Photos from the Road: Fjords!
On Norway’s west coast, a tour of the fjords reveals an otherworldly landscape.
The dramatic Geirangerfjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has sheer rock walls and is nearly 2,000 feet deep.
Fjords are long ocean inlets carved into the mountains by glaciers. When the glaciers melted, the ocean filled the valleys, which can be thousands of feet below sea level.
A waterfall in Geirangerfjord
Many visitors take the Hurtigurten cruise boat to see fjords like Geiranger.
The town of Geiranger, at the end of the fjord
Houses on the Geirangerfjord. Grass roofs are still common in rural Norway.
Alesund sits on three islands near the top of fjord country. Destroyed by a fire in 1904, it was rebuilt in art-nouveau style.
A fjord outside of Alesund
Cliffs at the entrance to the Sognefjord, Norway's longest fjord at 128 miles
Boathouses in Vik, on the Sognefjord
The sleepy resort town of Balestrand sits at the junction of three arms of the Sognefjord.
The 12th-century Hopperstad Stave Church, in the town of Vik. One of the 28 distinctive wood churches remaining in Norway, it is supported by eight-meter columns—giant tree trunks—and has medieval graffiti etched into the walls.
View of the Sognefjord from Balestrand
The Naeroyfjord, a branch of the Sognefjord, gets as narrow as 820 feet and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A remote farm on the Sognefjord
Flam, at the end of the Aurlandsfjord
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