If the Sognefjord is the King of the Fjords, then the Hardangerfjord is the Queen. At 179 kilometers (111 miles) long, it’s Norway’s second-longest fjord and is easily accessible from Bergen and other places along the southwest coast. The main fjord carves inland from the Atlantic Ocean about 80 km (50 mi) south of Bergen before splitting…
Sometimes called the King of the Fjords, the Sognefjord is Norway’s longest and deepest fjord, stretching 204 kilometers (127 miles) and reaching depths of up to 1,308 meters (4,291 feet). It’s the second-longest fjord in the world, surpassed only by Scoresby Sund in Greenland.
The number seven seems to be a magic number when it comes to hills. Rome was famously built on seven hills, and many other cities have made similar claims, including San Francisco, Seattle, Melbourne, Barcelona, and Istanbul, to name just a few. In Bergen, Norway, the residents dream even bigger: The city boasts not seven hills but seven mountains surrounding the city center.
In a small town on the Sognefjord, expert cheesemakers are continuing a tradition that’s believed to date back more than a thousand years. The village of Vik, population 3,100, is home to the world’s only dairy producing Gamalost – literally “old cheese.”
One of Norway’s iconic train experiences, the Flåm Railway covers a distance of just 20.2 kilometers (12.5 miles) but changes 863.meters (2833 feet) in altitude, making for a dramatic ride. One of the steepest normal-gauge railways in the world, the route runs between the small highland station of Myrdal on the Oslo-Bergen line and the village of Flåm on the shores of the Aurlandsfjord, an arm of the world’s longest fjord, the Sognefjord.
