Nærøyfjorden Cruise

Yesterday, I said that Flåm, where I am now, is at the end of a fjord called Aurlandsfjord. And I believe that’s correct. So why did I title this entry “Nærøyfjorden Cruise?” Because that’s what it says on the cruise ticket. That’s why.

I think the Aurlandsfjord is a small offshoot of the Nærøyfjorden. And I’m not sure, but I think Aurlandsfjorden might be considered a subset of Nærøyfjorden. An internet search tells me that attaching an “en” to the end of a Norwegian masculine noun (Aurlandsfjorden, Nærøyfjorden) makes it the definite form. If you put the “en” in front of the noun as a separate word it’s the indefinite form.

(Note that the “en” at the end makes it the definite, not the definitive form. Other fjords would rightfully get upset about Aurlandsfjorden or Nærøyfjorden being considered the definitive fjord. If it makes them furious enough, they might pick up and move from Norway to another country. To be honest, I’d be pleased if they found a home in Canada. They’d be a fabulous addition to any country, except maybe smaller nations, which wouldn’t have room for them.)

The point is, I don’t know the relationship between Aurlandsfjorden and Nærøyfjorden. As I mentioned in a previous post, I find Norway’s fjords confusing (see “Mostraumen Fjord Cruise.”). Gorgeous, but confusing.

The Nærøyfjorden Cruise takes two hours and goes from Flåm to Gudvangen. I could have opted to return the same way, but I chose to go back to Flåm on the shuttle bus run by the same company. The latter takes 20 minutes to travel from Gudvangen to Flåm.

Before I get onto the cruise, in case you’re wondering how wide and deep the fjords are, there was a cruise ship docked at Flåm’s port this morning. It was not the cruise catamaran that took me on the Nærøyfjorden Cruise, but one of the big ocean-going cruise ships.

Do you see the two pictures I stitched together into a single image and put near the top of the post? The boat (you can’t tell it’s a catamaran from that angle) at the top with the zigzag ramps up to its third (top) deck is the one I was on. The many-decked, scenery-blocking ship in the lower part of the picture is the ocean-going one. I prefer the one I was on.

I don’t imagine the super-gigantic cruise ships¹ can penetrate the fjords, but, still, that’s a big ship.

Because of the contrast in sizes, I’m going to call the vessel I was on for the Nærøyfjorden Cruise a boat, not a ship.

On the Nærøyfjorden Cruise

Upon leaving Flåm’s harbour, the weather was worse than yesterday. It was cooler today. It wasn’t raining, but dark ominous clouds hung in the sky. I guess that’s not the worst that could have happened when it comes to clouds. If the dark ominous clouds hung on the ground instead of in the sky they would have been called a pea-soup fog. They then would have felt the need to obscure the views as payback for the affront of that sobriquet.

Less than a half-hour into the Nærøyfjorden Cruise, the boat made a brief stop at what I think is the other end of the Aurlandsfjord fjord, or at least at a sharp bend in that fjord, at the conveniently named town of Aurland, a town that appeared much larger than Flåm. (Yeah, I’m kidding about “conveniently named.” I’m sure they have an identical derivation.)

But Aurland seems to be much less of a tourist destination than Flåm. The stop was a perfunctory one. The boat pulled up to the wharf and lowered its passenger ramp. I didn’t see anyone get on or off. The boat quickly raised the ramp and we were off again.

That roughly 90-degree bend in the fjord was one of two on the Nærøyfjorden Cruise. Even excluding those near-right-angle bends, the fjord(s) aren’t perfectly straight. The cruise route formed a jagged upside-down, ragged U-shape (see the map above).

Another large fjord forks off the base of the U, or, rather, because it’s an inverted U, its top if you hold the map like a normal person, i.e. with the north end up. I saw that forking fjord, but the cruise didn’t travel along it.

All of the verbiage so far has primarily been my attempt to stall. The problem is, I don’t know what to say about the Nærøyfjorden Cruise. It’s not that I didn’t think much of the cruise or that I thought ill of it. Au contraire, the exact opposite.

It was amazing. It’s just that I couldn’t begin to describe the beauty and grandeur of it. Well, I could begin, but my attempt would be as one small step to an epic odyssey.

I’ve seen beautiful sights in Norway both on land and on fjord cruises. This is my fourth and last fjord cruise of this trip. The others, on Oslo Fjord, Lysefjord, and the (maybe) Mostraumen fjord/channel, were all great. The panoramas along them were beautiful. I’d recommend taking any of them if you have a chance.

But the views along the Nærøyfjorden Cruise are, well …

Scenic Grandeur

I used a lot of superlatives to describe some of the vistas I’ve had the privilege to see on this trip. I’m not going to go back and check all of my previous entries, but I’m pretty sure I’ve used breathtaking, stupendous, spectacular, stunning, amazing and probably some others. And yesterday, in my post about Flåm, I even attached some modifiers to upgrade an already superlative adjective yet further.

I now regret that. It’s not that that previous scenery didn’t deserve those descriptives. They did. It’s just that it leaves nothing to describe the vistas along the Nærøyfjorden Cruise, which are even more spectacular. I didn’t think that was possible until today.

I’m almost glad that the weather was subpar today. The views on a beautiful day might have been to die for, but I’d like to live a little longer.

Majestic mountains tower over the fjords along the full length of the Nærøyfjorden Cruise route.

The mountain faces bear a variety of visages, including a lot of bare rock, but also forested and grassy slopes. Frequently along the route, waterfalls of varying sizes cascade down mountainsides on both sides of the fjord.

Wherever they can fit along the shores, which is rarely, there are charming villages and hamlets and even a town or two.

At one point, I saw a cluster of three, well-spaced homes just below the rim of a high mountain ridge. I assume there’s a road up there somewhere that was too far for me to see. Otherwise, those residents would have to do a lot of skillful mountaineering, not to mention boating, every time they went out for groceries.

It drizzled for the last half-hour of the cruise, but it was mostly just very light sprinkles. It was not nearly enough to chase me from the open decks of the boat to its enclosed cabins.

After close to two hours of unrelenting, indescribable (indescribable by me) beauty, the boat arrived in Gudvangen. I think a lot of people on these cruises turn around and go back on the return cruise of the same boat or take the shuttle bus that’s synchronized with the ferry. But I had booked the shuttle bus back to Flåm three-and-quarter hours after the docking because I wanted to have some lunch and see what there is to see in Gudvangen.

I’ll have more to say about Gudvangen in my next post. But before I close this entry I feel inexorably compelled to express my intensely deep, and from now on enduring gratitude to Slartibartfast for creating Norway’s fjords. He’s right to feel enormously proud of that accomplishment. Thank you, Slartibartfast. Thank you.

Note: If you didn’t get the preceding reference you have an intense and immediate need to read the late Douglas Adams’ five-part trilogy, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

1. UPDATE: On the day I left Flåm, the cruise ship I mentioned above was gone, and another one took its place. That second ship was probably about the same length as the first one, but it had about twice as many decks, so its hull must penetrate even deeper into the water. ↩︎