Fjords of Norway, fun or all fluff?

When you think of Norway, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Ask most people, in the USA, and the top 3 answers from anyone under 50 will not be the fjords. Why is that? Fjords is a n old people’s thing, they just are. Young people are not excited about them, or at least the ones in Norway. They’ll do them because they’re part of some tour advert about “top things to do when in Norway,” because the fjords are a major selling point for going to Norway, the question is “are they worth paying to see?” I know a lot of young people who completely skip fjords of Norway, but the know it’s a major attraction for the country. If you mention fjords, everyone automatically says “Norway” and they completely ignore, or are ignorant of, the fjords I feel are much better, the one we have right here in the USA! People under 50 don’t even know we have our own fjords, despite the world being a Norwegian word, yes, we have fjords in Alaska, and people keep sleeping on the USA because they think these other countries are so much better. People over 50, from all over North America (Canada and Mexico) know about these fjords because they’re always booking the cruises that take you to the Alaskan fjords, which is how I learned about them in the first place. Even as I write this, I know 3 different groups from Mexico and Canada that are on the cruises that are going to the fjords. This is what you do in Alaska for summer but most Americans have no clue! 🤡 You can find a lot of things in the USA and territories that you can find all over the world, and you certainly don’t have to go all the way to Norway just to go see fords. However, Norway does offer distinct differences, and that is what people find to be magical about Norway’s fjords. Still, they don’t even know anything about Alaska’s fjords. Why do I know? Because people were asking me so many questions when I showed them content from a trip I did to Alaska’s fjords, and even I didn’t know how blown away I would be with those Alaskan fjords. Actually, let me back up, if you even ask most people what fjords are, they wouldn’t even know, let alone know how to spell it. A fjord is an inlet of a sea, where the formation is very narrow, often it’s very long and it’s surrounded by high mountains and cliffs. Now that you know what is it, what if I were to tell you that even the state of New York, known for its wild New York City has a fjord, would you believe me? Well, it’s true, the Hudson River is a fjord! The Hudson River is a 315 mile (507 km) long fjord right in NY state. Isn’t that crazy? It spans the Adirondack mountains all the way down to New York City! If you’re followed this blog, you’ve seen us cross the Hudson fjord several times, on rail-bikes and just doing general leaf peeping in the fall like here where I did a 360 video on a bridge over the Hudson. Washington state has a few fjords as well, but Alaska is where you should head to see the best fjords, in my opinion, better than those in Norways in the photographic aspect. The problem with documentation of fjords and their locations is nobody properly tracks them accurately, except for in Norway, which is why I wanted to point out that you don’t need to try to be fancy an brag that you went to Europe to see fjords when we have them in our own backyard! You can easily plot a quick trip to these places whenever you want, over any weekend, extremely convenient. The lack of proper documentation on the fjords is that people mistake fjords for something that is created when there are splits in the earth caused by earthquakes, so, when they look at the areas that contains fjords, like in Alaska, Iceland and Norway, they think that that land broke up due to that. That’s not how fjords are formed, actually, they were formed since the ice ages, when the ice used to sit atop the mountains and cliffs, and the ice that moved in large volumes, which we know today as “glaciers”. Of course, it took many phases of ice ages to cut through all of that land, so it took centuries to form. As the glaciers moved, they were so heavy that they cut through the rock formations, as they slid down the slopes- yes, glaciers cut through rocks! So when you look at Norway’s fjords, you think that the land is untouched by humans and only nature has affected the lands. In the Geirange fjord, it’s the only untouched fjord, and there is no space to put anything anyway because the mountains are mainly to steep to put any structure, but the picture in the inset, that picture shows tiny waterfalls falling down from the mountain, and when you look at the waterfalls straight on, on the mountains facade, it looks really boring because the waterfalls are not that powerful. From the side of that picture, it looks much better because the mist of the weak waterfalls can be seen, which you can’t see straight on in the facade view, and it looks like an untouched jungle from that little picture there. You don’t even know it’s the Geirangerfjord. I sent that picture to the group of people who were on that very same boat with me, and they asked “where was that at?” 🤦🏾 They saw it like I did, they were there when I took it, and they didn’t see it. So, most people describing Norway’s fjords are like these people in my group, they don’t know what they’re looking at nor what to look for, but these are the people leaving the reviews that influence the opinions of people about the fjords, making it mostly fluff in their reviews. Geirangerford is line no other, that is for sure, and that’s why it is the one fjord, of all of Norway’s fjords, that you will always see in any advertisement, because it’s the only one that ever stands out.

