How to get to Flåm: from Bergen, from Oslo, by rail and by ship

The first is from the west, from Bergen, over the mountains by road. This is the route four of the tours on this site take, and the landmarks along it are named in their listings: the Tvindefossen waterfall, one of the most famous in Western Norway, and the drive by way of Voss towards Gudvangen. $268 describes a comfortable bus ride along the Osterfjord and through Voss. This is the approach most visitors take, and the reason it dominates any discussion of how to get to Flåm is that Bergen is where most people are already standing.

The second is from above, on the railway. The Flåm Railway climbs from the village up the valley to Myrdal and it is described in listing after listing as one of the steepest railways in the world and one of the most beautiful train journeys anywhere. Arriving this way means arriving downhill into the village with the fjord opening in front of you. $466 is the tour that starts at Myrdal, runs thirteen hours, and pairs the railway with a cruise on the Nærøyfjord and the Stegastein viewpoint.

The third is from the water. Gudvangen sits at the inner end of the Nærøyfjord, and the sailing between there and Flåm is itself one of the great fjord journeys, which is why $373 builds a ten and a half hour day around it. The same water brings the cruise ships, which berth in Flåm and put several hundred people ashore with a fixed number of hours to use. That is a distinct version of the same question and it has its own section below.

What these three have in common is worth saying out loud before you plan anything. None of them is quick. The valley is reached by mountain road, mountain railway or fjord, and all three take real time. The guided days on this site run from ten and a half hours to thirteen, and the honest way to think about how to get to Flåm is that the getting there is a substantial part of what you are buying — and, given the scenery each route crosses, a large part of why you would want to.

A ship alongside in Flåm changes the question completely. You are already there, so how to get to Flåm is answered; what remains is how to use a fixed number of hours without missing the sailing. That is exactly the problem $136 is built for: it offers pickup near your cruise ship in the village and runs five hours through Stegastein, the 800-year-old Borgund Stave Church, the Aurlandsfjord, a drive through the world’s longest road tunnel, and Lærdalsøyri with its 160-odd wooden houses from the 1700s and 1800s. It carries 1,051 reviews at 4.8.

If five hours is more than your call allows, the ninety-minute options exist for precisely this reason. $45 describes itself as quick and high-impact and says in its own listing that it is suited to cruise time limits. $48 does the same journey on an air-conditioned bus. Either gets you 650 metres above the Aurlandsfjord and back with your afternoon intact.

And if what you want from the call is the fjord rather than the mountain, $147 is two hours on the water in an open RIB, into the UNESCO-listed Nærøyfjord past waterfalls and small fjord farms, with a local guide telling you about the people of the valley. It is our pick of the fifteen tours here and at 4.9 across 219 reviews it has the highest rating on the site. Two hours is a comfortable fit inside most ship calls, with time left to walk the village.