The Norwegian fjords by train and ferry

I plan my trips the way some people pack a suitcase: a little obsessively, with everything that matters near the top. So when I decided to reach the Norwegian fjords without renting a car, I did the maths first — and the maths said train, then train, then ferry. Three connections, one of the most beautiful days of my travelling life, and not a single moment spent looking for a parking spot.

It starts in Oslo and ends in Bergen, and the line that joins them — the Bergen Railway — is the spine of the whole thing. About seven hours across the roof of the country, over the Hardangervidda plateau, where the trees give up and the landscape turns to rock, snow and enormous skies. I'd read that it was spectacular. Reading does not prepare you.

The line that climbs to the sky

You leave Oslo in green forest and, hour by hour, the train hauls itself up to around 1 200 metres at Finse, the highest station on the line. Up there it can be winter while the valleys below are still summer. I had a window seat, a thermos I'd filled at the station — coffee on Norwegian trains is good but everything here costs more than you brace for — and a plan to do absolutely nothing but watch. I'd warned everyone at home they wouldn't hear from me much. The plateau keeps its own counsel, and so, for once, did I.

About staying connected, since it's the family business: be honest with yourself about the gaps. Norway has genuinely good mobile coverage for such an empty country, but a railway that crosses high plateaus and dives through long tunnels will drop you, and the deeper you go into fjord country the more the mountains simply stand between your phone and the nearest mast. I treated signal as a bonus, not a given — offline map downloaded, tickets saved as screenshots, my reservation details where I could reach them with no bars at all.

Flåm: the little train that everyone means

At Myrdal you change for the Flåm Railway, and this is the postcard. In roughly an hour it drops from the mountains down to sea level at Flåm, clinging to the side of the valley, past the Kjosfossen waterfall where the train pauses so you can step out into the spray. It is touristy, and it does not care, and neither did I — some things are famous for the simple reason that they are that good.

« I didn't beat the car. I just let the train and the boat do the driving, and kept my eyes on the cliffs. »

From Flåm I took the ferry up the Nærøyfjord, one of the narrowest fjords in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage site — walls of rock closing in, waterfalls coming straight off the top, the boat looking very small indeed. I'd saved the timetable offline that morning, which was wise, because somewhere between those cliffs my phone gave up entirely and just let me be present. When a bar of signal came back near the far shore I sent one photo home with no caption. It didn't need one.

Bergen, and the honest bit about the bill

Bergen closes the loop: the wooden houses of Bryggen along the old wharf, the fish market, the rain it is famous for and wears with pride. In summer the light barely leaves — this far north the evenings stretch on and on, and while you have to go further up the coast for the true midnight sun, the long northern dusk is its own quiet marvel. Come in winter instead and the prize changes to the aurora, best chased well above the Arctic Circle. Either way, budget honestly: Norway is expensive, full stop, and the trains and ferries are part of that. They are also, to my organised heart, worth every krone.

What I take away

You can do the fjords by car, and plenty of people love it. But the train-and-ferry version hands you something a steering wheel never will: seven hours, then one, then a boat, with nothing to do but look up. Plan the connections, accept the price, forgive the dead zones — and let Norway carry you. I arrived in Bergen rested, soaked, and quietly converted.

— Hugo, who still thinks the best seat is the one by the window.