The glacier movement is what created all those breaks in the mountains that created that long sea inlets, or what they call ‘lake drains’. To be a fjord, the geographical formations have to be long, not just have water that is surrounded by mountains. If you find a rock formation containing a body of water that is wider than it is long, then it cannot be a fjord, that’s a bay or a cove, but not a fjord. Think of a fjord an overly long “U” shaped formation, and like the letter, the formation is longer than it is wide. Another thing about the word fjord is that it’s a Norwegian word, and a lot of people don’t know this, and basically means “fare” which is related to the word “ferry”, eventually, which you need to get through them. The fjords tend to have the same kind of surrounding scenery, with lush greenery lining the mountains, and in certain times of year, very rainy in many locations. I used to go to the fjords of Alaska, which are very entertaining mainly because when you go there during the high season, you have a bunch of icebergs floating around, you have a bunch of wildlife out there in the scenery, you have crazy fog or mist, you have snow on top of the mountains and you have many glaciers out there in Alaska. There is so much to see, you cannot possibly get bored in Alaska. You go there and you are in a very strange environment that is set by being enclosed in those clouds and mist, and it’s like the sun doesn’t even get in, so it’s cold and low light. So, those fjords are vastly different from these that I saw in Norway, and I guess it’s because I went to those Alaskan fjords. Those are top notch photographically, the scene kept changing every half hour. Take a look here. Now with that scenery in mind, use that in the back of your head, to try to understand how I’m looking at these fjords in Norway, because they’re completely different in the summer than those in Alaska, and thus made it worth checking out for a comparison. In the summer of Alaska, that is THE time to go to the fjords because the icebergs are melting, but you have a LOT of fog as you head into those fjords because it’s still pretty cold in those areas, almost as if the sun cannot penetrate that area on the 2 days I went out to see them all. It threw me off completely. It felt like finding a hidden easter egg on the world map, considering that I flew into Anchorage and it was 82 degrees (28 celsius) but 42 degrees (6 celsius) in the fjords. Why is that important? Apparently, if you go online and look at this specific fords in photos, almost none of the photos will show you the foggy scenery that I love to see so much. That’s because the search engines will push to you the most popular photos that people are searching for and want to see, the cliffs that are not covered by fog! You have to tweak your search parameters to see the completely different views, the foggy views that I love to see, in the Nærøyfjord. I didn’t get to see that foggy view, because summer was less likely to produce that view given the temperature and conditions in that 1 spot. However, in some fjords, where we have a good day, the lush greenery up and and down the mountains of some of the fjords were really nice to look at, especially with the snow on the top of it. But how much of this can you take? Like for how many hours in a row, of seeing the same thing, can you take? So I will say that if you like green trees and sunshine, you will love the fjords that I saw, in the summer, there is plenty of it. I wish I could post the picture of my Brit buddy who was talking to me, and 10 minutes later, he was just silent. I looked behind me and I saw the guy fell asleep! 🤣 How do you fall asleep on a trip that is supposedly entertaining. This style of fjords is not for everyone, trust me.

