Alesund to Geiranger or Hjorundfjord - a few questions

Fly in and out of Ålesund. Can fly from US on one Delta/KLM ticket. Fly from there to Stockholm or Copenhagen.

Rent a car in Ålesund and drive a loop including the 2 fjords you mention (Geirangerfjord and Hjorundfjord), then north to Trollstigen, and then west back to Ålesund. Maybe 8-12 hours total driving for all 3 sites. You will need to take car ferries on both fjords to make it work but you’ll get both boat and road views this way.

There are no trains in this area. Even if there were it would be time consuming to take a train, your short visit only works by flying in and out of Ålesund. It is fine to miss the Nutshell. You will see plenty of scenery driving and taking ferries. Actually this is quite a smart way to handle a short visit.

Ålesund seems to me the Norwegian town with the most unusual architecture because new built after a huge fire in Art Nouveau style. Prettiest I would not agree.

1. From Ålesund I once used Hurtigruten ship as pedestrian to experience Geirangerfjord by ship. Too time consuming imo for your short time available. No train in Geiranger and Ålesund. I never used bus there because I was driving there woth own car.

2. Both impressions are important to best experience any fjord incl. Geirangerfjord. There is just one street through Geiranger.Follow it up to both sides and you will come to the viewpoints, such as Ørnesvingen or Dalsnibba with many points in between. There are small e-cars (emob) and also a bus tour to explore.

3. There are a lot of scenic fjords, I would not call the Hjørundfjord the most scenic although very beautiful. In my personal opinion it is not possible to substitute one fjord by another. Sure, you can see just a different beautiful fjord. The only second World Nature Heritage fjord is the Nærøyfjord. Most "dramatic" imo is driving by ship into very short Trollfjord.

4. In general I recommend to rent a car for your trip and drive the scenic route Geiranger – Trollstigen. In Geiranger use the ferry to Hellesyslt and return to drive by ship through the fjord.

5. Please read "Getting around Norway" and make yourself familiar with the train network map and the travel options.

Very important tip for visiting Geiranger: try to choose a date with no cruise ship(s) in port. See cruise call list.

Prettiest I would not agree.

The Aksla viewpoint is amazing and a famous view.

I do agree in the OP that a combination of driving and ferry views is better than water only, like taking a cruise.

Hi Andy, not a direct answer to your questions but some hopefully helpful suggestions. You are looking to cover rather a lot of ground in a rather short period of time, you risk getting a glimpse at the places that you would like to see and a more in depth experience of the various transport options.
My first suggestion is to look at where you would arrive and where you will depart from in Europe. If you haven’t booked flights yet you will have some flexibility around this and open jaw flights are a bonus in terms of time.
Then work out where you would like to go, towns and sights rather than countries. For example rather than Denmark do you really mean Copenhagen?
Then work out a logical travel plan so that you minimise back tracking and travel times. Next of course is travel times and modes of travel. It is also worth getting a bit of an idea of the frequency and timing of trains, boats and planes so that you know better what might be involved, going from place to place can easily take up a whole day.
You will then have an idea of how long you will actually have in each place and how doable your plan is. The other thing to consider is the time of year, in particular regarding daylight hours, shorter winter days can limit sightseeing.
Having been to Copenhagen and Amsterdam, I could easily spend 8 days in either of those places, using some of the time to explore outside of each city.

The Norwegian fjords are beautiful but travelling to and from them does take time and there is a lot of Norway to see in between. Everything that you have suggested looks great, but not in 3 days.
Happy planning, Helen

The Aksla viewpoint is amazing.

Agree, for this reason I added it years ago to Google Maps, before only the restaurant was listed. Years later I wrote a short article about it.

And not unique: Bergen, Molde, Svolvær, Tromsø, Eidfjord and others have similar viewpoints. Likely most famous is Reinebringen over Reine on Lofoten.

Helen made a valid point which I like to detail in two ways:

• I would reduce the 8 days to max. 2 cities plus a fjord - and this is surfacial enough for these destinations.
• Alesund means 1 more flight and more travel time compared to Bergen because BGO is better connected within Europe.

Alesund means 1 more flight and more travel time compared to Bergen

No. As I already stated, Delta/KLM have good flights to Ålesund from the US. Only one connection from either LA or San Francisco (and many US cities). LAX to Ålesund is 14-1/2 hours, same as Bergen.

Note that the Trollstigen road ( “Troll’s Ladder”) is closed and currently slated to reopen in July 2025.
That leaves the residual itinerary driving from Alesund to Geiranger (2.5 hrs.)
Then drive to the ORNESVINGEN viewpoint 5 miles outside of Geiranger before returning to take the 90-minute car ferry from Geiranger to Hellesylt. This car ferry passes the spectacular waterfalls on the Geiranger fjord. From Hellesylt continue for 2 hours on to Saebo on the Hjorundfjord. Overnighting in Saebo or another village on the Hjorundfjord leaves just a two-hour drive before completing this circuit tour and returning to Alesund.

You can rent a vehicle at Alesund Airport through www.AutoEurope.com. Renting a hybrid vehicle will save you money on fuel ( currently about $7-$8 per gallon) for the 160-mile journey and you won’t be compelled to figure out where and how to recharge the battery.

Here's a driving route I worked out in advance of our trip last year. Note the beginning and ending are our hotel about 30 min from Alesund. It was more or less accurate in our actual experience. Maybe on the shorter side but we had good timing with the ferries and didn't have to wait long for any. I had done in advance a few things things: 1. watched you tube videos about how the car ferries work, 2. registered our rental car with the ferry app so that it allowed us to pay automatically 3. had a reservation well in advance for the Hellesylt to Geiranger segment (that is a "tourist" ferry separate from the "regular" ferries around Norway and on our afternoon in May there were cars that did not get on our ferry because they sold out).

