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Sognefjord, Norway
But the truth is that we're lost in time
It's not that Bergen doesn't have its charms (since it most certainly does), but the real reason to fly all the way to the west coast of Norway is to get out of the city and into the fjords. The easiest to get to of all of them is the Sognefjord, and luckily for all, the government of Norway is there to help. The official Norwegian tourist office offers easy to book packages called "Norway in a Nutshell," an exhausting one day trip from Bergen to Oslo by way of the Sognefjord. It's not free, but your $230 one way ticket does include rides on three trains, a bus and a boat. It’s enough to give you a taste of the fjords and it’s regimented enough to make you wish that you gave yourself more time and just booked everything on your own.
The one way, always on time schedule from Bergen to Oslo is:
8:44 am – Local train departs Bergen
9:58 am – Local train arrives at Voss, push through confused people to find right bus
10:05 am – Bus departs
11:15 am – Bus arrives in Gundvagen on the shores of the fjord, take pictures and visit shop
11:45 am – Boat departs through the fjords- this is the real highlight of the entire day
2:10 pm – Boat arrives in Flam, best place to hunt down lunch and kill some time
4:05 pm – Train departs Flam, heads up into the mountains
5:03 pm – Train arrives in Myrdal, kill time for an hour
5:57 pm – Train departs Myrdal for a four and a half hour ride, with the first hour including scenes through utterly spectacular scenery
10:45 pm – Arrive in Oslo in the dark cold night, try and avoid all of the heroin addicts hanging around the railway station
And while the schedule can feel a bit punishing (even in a borderline off season like September), the shockingly beautiful scenery at every turn and all those breaks in the action make it all more than worthwhile. Even here on the train from Flam Railway to Myrdal, the conductors know enough to stop the train for a few minutes so they can see the closeup view of Kjosfossen Falls, just a quick stop at another spectacular sight on a day already full of them.
A lot of the travel that I have done has felt like a first pass, I only have so much vacation time and there is always so much to see. Philosophically, I believe that it's better to see a place and want to go back than it is to totally exhaust a destination leaving no desire to return. Waiting for the mainline Bergen-Oslo train in Myrdal, high in the mountains and within reach of hiking trails to too many amazing destinations to mention or even comprehend, it's easy to imagine a return trip to the fjords and honestly hard to imagine not coming back.
There are few places on earth as beautiful as the Sognefjord and no matter how hard I try, these pictures will never do the place justice. That's a cold hard fact that I will have to live with and one you should keep in mind as you look at these three pictures of the fjords. The ocean water is still and dark and the boat feels like it's gliding on a mirror, or even that it's standing still as the fjords slowly slide by. The air is cold for September, and the breeze on deck is constant. The fjords are narrow and the mountains are high, so even at midday, the sun hits the ridges and valleys in layers, with equal areas of deep shadows and blinding sun and every possible gradient in between. Taken together the experience is spectacular and needs to be seen to be believed.
Practically, the boat (which is really a car ferry with a few open decks) traverses two arms of the Sognefjord: the Naeroyfjord and the Aurlandsfjord. The Naeroyfjord is (as its name suggests) really narrow, while the Aurlandsfjord is named after the town of Aurland. The boat comes with prerecorded announcements in multiple languages, telling you details about various picturesque villages or cliffs or mountains, although it's more of background static than something that is helpful. All around you, people are taking pictures in every possible direction, all already knowing that no matter how good their camera may be, that it will never, never even come close to what their memories will be. Welcome to the Sognefjord.
