Norway Trip Part 2 – Voss

by Alan Cole · Published Tuesday, June 27th, 2023 · Updated Tuesday, June 27th, 2023

After another hearty breakfast at our hotel in Bergen, we boarded the tram once again to head into the City Centre. This time we had all of our luggage with us. Large rucksacks on our backs and smaller ones on our front. It was surprisingly comfortable, but not something we’d want to carry too far!

Today was the start of one of the main highlights of the trip, the railway journey from Bergen to Oslo on what is supposed to be the most scenic train journey in the world. Rather than doing the entire 7-hour trip in one go we were breaking it up into several smaller chunks and stopping off at a number of places along the way. The main stops are shown on the map below. We would stop at Voss, Myrdal and Gol before arriving in Oslo later in the week. We’d also visit Gudvangen and Flåm.

The first stop was Voss, Norway’s self-proclaimed adventure sports capital and some 1 hour and 15 minutes into the rail crossing. We had a hostel booked for a couple of nights and intended to explore the town and its surroundings.

The Train to Voss

We easily negotiated the tram into Bergen and boarded a train slightly earlier than we had planned. The train itself was spotless and comfortable with plenty of legroom. Once in motion it was incredibly quiet and smooth too. The perfect, relaxing way to travel and watch the scenery as we went.

As well as passing through some of the world’s greatest scenery the train passes through 182 tunnels en route to Oslo. This first part of the journey seems to be about 50% tunnel. Despite this, once out of the city, the bits that weren’t tunnelled were indeed very scenic. We passed along steep-sided valleys, impressive bridges, small hamlets and raging rivers. The sun sparkled on the waters of lakes as we sped past, heading inland through alpine scenery. We caught glimpses of snow on the mountain tops too.

It was a lovely journey and over too soon as we pulled into a busy station at Voss.

Voss

Voss is a tourist town, on the side of Lake Vangsvatnet. It’s a Ski destination in winter and a watersports haven come summer. The last few days had seen its population of 15.000 more than double with the influx of 20,000 people for the Voss Cup, an annual football competition. [Those figures were provided by the owner of the hostel so I can’t vouch for their accuracy, but she obviously knew more about it than we did!] This event was coming to an end as we arrived, but it was clear it had been a busy time. We checked the maps and walked the ½ mile or so to the Voss Hostel in the baking sun! The earlier train and our efficiency meant that we were too early for check-in so we left our luggage with them and sat out on the terrace overlooking the lake.

Quite a few people were in swimming, SUPing, kayaking and generally enjoying the good weather. We were soon able to check in and sort ourselves out. The Hostel was nice. It was clean, comfortable and had everything we needed. The view from the bedroom window was pretty special too. It overlooked the lake towards the snow-capped mountains beyond.

We wandered into town, had a look around and had pizza for dinner. There were purple and pink lupins everywhere and plenty of people taking photos of them too.

We didn’t get up to much else today as the heat was a little overwhelming so after a busy few days and lots of travelling it was good to chill by the lake.

Exploring the Hills

I can’t chill for too long though, so after a decent night’s sleep I was up at 4 am and off for a ‘run’ in the hills. I had my target set on the summit of Hangur at 818m above sea level. This was the top of the ski resort where the large gondola from Voss goes. I set off into the quiet streets of Voss and then headed up towards the Folk Museum. There was no one around (it was 4:30am I suppose). The air was cool and still and the sun was already shining. The track up to the Folk Museum was steep so I jogged slowly along, stopping to take a photo here and there.

After the Folk Museum, the steep path became VERY steep and coupled with rocks, roots and its twisty nature the amount of running happening was minimal. It was now a power hike through the woods with occasional glimpses of the lake below and the towering pylons of the Gondola above. It was fairly cool at this time of day but the sweat was pouring off me.

I reached a building I could see from the bottom. I had naively assumed this must be part of the restaurant and ski resort at the top of the hill. How wrong I was. The mountain simply rounded off and reduced in gradient somewhat and I still had a long way to go. On I went, ever upwards and slightly around the mountain before finally leaving the trees behind and looping around towards the summit. Here the summit restaurant dominated. It was much larger than I expected and had several other ski lifts coming into it as well as the large gondola from Voss. There were pockets of snow up here and views out across the mountains in all directions.

Pockets of snow and views out across the mountains

I explored the deserted summit for a while. It was still only 6am so there was no one around. It was a little chilly up here too, especially noticeable thanks to my sweat-soaked clothing. I didn’t, therefore, linger too long and was soon retracing my steps back down the steep sides of the mountain towards Voss. My knees were taking a bit of a beating on this descent. At the bottom, I ran back along the lakeside to the hostel.

It was now 8 am so time for breakfast. I woke Anna up and we sampled the delights of the hostel breakfast. It was all very good. I felt as though I’d had a whole day out in the hills already. It had barely started.

Bordalsgjelet Gorge

After breakfast, Anna and I headed off for a walk around to the other side of the lake in search of the Bordalsgjelet Gorge. It was another warm day by now so we took our time, exploring as we went. We crossed a nice bridge over the river that fed into the lake and then climbed the hill a little.

Eventually, we came across another very high bridge over a gorge and the start of the trail. We followed it as it clung to a narrow ledge on the gorge, high above the raging torrents below. Not really Anna’s idea of ‘fun’, but it had been her idea so I think she just went along with it as best she could! Before we knew it we came to the end where we could see the water tumbling down through the steep-sided canyon. Typically I had my 360º Camera in single lens mode today by mistake so don’t have any good footage of it, but you’ll get the gist from what footage I do have!

We took a different route back to town checking out a few other little viewpoints before chilling at the lake for a while and then wandering around town to check out the outdoor shops and have a picnic lunch on a bench where a sparrow was eating out of my hand.

We then headed back to the hostel to relax for a while before heading back into town for dinner at a lakeside restaurant. It was still hot and now very humid. There was a threat of rain as thunder rumbled in the hills and a rainbow appeared across the lake over the gorge we had been in earlier.