The day I went, it was about 82 degrees which is why I thought of Alaska, immediately by contrast and those scenes, which is like you’re in a completely different world than you were even 1 hour ago when you took a boat out to see the fjords of Alaska. This is when I started to question if the Norwegian fjords were all fluff and I overhyped by the articles I read. My first of the fjords was Nærøyfjord, after arriving in Flåm by way of the Flåmsbana train (north). You can read about that interesting experience, in that link. For comparison’s sake, you can look at some of the scenery from the Alaskan fjords in this piece here. Big difference in summer. So when I did the fjords of Norway, I was underwhelmed and had to get myself in photography mode to look for things to take photos of when cruising down the fjords in boats. I had my eyes peeled for waterfalls, there was nothing but waterfalls to look for anywhere, everything else was pretty of underwhelming. I stayed above on the top deck, for most of the time, on all of the boats, looking for something of worth and trying to coach people on things to take photos of. You shouldn’t have to work that hard to find something of note to enjoy in fjords, come on now. People started to ask me, “how many of these do we HAVE to do?!” because they didn’t want to do any more fjords after this first fjord, and that really said a lot to me. I even wrote back home to tell people that it wasn’t as great as they hyped up, and what did they say to me back? “Are you in Geiranger though?!” They confirmed what I realized, after I got to Geiranger, that it was the best and probably the only fjord that was worth the time. Most of the people put their cameras and phones away and just walked around to stretch their legs. The most action I saw was the first 10 minute to 30 minutes on the deck, then everyone disappears from ennui. On top of that, it was very breezy and too cold for many people so that also chased them out. Luckily, the captain and crew would announce things to get the people to come out from inside of the boat to go outside and take random pictures. I want to show you what I mean when Is say that nobody was paying attention to anything in one of the most highlighted fjords, Nærøyfjord. When we went by the town that was on the side of the fjord, there was that town that Frozen was inspired to mimic in the cartoon, and I face the camera toward the best scenery in Nærøyfjord, and you can see just how many people were facing that direction and either looking at it, or taking pictures. Look the video below, they’re not paying attention to highlight of the fjord, they mostly don’t have the cameras out and there were a good 60 or so people on that boat, easily.

In Norway, I went to five fjords, and in my opinion, only 3 are truly worthy of going to go to experience, because quite frankly, when you see one of them, you’ve probably seen them all. The scenery is pretty much exactly the same. I went to Fjærland Fjord, Sognefjord, Nærøyfjord, and Geirangerfjord, and these are the best ones that are really worth the trip. A couple of these are just ‘arms’ of Sognefjord, as they branch off of Songnefjord, and each is beautiful in its own way. To make it to these, you’d have to go to the western part of Norway, which I got to by taking the world famous Flåm railway out of Voss to the Flåm valley, but you can go there from Bergen, Norway, if you’re there too. I got of the Flåm train and went to the Nærøyfjord first and took that boat from Nærøyfjord (18 km or 11 mi long) through the Sognefjord (203 km or 128 mi long and the longest of fjords in Norway), which was about long, and I stayed at a hotel that was located inside of the Sognefjord! That was a damn pretty location, it felt almost like I wasn’t even supposed to be there. You see the scenery and you feel like humans are polluting the natural scenery and disturbing the area. It’s like the fjords are interrupted by human stupidity and buildings. Interestingly enough, the fjords that I felt were the best, 2 of them that I said in this list of the ones I feel are the only ones really worth it, they happen to also be protected fjords that humans cannot screw up and destroy, as they’re UNESCO World Heritage sites. Nærøyfjord, and Geirangerfjord (15 km or 9.5 mi long) are the only two of the fjords that recognized as World Heritage sites, the others are too human compromised. If found that fitting when I heard the boat announcers say they were UNESCO sites and I felt, they were the best ones. When you take that train, if you travel to the town Gudvangen, you are right at the start of the Nærøyfjord. That place is so small, I don’t think it’s safe, or possible, to get those large cruise ships into the Nærøyfjord because it’s only about 250 meters (820 feet) wide, which makes it the narrower fjord in the world. My quick hack for anyone who wants to cover as much ‘must do’ things in Norway as possible, is to take