Lom and Geiranger

I assume you are driving. As such, I can't say much about the route or Lom. But we did visit Geiranger and it's fjord and areas nearby.

Geiranger is mostly a tourism hub for those tranferring to & from boats on the fjord. It is small and can be covered on foot in no more than 2 hours - much of that dipping into tourist shops. I would not spend the night there unless you also want to do one of the many hikes that originate there. There are some interesting ones that I wish we had had time to do. We thought the Geirangerfjord was a bit more majestic than the one closer to Bergen that all the "nutshell" tourists see.

When we went we considered renting a car, but read a lot about significant tolls, as well as $10/gal gas. Add to that the difficulty of driving between the fingers of the fjords and we decided against it. Between the fjords, not only do you have to go up & down insanely twisty mountain roads, but crossing water can take 1/2 a day as cars have to cue-up for the ferries, and yet another cost. If you are going to do more than just dip into Geiranger and then back out of fjord country, I would seriously consider NOT driving. Public transport, whether train, bus, boat, or (yes) air, is simple, well organized, likely cheaper than driving, and certainly easier on the driver who now can sit back and enjoy the scenery.

Near Geiranger we also visited Åndalsnes (and took a bus on the "Trollstegen" road to Geiranger - awesome!) and Alesund (lovely small city). That covered our northern fjord experience. From there we went to Bergen for a southern fjord experience. Believe it or not, we decided to fly between Alesund and Bergen even though it's only about 150 miles apart. Because of the fjords in between, the choice was a 11-hour bus ride or a 45 minute flight, and the cost was almost the same! We expected a little shuttle plane and were surprised to find a completely full Boing 727!

Hi Ryan,

I have driven through Geiranger, but not Lom. We took a different route than you mention. We drove from Oslo to Åndalsnes and spent the night there. We then made our way from Andalsnes down the trollstigen (a steep road with hairpin turns) down to the Geiranger fjord. We took the ferry between Geiranger and Hellesylt which is really spectacular. We also really enjoyed visiting the Jostedal Glacier on this trip.

I did this trip in July 1998. Back then, we did not make any reservations. We found rooms along the way. We had a couple of challenges. We had some places where we did not time things well and had to wait for ferries. We got stuck overnight in Sogndal. We arrived in time for the last ferry of the evening, but the queue was too long and we did not make it on. We had to wait until the next morning (we got up early and were first in the queue). My main advice would be to check the ferry times along your route before you leave. Allow a bit more time for driving than you think you will need.

The RS book is very thin on Scandinavia. You will find more info in Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide.

We drove from Bergen to Voss (2 nights) to Balestrand(2 nights) to Geiranger, where we stayed two nights at the Grand Fjord Hotel. While in Geiranger, we took the ferry boat (round trip) the length of the fjord and up into the next fjord. The town hasn't much to offer (one quality shop for pewter and sweaters), but the fjord trip was spectacular. Driving in Norway is very easy. You do NOT have to drive around the fingers of all the fjords to get from one place to the next. The roads go up over the mountain ranges (excellent roads by the way) and tunnel through the tops of the mountains. Few scary bits and few tolls (but lots of hokey trolls!) When the roads drop down to the fjords, they connect with ferries which travel back and forth constantly. We never had to queue for any of the ferries. Our trip was in June, 2005.