THE BEST OF BERGEN


The city has many museums, including the


Bergen Art Museum, the Maritime Museum and of course one dedicated to the composer Edvard Grieg, where in his home at Troldhaugen he composed many of his famous works.


A taster tour If your time in Norway is limited then one of the best ways to get a real fl avour of this beau- tiful country is to take a ‘Norway in a Nutshell’ trip. This tour takes the traveller on a journey through some of the most beautiful scenery in Fjord Norway. It also shares breathtaking experiences on the Bergen Railway, the Flam Railway, the Aurlandsfjord, the Naeroyfjord and the steep Stalheimskleiva road. This trip operates all year round and I joined


in Bergen where the train journey has been voted one of the world’s most beautiful. Arriving in Gudvangen I joined the ferry for a spectacu- lar cruise on the Naeroyfjord, the narrowest fjord in the world and yet again a Unesco World Heritage Site. The Naeroyfjord and Geirangerf- jord areas are considered to be among the most scenically outstanding fjord areas on the planet. Their unique natural beauty is derived from their narrow and steep-sided crystalline rock walls rising up to 1400m direct from the Norwe- gian Sea and extending 500m below sea level.


The Naeroyfjord area has a great variety of


landscapes, ranging from naked peaks around the Fresvik glacier to sheltered bays with broad- leaved deciduous woodland by the fjord. Flanked by mountains towering to 1760m above sea level, Naeroyfjord is 17km long and only 250m broad at its narrowest point. Arriving at Flam, this once isolated village is


now a bustling port for ferries and cruise liners as they bring thousands of tourists each year. It is now one of the greatest tour magnets in Norway. The new deep water dock allows large cruise liners to bring their passengers into Flam where the major attraction is the train journey described as a railway journey experience unparalleled in Europe. Having appreciated sailing close to the vast


walls of rock and scree in the fjords it was time to hansel the journey from Flam at the innermost part of the Aurlandsfjord up to the high moun- tain station at Myrdal. The gradient is unique for this kind of ordinary gauge railway, and to cope with the enormous height difference, the track runs partly through tunnels which spiral in and out of the mountainside. On the 20km-long train ride you can see rivers that cut through deep ravines, waterfalls, snow-capped moun- tains and farms clinging dizzily to what seem like sheer slopes.


‘If your time in Norway is limited then one of the best ways to get a real fl avour of this beautiful country is to take a ‘Norway in a Nutshell’ trip’


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