the Flåm train, take the route E16 west to the town of Gudvangen, ride the length of the Nærøyfjord, and then you will notice that seamlessly blend into Sognefjord! If you’re not driving, no problem, there is a shuttle that will take you there, and bring you back after the tour, if you’re going back to the town of Flåm. If you’re doing like I was, going past the fjords, you could take the train and hit up to 3 fjords technically, either on the tour of going to land north of the fjords, in less than 3 hours and cross those off of your bucket list! And you should do it this way because if you spend all your time chasing fjords, I’m not sure how rewarding it is going to be doing this, based on my opinion of the scenery but mainly from seeing how people were acting out there, on those boats, because I saw most people staying inside of the boats, rather than coming outside and staying outside to see the scenery. I was busy talking to people, thus the reason I didn’t take a LOT of pictures, or video, because I was just not THAT interested for most of the length of these fjords. Clearly, some people braved the little bit of cold that was out there to see the scenery, but they felt that dealing with the cool or breezy winds up on deck, was not worth the scenery. When I saw this, initially, I started to realized that these fjords may be a little more overhyped that people lead on. Then, just like I did when I wanted to see what all the hype was with the Flåm train ride, I went to see the advertisement on the fjords, and a LOT of the most convincing information about going to the fjords, it’s views from drones and angles that you, the traveler, will not see, so when you get through the scenery yourself, with your own eyes, it is why you get disappointed- as people shared with me when discussing the fjords. People always ask me why I don’t go do better research of some places I capture in photos, and it’s because of this point I just make, many people are advertising to you from views you’ll never get to experience because you are not flying over these scenes. If you follow this blog, you’ll see several photos added from these same views, except not using a drone, but from being up in helicopters and puddle-jumper planes that make you sick when turbulence hits you. The fjords views are mostly from arial photos and videos, people showed me what they expected to see and I can see why they went under desk to just go to sleep. There is a lot of false advertisement for fjords. I just talked about Alaska, earlier, and you cannot misrepresent the expected scenery because you cannot fly drones (legally) in that area, and would crash if you took a chopper to the areas I went to, there is poor visibility and you would disturb the wildlife there. Yeah, the other thing you to go fjords to see is WILDLIFE. In Alaska, you have many birds who sit on icebergs watching you, not just way way way up in the skies. You have seals and other marine animals all about, in ADDITION to WATERFALLS, in addition to snow in addition to icebergs in addition to greenery of the mountains and cliffs. It’s ALL there in Alaska, so the most popular fjords, or at least the ones I went to in Norway, they didn’t have that same experience. Maybe I’m spoiled from what we have here in the USA? Well, these people with me, on this Norway trip, never went to Alaska and they were saying the same thing, so it’s not just me. I have receipt though, of them not paying attention to the scenery in the fjords, they were just along for the ride because they didn’t want to stay back at the hotels doing nothing.

Fjaerlands Fjord was a very pretty fjord, but mostly because the day was very clear, and the tones in tree, how they complimented the high-lines on the mountains, and the mountains being snow capped, that made for a pretty scene. So this one was a beauty to visit, but mostly because I caught it at the right time on the right day, otherwise, there isn’t that much that’s exciting about it. You need the colors to pop for this one to stand out well, and I saw pics of it on a day not so great, it was not that interesting, so, I was thankful that day was very clear. The Nærøyfjord has a lot of beautiful scenery, too, as soon as you take off through that fjord, you see little towns or camps on the sides, and you hiking areas that run parallel to the fjord, but that area seemed to be one of the most pretty because it was a bright and sunny day outside. However, there wasn’t a lot to entertain you there. I found myself lazy recording, while take a few pics here and there. I will say, all of the trees that lined the mountains that formed the fjords, were very lush, picturesque green, if you take a picture, you wouldn’t even need to alter the color to add anything, the conditions were just so perfect. The snow was just about all melted, and you could see that helped to fuel the waterfalls that were seen up and down the fjords. Most of the waterfalls that