Driving from Oslo to Bergen — Is It Worth It?

Honeymoon in Norway Day 3

Read all about days 1 & 2

The train ride from Oslo to Bergen is said to be Europe’s most beautiful train journey. It rides past Norway’s most beautiful landscapes and many visitors have this trip on their must-do. I, of course, also looked into it. One of the ideas was to take the train to Bergen and rent a car from there. Unfortunately, the price difference between renting a car in Bergen and leaving it in Oslo, and renting a car in Olso and back was huge. So road trip it is!

Driving in Norway

Haven’t done the train ride so I can’t tell which one is best. However, I can tell that driving in Norway was a beautiful experience. It took between 7 to 8 hours, with a quick stop for lunch and another one to see a waterfall (more about it shortly).

Driving in Norway is a delight. Roads are very well maintained, it’s clear where you need to go and where to stand on the road. The number of tunnels and the engineering behind them is impressive. The longest we went through was 24km! We even went through a tunnel that had an intersection in it. Never seen that before. That is proper Norwegian engineering.

As for the scenery, might not have been as mesmerizing as the train ride but it was still beautiful. Especially the deeper into the country we went. We also stumble upon an area around a lake that has an astonishing number of balancing rocks. Not sure who did that but they had some patience.

Vøringfossen Waterfall

Two hours shy of Bergen we made a small stop to see the Vøringfossen waterfall. Vøringfossen is an iconic waterfall plunging 145 metres.

There are two ways to see the waterfall. The first is to drive up to the Vøringfossen parking next to the Fossli hotel and walk 5 minutes to the waterfall.

Or start from the bottom of the valley and hike 30 minutes to Vøringfossen. In August 2020 the facilities around Vøringfossen added a spectacular bridge over the falls. If you are not scared of heights you need to try it.

Since we were on the road for already 6 hours we opted for the easy way and drove up to the Vøringfossen parking.

It is by far one of the most mesmerizing waterfalls I’ve ever seen. Not only that but the waterfall was creating a local fog which created an eerie atmosphere.

After this quick stop, we continued our journey to Bergen and arrived somewhere around 7 pm.

Evening in Bergen

As expected when we finally arrived in Bergen, we were starving. We checked into our hotel and immediately headed out again to find somewhere to eat.

Like Oslo I found Bergen to be a “calm” city. Similar to the capital there wasn’t much traffic in the centre and has paved streets that make it enjoyable to walk around. However, there were noticeably more visitors. Bergen a very popular tourist destination as it has a lot to offer including many cruises in fjords and to other nearby cities, a historic district and many hikes around the area.

It became clear very quickly that for the next days if we wanted to eat out we will need to book a table. Every restaurant was fully booked! We eventually found a table at Olivia’s which is an Italian restaurant chain. Wasn’t bad but pasta wasn’t quite what we wanted to eat in Norway.

This little article concludes our third day in Norway.

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