Norway by train: Oslo to Bergen by way of Flåm

When to go

June to August is the high season: the snow on the plateau has gone to patches, the days hardly end, and Flåm fills with cruise passengers, so the boats and the Flåm Railway are crowded in the middle of the day. May and September are quieter and still green. The Bergen Line, the Flåm Railway and the fjord boats run all year, with fewer departures in winter; in winter the mountain stretch is deep in snow, beautiful from the window, and a storm on the high plateau around Finse can now and then stop the trains.

The stops

Interactive map of the route on our site ›

1. Oslo2 nights

   The Opera House of 2008 slopes into the fjord, and you may walk up its marble roof. On 26 November 1942 the ship Donau sailed from the quay below Akershus Fortress with more than five hundred of Norway’s Jews, deported to Auschwitz; a memorial stands on the quay, and the Holocaust Center is on Bygdøy.

2. Geiloone night

   About three and a half hours from Oslo, a mountain village between the Hallingskarvet ridge and Hardangervidda, the plateau that is home to the largest herd of wild reindeer in Europe.

3. Finsestop on the way

   At 1,222 metres, the highest station on the Norwegian railways, with no road to it. The ice planet Hoth of The Empire Strikes Back was filmed on the Hardangerjøkulen glacier above it in 1979.

4. Myrdalstop on the way

   A mountain junction at 867 metres that no road reaches. Here you leave the Bergen Line for the green train of the Flåm Railway.

5. Kjosfossenstop on the way

   The Flåm Railway drops 863 metres in twenty kilometres, one of the steepest standard-gauge lines in the world; of its twenty tunnels, eighteen were dug by hand. It stops for a few minutes at this waterfall, where in summer a dancer in red appears on the rocks as the huldra of Norwegian folklore.

6. Flam2 nights

   A village at the head of the Aurlandsfjord, an arm of the Sognefjord, the longest and deepest fjord in Norway, about 200 kilometres long and over 1,300 metres deep. The railway museum by the station tells how the line was built, from 1923 until it opened in 1940.

7. Naeroyfjordstop on the way

   The boat from Flåm to Gudvangen takes about two hours and goes into the Nærøyfjord, a World Heritage site since 2005, at its narrowest about 250 metres wide between walls of rock over a thousand metres high. From Gudvangen the bus or the boat brings you back.

8. Vossone night

   Back up to Myrdal and down the Bergen Line. The stone church of Voss was consecrated in 1277 and survived the German bombing of April 1940, which burned most of the town. Knute Rockne, the great American football coach of Notre Dame, was born here in 1888.

9. Bergen2 nights

   About an hour and a quarter from Voss along the fjords. The wooden merchant houses of Bryggen, where the German merchants of the Hanseatic League kept their trading post for centuries, have been a World Heritage site since 1979.

10. Floyenstop on the way

    The Fløibanen funicular, running since 1918, climbs from the centre of Bergen to about 320 metres on Mount Fløyen, with the town, the harbour and the islands below.

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What it costs

Eighty dollars a night is the room. The train tickets are yours and are not included. The trains from Oslo to Geilo, Myrdal, Voss and Bergen are sold by Vy; bought weeks ahead, the cheapest fares are much lower than on the day. The Flåm Railway is a separate ticket, and so is the boat on the Nærøyfjord. With an Interrail or Eurail pass the Bergen Line still needs a paid seat reservation, and the Flåm Railway is not free: pass holders get a discount. The Norway in a Nutshell package sells the Flåm Railway, the fjord boat and the bus as one ticket, but it is not cheaper than buying them yourself.

What to know

Three things. One: book ahead. The cheap Vy fares and the seats on the Flåm Railway and the fjord boat go first in summer, so book them when the dates are fixed. Two: the luggage. There is no service here to carry the bags from station to station, the Flåm Railway is full of day visitors, and you change trains at Myrdal on a mountain platform, so travel light. Three: the hours. In summer take the Flåm Railway and the boat early in the morning or late in the afternoon, before and after the cruise passengers.

Roads, tolls and rules

This route has no car. It takes the Bergen Line, opened in 1909, across Hardangervidda, the largest mountain plateau in Europe, breaks the journey at Geilo, goes down the Flåm Railway to the fjord, and comes back up to the Bergen Line for Voss and Bergen. No leg is longer than three and a half hours on the train. Be honest with yourself about the rooms: Norway is dear, and a room at eighty dollars is rare everywhere on this route; in Flåm, a village with a few hotels, in summer it is close to impossible, and when none is free the site offers two flats at that price instead.

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