Storfjord Hotel to Solavågen drive (25k, 25 min) Leave 8 am to make the 15:30 ferry (that is the one we made the reservation for on Geiranger)

Solavågen to Festøya by car ferry www.fjord1.no (every 30 min, takes 20 min, earliest 8:10)

Festøya to Sæbø drive (70k, 90 min)

Sæbø to Lekneset by car ferry (every 30 to 60 min, takes 15 min)

Lekneset to Hellesylt drive (30k, 35 min) Arrive 13:00 or 14:00

Hellesylt to Geiranger by car ferry (every 1.5 hours, takes 75 min) (summer departures are 09:30, 12:30, 15:30, 18:30)

Geiranger to Eidsdal drive (25k, 30 min)

Eidsdal to Linge by car ferry (every 30-45 min, takes 15 min, latest 22:00)

Linge to Storfjord Hotel drive (60k, 60 min)

If exact driving time, and had to wait each ferry max. time, takes about 8.5 hours

If 1.5x driving time, and had to wait each ferry max. time, takes about 10.5 hours

I would rent a car in Alesund and do a loop. We did a night in one of the Hole Hytter log cabins. The view was beautiful, and we were high above the busy village.

In Alesund we stayed at Scandic Parken which is adjacent to the park where the stairs to Aksla start.

Thank you all for the very helpful suggestions! I'm going to take some time to absorb all of this and will probably be back with more questions :)

Toby - you are correct, KLM does offer a one stop (Amsterdam) connection to Alesund from SFO. I'm also researching a SFO to London round trip to see if it is more cost effective to take connecting flights from LON.

Mark - that Cruise Call List is super helpful! Based on that list, it looks like June 12, 15 and July 4 might be good days (unless cruises make last minute schedule changes) to visit Geirangerfjord.

Helen - I agree 3-4 days is not enough for Norway, but it's a choice between that and not going at all. Along the lines of what you suggest, I'm finding this forum very useful in my planning. We are probably going to drop Stockholm, but will visit Copenhagen.

Kenko - it's good to know that the Trollstigen road isn't scheduled to open till July 2025, is this the website you are referring to?: https://www.daas.visitmr.com/artikler/trollstigen-apner-14-juli-2025 There is a small chance our trip may get postponed from June to July.

Laurie Ann - thanks for the very detailed route! That is very helpful.

mnannie - the Hole Hytter log cabins and the surroundings remind me of Murren, Switzerland, our favorite village/city to visit in Europe.

It may turn out to be cheaper to connect through London as the low cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle start direct flights to Alesund from London Gatwick on 11 April 2025 on a Friday and Monday.
They also fly to Alesund from Oslo (with connections from Gatwick on other days).

So whether open jaw to London/back from Amsterdam with a Norwegian flight LGW to Alesund is an option to explore.

The above post refers to mine deleted by somebody, now reposted below without link to a Copenhagen apartment service (can send by PM). Frankly this is not a friendly site for newbies.

I'm also researching a SFO to London round trip to see if it is more cost effective to take connecting flights from LON

Of course research if you want but flying to a city you don’t want to spend time in usually won’t make sense. 8 days is short for 2 places quite a bit apart and introducing lodging in a third place cuts down on time even more.

Also look at Star Alliance (Lufthansa/United), likely one stops are available via Frankfurt.

There is an SAS nonstop CPH>>SFO and they are in the same alliance as KLM (SkyTeam) but I can’t put KLM and SAS on the same ticket (?).

If flying KLM substituting Amsterdam as the second destination makes a lot of sense, unless you have already visited.

Are you trying to see Ålesund/Geirangerfjord, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Amsterdam in eight days? That is doable, but very rushed.

Are you actually trying to see Amsterdam or is it just because you were looking at KLM flights? You should also look at SAS that has direct flights between Copenhagen and San Francisco.

Flying to London sounds like a terrible idea. With your rushed schedule you should not waste time self connecting. And since the flights from San Fransisco land at Heathrow as far as I can tell and the flights to Ålesund leave from Gatwick that is just too much extra faff and risky in my opinion. It also means you need a UK ETA.

Note that the Trollstigen road ( “Troll’s Ladder”) is closed and
currently slated to reopen in July 2025.

"Troll Path" if you want to be correct. The plan is to open it again in July as mentioned, but from what I've read Statens vegvesen mentions that it is a plan and plans can change.

@Toby, Only the webmaster can delete a post. He would PM you if he had done that with the reason. Another long term poster has reported problems posting tonight, so that would suggest a technical issue to be investigated on Monday, rather than anything malign.
Such gremlins in the works happen from time to time.

mnannie - the Hole Hytter log cabins and the surroundings remind me of Murren, Switzerland, our favorite village/city to visit in Europe.

The setting does remind me a little of Gimmelwald minus The Eiger.

Are you trying to see Ålesund/Geirangerfjord, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Amsterdam in eight days? That is doable, but very rushed

I agree. Right now doing all of the above is a wish list with priority to Norway. If the choice is between visiting another museum or seeing natural scenery/Geirangerfjord along with some time in a unique European city like Alesund, then it's Geirangerfjord/Alesund.

We are still trying to determine (from RS books and RS forums) what will be of interest in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. I know there are lots of attractions in each of these 3 cities, but for us museums is not one of them. If Ikea had a museum in Stockholm, that would be of interest.