village resorts, the Sognefjord is the longest, deepest and most celebrated of the country's waterways, and is certainly one of the most beguiling. North of here lies the Jostedalsbreen glacier, mainland Europe's largest ice sheet, the relatively uninspiring Nordfjord, and the narrow, S-shaped Geirangerfjord, perhaps the most scenically impressive of all the fjords – though here, for once, the tourist hordes can be off-putting. Further north, towards the Romsdalsfjord, the landscape becomes more extreme still, reaching pinnacles of isolation in the splendid Trollstigen mountain highway, a stunning prelude to the amenable little town of Åndalsnes.