I saw in the fjords, especially the Nærøyfjord, were tiny, but they helped outline the beautiful scenery and high mountain cliffs, and the waterfalls were coming out of everywhere, which I assume was the snow melting because they came out of nowhere. What is really wild about the fjords, like Nærøyfjord, is that I could hear people having conversations from the other side of the boat, and the people were not even talking loudly. Those fjords, especially, are so quiet, you can hear a pin drop! It is a really wild thing to be in the fjords and hear that kind of silence, some people were saying it freaked them out. I could hear some people calling out to others who were at a shore in the fjords, they were waving to us on the boats. This was also helped by the number of people who went back inside of the boat and didn’t see scenery that they liked to come up on deck to watch the scenery with the few of us, for the duration of the ride. I spent a good 20 minutes out in a few of them with nobody around, on the top deck, so it was relaxing to be in such calm and feel like that was my personal ride. Still, I was looking around and wasn’t all that excited by the fjords. Nærøyfjord had a really cool scene though, as we went by the local village and hiking area there, if you looked just past that town, there was a huge and tall waterfall. That snow as all melted by the time I got there, just like in most of the other fjords, and I found out that it’s because they didn’t get as much snow as they used to get in that area, this passing year. That influences the number of waterfalls that you will see, and also the strength of those waterfalls. This did play a big part in the scenery because I saw the ladies were only excited when they saw waterfalls and they were not in tune with the little villages or anything else. No waterfalls means nobody is tuned in. The only people up on deck with me, most times, were people who had DSLRs and people who went to take pictures with the Norwegian flag. People were struggling to find scenery to shoot. A few people came up to me and asked what worth taking pics for that they can put on Instagram. I’d simply ask them “what do you see that you can describe with some excitement?” They’d answer NOTHING. Well, they clearly don’t see things with a photographic eye, but I could definitely see how they could come to that conclusion, they didn’t have telephoto lenses to be able to peek in on the action, so they didn’t really know what they were looking at when it came to those little villages/towns that were lining the sides.

It was a little windy up there too, and becoming a little colder as we proceeded north, so people were not too thrilled when they did not find good scenery to take pictures of but had to get out there to endure the wind and cool air that started to come in. The trade off wasn’t worth it, so if they did remain outside of the boat, they went to the lower portion of the boat, and behind it, where they’d sit there for hours and not move. I could see that anyone doing that was just chilling and taking in the scene but didn’t care for the photo taking. After I while, I did the same, quite frankly, but the scenery is relaxing anyway, so if you like this kind of mood to put yourself in, to pause the harshness of life, the struggling to get ahead in life, the brutality of your job, just do as we did, plop down in a chair and doze off or “space out” as we say. I did this a few times, and I didn’t go to sleep but I don’t remember large chunks of time spent on some of those cruises. I checked my 360 camera or the action camera for footage to remind me and I was like “I don’t remember a lot of this stuff.” When it got boring, I just let the 360 camera run and forget about. I don’t have to pay attention I can check footage to see what it caught, later, when I lazily use the 360. However, like that inset picture, if you were not paying attention, you’re probably missing the highlights of fjords that don’t really offer the greatest of views when it comes to the scenery backdrop, even on days with virtually no clouds in the sky, some of the surrounding is just dull. I heard the waterfall and didn’t see it, so I went to actively look for the hidden waterfall, and then I saw it, tucked between houses and structures that humans placed surrounding the waterfall- which ruined the natural beauty of it for me. I wanted to see the mountains with the waterfall, ruined! Look at the inset picture and you’ll see what I mean, you couldn’t even see the damn thing unti you were flush on with the facade of the mountain, and even then it’s obstructed by buildings humans put up. Booooo! 👎🏼. So, the only thing you have to look at it how the towns and houses/shacks are placed along the coastline, which often block the blessing of the area, which is what most people are claiming is so beautiful about the Norway Fjords, especially if they’ve not made it up as far north as Geirangerfjord.

