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Norway Nutshell plus ... by car, from/to Bergen

Posted by on

Hi,

We're looking at an itinerary where we're looking at adding a couple of days in Norway.
Specifically, we're looking at doing a "Nutshell Plus", and we're looking at doing it by rental car.

We have our choice of gateway airports, so we're looking at Bergen instead of Oslo (in & out) ... shorter drive to get up to the Fjords. For the driving, we found this itinerary which looks like a reasonable starting point.

We're getting stumped on two things in the planning.

First, we want to take the cruise portion of the "Nutshell" as one of our day trips, but need to connect it up with some public transit to get back to wherever we parked the car. What's mucking us up is that the Nutshell cruise info we're finding is for entire packages starting way back in Bergen or Oslo.

Q1: it looks the sightseeing cruise runs between Flan & Gudvangen .. is this correct?
Q2: (if so), is it available in either direction & which direction is preferred? (note: after 1 Sept).
Q3: what mass transit connections to return to where we started the day from (where car is)?
Q4: logistics - - where to park the rental car while we're on the cruise?
Q5: where would we book / make reservations in advance?

Second question - pros/cons of where to stay overnight (probably 2 nights)?

We see that Rick has several recommended towns besides Flan. But if Flan is the optimal starting point, then schedule times for the cruise have to add in the travel time for us to drive to Flan. Just need this to be able to synch up with after-peak-season (e.g., after 1 September) cruise schedule constraints. Which towns work better/worse to get to Flan (or Gudvangen, per above Q's) on our "go on the cruise" day.

Finally, anything obvious that we're overlooking in terms of other options, etc?

Thanks,

-hh

Posted by
243 posts

We travelled to Norway at the end of May and purchased our cruise tickets the night before the cruise. This was very easy in Flam. I do have to stress that this was end of May and not peak season. We purchased transport from Flam to Gudvangen and took the boat back. We took the Flam railway up towards Myrdal and hiked back down. My point is that it is possible to purchase the components without buying the package if you are not travelling in prime season.

As far as lodging, Flam feels much more like a depot than a real town. If you have a car, I highly recommend Aurland which is about 15 minutes by car. There are two options in town; we stayed in 1 of 6 cabins on the fjord. This comes with kitchen and dining room; we were able to cook dinner with amazing views from our window. There is also lodging in the Urdreal, but this town is even tinier than Aurland and perhaps 20 minutes away.

Nick

Posted by
4 posts

Nick, Larua - - thanks for the tips.

The nearby town "out of the crush" sounds promising - - I had been a bit concerned about staying up in Beltrand and having a ~2 hour drive to get all the way down to catch the fjord ferry...

...and the website linked from the URL provided which I found what I was looking for was http://booking.visitflam.com - roughly NOK 800 for two for just the 2.5 hour cruise with a quick bus return to the starting point. That's precisely what we were trying to find.

-hh

Posted by
3 posts

We also did the fjord area by rental car earlier this month, just wonderful! We did the Nutshell from Oslo one way to Bergen for the whole day, stayed the night in Bergen and then left the next day after lunch and drove to the fjord region. We stayed 2 nights in Solvorn which was wonderful. One day we went to the Nigardsbreen Glacier, the next we drove to Jotenheimen National Park, then went down to Laerdal where we stayed for one night before returning to Bergen. I agree Aurland would be the sensible place to stay knowing the layout now. Laerdal was great and near the Borgrund Stave Church (great), just near the long tunnel. We stayed at the Laerdal Faerie Park, a camping park but we rental one of the little cabins which was super. In Solvorn we were at Eplet B&A, very highly recommended!

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