Flåm

Flåm is a transport junction dressed as a village: the E16 passes it in a tunnel, the Flåm Railway climbs from here to Myrdal on the Bergen line, the fjord boats to Gudvangen leave from the quay, and the road up to Stegastein starts behind the station. On a Bergen–Oslo journey it is the obvious place to break the drive, and on a train-only itinerary it is the one place a non-driver can see a fjord properly.

The difficulty for a planner is that it is also a cruise port. On a ship day the car park, the railway and the boat sell out by mid-morning; on a day without a ship it is a quiet place with one shop. Look at the port's cruise calendar before fixing which day you arrive, and book the train seat in advance either way.

The railway is the headline and the fact gap on this page. Norway's Best, which operates it, returned an error today, so the journey time, the altitude gained and the adult fare are not stated here; take them from the operator's site and date them in the ledger. What can be said without a number is that it is a there-and-back ride with a photo stop at Kjosfossen, that it fills a morning or an afternoon, and that the winter timetable is thinner.

Practical line: fuel and a small supermarket in the village, better shopping in Aurland ten minutes along the fjord. The E16 west to Bergen and east to Lærdal is open all year; the Lærdal tunnel is the long one. The Aurlandsfjellet mountain road to Lærdal is seasonal (see the Stegastein stop), but the first stretch up to the Stegastein platform is kept open all year.