There were little towns that lined the Nærøyfjord, and you can see them from the boat. That is amazing to live in the fjords, to live in such scenery, I’d pay anything to do that, and to get that kind of silence too? Priceless! Although, I’m not sure people live in most of those fjords, and you’ll see why as you look at the videos and pics- look how steep they are. That’s incredibly dangerous to live in a place with steep mountains especially since they get snow, in addition to the rocks and trees that can fall. Some of the places I saw, along the fjords, no way someone lived in those. I can’t see the houses surviving most winters if there is an avalanche, or floods of rain. When hiking some of the mountains, you can see that if you fall, it’s almost a straight drop down! If you go to Nærøyfjord, people are definitely there. Some people on the shore called out to us on our boat, waving to us, and we heard them clearly!  Another thing I meant to mention is because these 2 fjords were UNESCO sites (Nærøyfjord and Geirangerfjord), Norwegians aim to not add to the footprint and to do not want to pollute the air and environments in the fjords, so they created boats that are electronic boats, the one I was on was the “Vision of the Fjords“. I never even heard of such a thing, prior, but I got to ride on a new wave type of boat that take you through the fjords. The boat itself doesn’t even make any noise! I mean ZERO noise aside from it moving through the water! The boat is an electronic boat designed to not make emissions and noise, that was really wild to see. I couldn’t believe that such a thing could exist, but it was created in 2018, and is a most carbon fiber craft and is fully electric. I couldn’t believe that thing took us all the way to Sognefjord and then on to other locations, that’s wild. It created some awkward silence at times, but when you get near waterfalls in some of these places, all you hear is that waterfall overpowering all sound. Another interesting fact about those fjords there is that those little towns along the fjords are what inspired Disney films, such as in Frozen and other fairy tales. Seriously, they rode through these fjords and found these towns in the fjords so that town called “Arendelle”, in Frozen, is modeled after those towns. Anna and Elsa were born in the fjords and the two favorites I had, those are the ones that inspired the movie scenes. As I mentioned previously, people kept coming to me to ask me what should they take pictures of because everything looked pretty much the same, but it’s these houses and structures that seemed to be the real focus after a while. I advised them to look for the scenery that is natural, but look for the areas that are not so natural. I told them to find things like the sky with cloud formations contrasting with the mountains of the fjords, look how the colors of the fjords change, look how the structures of the mountains change, along with the waterfalls. The thing you should look for, in these boring situations where you want to record something, but there is just boring – but beautiful scenery – is to look for the human created structures that line the fjords. People have constructed all kinds of roads and houses left and right, that’s why most of the fjords lost their UNESCO qualifying traits, they’re too touched by humans and reshaped to be considered original. So, what you’ll need to do is keep an eye out for how people have placed man-made structures alongside the fjords, because some of them look really good how they blend into the background. Some of the scenery of the fjords will be hotels, some will be villages, but the pathways in and out of the villages, and how they interact with the mountains and scenery of the fjords, that can be quite entertaining. There are hiking trails along a lot of the fjords too, so, if you like something, make a note of its location and if you ever return, you can get boots on the ground and get up close and personal with that scenery.

