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Bus from Gudvangen to Voss

I know the question I have comes up a lot in this forum, but help with our particular situation would be great if anyone can.

We're doing the nutshell on our own during our trip in August with one night in Aurland, and have found piecing together the ground transportation elements of this to be tricky. On day one of the nutshell we're taking the 8:25 train from Oslo, arriving in Flam at 14:13 (assuming we can make the tight 9 minute connection window we have in Myrdal). To get to Aurland, we ended up reserving seats on the Norways Best shuttle, having to buy extra seats for our luggage (they advised us that their shuttles couldn't or might not be able to accommodate even modest amounts of luggage). We'll then take a Norways Best shuttle up to the Stegastein Viewpoint later that afternoon. We gave up trying to get the Borgund Stave Church, we probably needed two overnights in the Flam area to make that one work.

In talking with the local taxi companies, they advised us they were 100% booked for our dates of stay, so we shouldn't count on them to get us anywhere . . . although they also said we could call day of and you never know. Not reassuring! Given that the first bus from Aurland to Flam in the morning of our nutshell day 2 isn't until after the sailing time of the ferry we had hoped to take (the 11:15 sailing from Flam on the LustraBaatane ferry), we switched to the express ferry which has an 11:50 departure from Aurland.

The remaining ground transportation logistic is then getting to Voss on day 2 (which is Thursday, August 10th). Our ferry will arrive in Gudvangen at 13:30. The RS book seems to indicate that special busses arrive to coordinate with the arrival of most (but not all) ferries. Is our ferry one of those?? If not, it appears from looking at the bus schedule on entur.no that we'll have 2 hours to cool our heels in Gudvangen before a 15:30 bus comes by. We'd much rather get into Bergen earlier than have 2 hours in Gudvangen, but will make that work if we have to.

Posted by
6968 posts

(assuming we can make the tight 9 minute connection window we have in
Myrdal)

9 minutes is not a tight connection in Myrdal. It's plenty of time.

we switched to the express ferry which has an 11:50 departure from
Aurland.

There is also a 9:50 departure which means you arrive in Gudvangen 11:30, just in time to take the 11:40 bus to Voss.

Our ferry will arrive in Gudvangen at 13:30. The RS book seems to
indicate that special busses arrive to coordinate with the arrival of
most (but not all) ferries. Is our ferry one of those?? If not, it
appears from looking at the bus schedule on entur.no that we'll have 2
hours to cool our heels in Gudvangen before a 15:30 bus comes by.

There is bus 950 from the port, the schedule can be found here: https://www.skyss.no/globalassets/reise/rutetabellar/buss/haustruter2022/hardanger---voss/950.pdf

But there are also buses that stop on the main road (E16), a 500 m walk from the port.

Posted by
16269 posts

The buses are lined up waiting for the ferries. Don't worry. No need to even buy a ticket ahead of time. When on bus fills, another one move up.

Posted by
399 posts

You will likely be fine. We were in Flam a couple weeks ago but the schedule for ferry and onward bus (to either Voss or back to Flam) was cut in half. But, it appeared that was because we were there the end of May and the full summer schedule was set to roll on June 1st. We were stuck in Gudvangen for about 2 hours. Wasn’t the end of the world. The Viking Village took up an hour and lunch and gift shopping killed another hour. Also, the Norway Best and tour busses pick you up near the ferry terminal (restaurant and gift shop right there), however, there is also a public bus stop at the entrance of the terminal (about 5 brisk minutes to walk there). They have additional times to take you to Voss or Flam. We were there on a Sunday and it was considered off season but you will likely have multiple options in August.

Another option is to consider renting a car from E-Mobility in Flam. They have a whopping 6 cars in their fleet but having a car to drive to Aurland and even Stegastein Viewpoint was nice. Driving in the area was not stressful.