Norway: Fjords & Scenic Routes

From the airport, take a luggage cart and walk to the hotel, about 12 minutes.

Bike pickup → Hjelmeland ferry1 hr 20

→ Ostasteidn viewpoint1 hr 3

→ Allmannajuvet47 min

→ Horda53 min

→ Hardanger House1 hr 33

Pick up the bikes at 9 am, then straight into Ryfast, the world’s longest and deepest undersea road tunnel, about 8 miles and 13 minutes to Tau. The Ryfylke Scenic Route carries on north; on the E134, turn onto Røldalsfjellet.

Hardanger House is a family-owned design hotel of just nine rooms, each with fjord views, between the Hardangerfjord and Folgefonna National Park. Dinner is a set three-course menu at 7 pm.

Ferry Jondal → Tørvikbygd9:20 am, hourly

→ Steinsdalsfossen57 min

→ Bergen1 hr 30

Along the Hardanger Scenic Route to Steinsdalsfossen, the waterfall you can walk behind, then on to Bergen.

Dinner at Bryggeriet, the only restaurant in town with its own brewery.

→ Mo1 hr 18

→ Double Drop waterfall1 hr 4

→ Myrkdalen viewpoint1 hr 11

→ Vikafjellsvegen1 hr 10

→ Kviknes Hotel1 hr 8

North over the mountains on the Vikafjell road to the Sognefjord.

Kviknes Hotel’s hospitality goes back to 1752, and the Kvikne family has run it since 1877: 190 rooms, a collection of art and antiques, and a guest list that includes Kaiser Wilhelm II, a frequent visitor to Balestrand.

→ Gaularfjellet Utsikten40 min

→ Bakkane viewpoint2 hr

→ Festøy ferry2 hr 17

→ Hotel Brosundet54 min

Over the Gaularfjellet Scenic Route and its Utsikten viewpoint, then north to the coast and Ålesund.

Hotel Brosundet is an intimate, family-owned hotel in restored fishery warehouses whose walls meet the water of Brosundet, right in the center of town, with fresh local seafood at its restaurant.

→ Åndalsnes1 hr 35

→ Linge ferry pier1 hr 8

→ Dalsnibba viewpoint1 hr 17

→ Grotli Høyfjellshotell1 hr 41

The big one: Trollstigen and the Geiranger–Trollstigen Scenic Route, then up to the Dalsnibba Geiranger Skywalk.

→ Bakery in Lom51 min

→ Mefjell mountain picnic51 min

→ Vardahaugselvi waterfall2 hr 4

→ Fretheim Hotel1 hr

Breakfast stop at the bakery in Lom, often called Norway’s best, then over the Sognefjellet Scenic Route, Northern Europe’s highest mountain pass, down to the Sognefjord and Flåm.

Getting to Finse: there is no road, so it’s the train. Leave the bikes in the Fretheim Hotel parking lot, check the bags at the hotel and pack lunch boxes. Take the 8:22 am Flåm Railway from Flåm station, right by the hotel, up the valley to Myrdal, then change to the Bergen Railway heading east over the mountains to Finse station. It takes about 2 hours 12 minutes in all.

The hike: an easy hour and a half from Finse to Appelsinhytta, then about two hours up through Danskeskaret to the summit. It is steep for the first ten minutes or so, then crosses old snowfields (not glacier) with a close look at the Blue Ice.

Bicycle down the Rallarvegen to Flåm in the morning, then a short ride to Voss.

Store Ringheim is a farm hotel: old farm buildings around a courtyard, in the same family since 1778, with six rooms (the most historic in a building over 300 years old) and a restaurant cooking from scratch with local ingredients.

→ Vøringsfossen viewpoint1 hr 15

→ Langfossen2 hr 6

→ Arsvågen ferry1 hr 42

→ Eilert Smith Hotel1 hr 16

Back along the Hardanger Scenic Route past Vøringsfossen and Langfossen, and south to Stavanger.

The Eilert Smith Hotel is a late-1930s functionalist landmark among Stavanger’s old wooden houses. RE-NAA, on the ground floor, holds a Michelin star.

A 7-mile ride to return the bikes at AllSupermoto, then on to Oslo.