Visiting Bergen, Norway (and seeing fjords on the way!)

Man, writing the last post about all the hikes we did in Norway really was one of my favorites! Other than experiencing all the nature and beauty of Norway, the rest of our trip we spent in Norway’s two biggest cities – Bergen and Oslo. Today’s post is about the long weekend we spent in Bergen!

Fjord-ing on the way to Bergen

After our glacier hike we got a good night’s rest and left Geilo to head to Bergen (where we were going to meet up with Damian’s college friend, JC, yay!). But, we had one more “outdoor activity” planned for the way. We couldn’t leave Norway without admiring the beauty of its fjords. So we went on a little fjord cruise!

To give you a little background, a fjord is basically a valley that has been filled in by sea water, with high mountains rising on both sides. But, most fjords have been created because of a glacier that cut the deep paths where the sea water fills in, which is why Norway has a lot of them.

We decided to take a two-hour boat trip through the Nærøyfjord, which is one of the narrowest branches of the Sognefjord. Nærøyfjord is part of a set of two Norwegian fjords that are actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were looking forward to this part of the trip, but sadly it hit on a rain day, so I felt a little more like this.

We had booked the boat a few days earlier and arrived in Fläm about 30 minutes before it departed. It was crowded with tourists because a lot of the “Norway in a Nutshell” tours run through here (either on a boat or using the railroad). But, once we got on the boat the crowd thinned out and it was relaxing and peaceful. Just quite rainy!

I’ll be honest, even though the fjords were super pretty, it was damn cold outside and I stayed inside the boat looking out the window the whole time. But Damian was a trooper (as he always is :)) and got some nice pictures from the deck. I love the third one below especially, because the houses at the bottom give you some scale as to how high the waterfalls are.

The boat trip goes from Fläm to Gudvangen and, of course, we had parked in Fläm, so, we were out of luck. Just kidding, you can sign up for a 10-minute shuttle bus back to Fläm, so we did that and then continued on our trip onto Bergen!

More sights and fjords from the road

Since our Nærøyfjord boat trip was somewhat rained out, I wanted to share some other views we got of the fjords during our drives around Norway. There are a lot of transportation options you can choose from when visiting the country (train, bus, air, boat, car), but the biggest reason I am so glad we drove (and not on a tour), is because we got to see some amazing roadside views (which are super hard to capture fully in pictures).

We passed so many waterfalls on our drives. Like literally, hundreds of waterfalls. It was so fun to see them all, but still made me question, where does all the water come from?

We also drove through a ton of tunnels, which we were grateful for, because otherwise the drive would have been many multiples longer and with even more steep turns. But the craziest was this tunnel we drove through a few times – it has multiple traffic circles within the tunnel (under the mountain), isn’t that nuts?

But my favorite, of course, was when the sun came out. Norway has a lot of rainy and cloudy days, but when the sun is out and shining over the fjords, well, the views are hard to beat!

And then, as the sun begins to set, the colors all change and everything is beautiful in a whole different way. In the second picture below you can see the poles that are erected on the side of the road so the snow plows know where to go in the wintertime. Could you imagine driving through a tunnel that high? And, of course, had to include the little sheep friends that visited us on the drive as well!

It’s Bergen time

Ok, so on to Bergen, yay! To not bury the lede, we did a lot of just chilling in Bergen so there are less of the sightseeing pictures you may be used to seeing. We arrived to Bergen late Friday evening and Damian’s college gymnastics friend, JC, was set to fly in from London at 11pm. Sadly his flight got delayed and he didn’t get to our hotel until about 3:30am, but we were so happy to see him when he walked in (with McDonald’s nonetheless)!

The next morning I slept in while JC and Damian hung out and explored a bit. They discovered a little triathlon being held that morning for young kids and had a blast watching it. It sounded super cute and I can’t wait until one day our kids are doing that kind of stuff!

Then I got up and we all walked down to Kippers to have lunch on the water. This was a recommendation from my friend Jason and it was so good. We then decided to take the funicular up to the top of Mt. Fløyen, which has some fun activities and great views over the city. It did not disappoint!

There are lots of fun things to do on top of Mt Fløyen and you could easily spend at least a full day, if not more there. There’s a park for kids, ziplining, food and drink, hiking, etc.

But our favorite things were the goats! There’s a group of goats that live up there and are quite friendly with the people that are always visiting.

We then walked down back to the main city (instead of taking the funicular) and, especially with the perfect sunny and cool weather, it was so nice to see different parts of the city, it’s so cute!

We then headed over to see the famous set of wooden Bryggen houses, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. These houses are the main emblem of Bergen and can be seen on everything from t-shirts, to manhole covers, to the tattoo on the arm of our hotel’s receptionist! It was neat to see them and how much they have sunk / leaned over the years (which is why there is a multi-million-dollar project going on to restore them). You can see the lean on the third picture below.

After a while more of wandering, day turned to night and we went in search for dinner (the picture below was taken around 9:30pm). We learned quickly that we were a bit late to dinner, as all the restaurants in Bergen turn into nightclubs after 10:30pm! We finally found a place that could take us, ate a delicious meal (JC tried reindeer!), went out for a bit and then headed back to the hotel for some sleeping time.

The next day we all slept in a bit and then we headed out to walk and chill. We had taught JC the card game called ‘Judgement’ (aka ‘Oh Hell’ by some folks) and he loved it and wanted to play! So we found a super cute coffee shop and bunkered down there, playing cards, eating waffles, drinking coffee/hot chocolate and having fun.

In the afternoon JC got a call that his flight back home to London had been canceled, and after a bunch of rearranging he ended up on an earlier flight (boo) so we had to rush out and get him to the airport. It was so fun to have JC with us and we are so glad we came!

For the rest of the evening, Damian and I had dinner at a yummy, yummy place called Pygmalion (seriously, so good, would return there again), did some browsing at a bookstore and then watched some Netflix (Wild Wild Country, a crazy documentary mini-series).

Up next!

We enjoyed Bergen, but, to be fair, it didn’t knock our socks off. I’m not sure why, but for some reason it just felt ok (but it was still totally worth it to see it). Spoiler alert: we felt the same way about Oslo as a city itself, but I’m still excited to recap the crazy, silly fun we had there with Poops (my sister) – it was the best time. More soon!