This is what you need to look for, that is the most entertaining when you have a clear sky and good lighting and visibility. These scenes look terrible when there isn’t good visibility and the skies are cloudy or rainy. Every day that I did the fjords, and I did them over 2 days, I didn’t have any problems with the visibility at all, it was clear all around and that makes the scenery of just mountain and trees rather boring, so this breaks that streak, to look for the houses and roads, and not just the waterfalls. When I pointed this out to people, they started taking more pictures and that’s when someone told me about the fjords being the inspiration for the fjords town in Frozen – although, people are going to Austria because they were fooled into thinking the movie is based on a town in Austria. No, it’s Norway’s villages on the side of these very fjords I was touring, so you too should look out for those scenes that inspired those movies. I was trying to hype up my party by telling them these stories from the movies and what scenes inspired them, half of it I just googled without them knowing, while I was bored on the boat rides, then and tried to pass that off as genuine knowledge that I had prior. 🤣 LISTEN, Google is your friend, but I know now, right? I went there, right? I have proof and videos so now I’m the expert who gets to tell the tales and truths because I’m now informed, and that’s what I encouraged the group to be. They go into it when it came to some of the towns we were looking at on the sides of the fjords because quite a few of them look like just prettier version of Brasilian favelas. It looked like the houses and shacks were stacked on top of each other, going up hills, but you have to zoom in with a telephoto lens, or binoculars, to see that there is a lot of spacing between the structures, they’re just stacked up along the hillside so it looks crowded. I know because in the picture you’ll see below this paragraph, I went to this town after I got off the boat in Geiranger. That town is area is called Møllsbygda, and the distance fools you in that picture because it looks cramped from far away on the boat. If one wishes to leave the area to go north, they have to travers this fjord-side town and over the mountains to get there, via those switchback winding roads, which if you were to try to get to the mythical town on Trollstigen, this is the route you’d have to take. Look at that picture down there, this is what I was directing people to take notice of when it came to towns on the side of the road to spice up the boat rides, which you can’t miss if you are entering Geiranger via Geirangerford. You’ll need to look to your left too because there is a pretty but old and decaying farm that is opposite this view in the picture, that is easy to miss, but it’s an abandoned farm. It’s cool if you like to check out decaying structures in nature. The other important thing I’d instruct people to be on the lookout for were the waterfalls, and I had to get people to see things differently because all they cared to see were the waterfalls, which were mostly weak in Nærøyfjord this year. If the waterfalls aren’t popping in the fjords, I noticed that people tuned out and went back under the deck to sit.

Now, I’m not going to lie, after you do a few of these, they all start looking exactly the same. So if you talk about the good, you have to talk about the bad of watching fjord after fjord and fjord. It’s great to go up on top of the deck of the deck to enjoy the fjords and the scenery, but fjords also tend to be cold, and almost everyone I’ve ever been in has been cold, and windy because you’re on a boat moving forward, so you have to really have some good clothing on to not freeze. Me, I love cold, so I just sat outside, talking to some people with me and the next the I knew I went to sleep. I was so at peace there, it was so quiet, people on the boat stopped talking really, just chilling out, taking their pictures and after I took a few pictures, I went to sleep! 🤦🏾 It was just so peaceful, in the fjords, I went to sleep somewhere as we crossed the Nærøyfjord, going into Sognefjord. Once you see these things, you’ve kind of seen them all, let’s be honest. If you’ve never seen fjords before, then of course it’s interesting but there are some conditions that make for the best scenery, to me, and that’s the one that are the fjords that have fog or mist clinging to the mountain cliffs and clouding up the sky. That adds some real dramatic flair to the area, and I didn’t see that until I got in the fjords until I made it to Geirangerfjord. Many of the fjords have mountains absolutely covered in greenery, and those are pretty boring, but the ones that have a good much of greenery, and rock formations can be seen too, along with the waterfalls, along with some snow, some waterfalls, AND some human created structures, on well that is quite interesting then. A scene like that just screams ‘COLOR’ differences, thus makes for a good scene to photograph. I had to get people to see this because they weren’t finding enough things to photograph so they were becoming bummed about the experience in the fjords, and resorted to taking 100 selfies. Seriously, someone I met there she had over 100 selfies from that trip, and there was no different with any of them other than the ones I took with the background being the houses on the mountains and backgrounds with the snow mountains and the colors that were popping out when those contrasts were there. She was taking pictures of mostly her face, which is the hobby of a lot of people apparently, but what she was mostly trying to go for was the waterfall scenery to spice up the overall picture. She figures, her face is the beauty that makes the place come to life. What she was experiencing was the complete boredom of many of the fjords when you see the same scenery over and over and you don’t get a break from it, for 2 hours on a tour or a connecting boat to another part of your journey, as we were doing. It just become completely repetitive and she was trying to be creative, at least. I did a few videos and photos for her to breath some life into the experience for her, but it just wasn’t working for her. If you don’t have the waterfalls to distract you, you may easily get bored. If you don’t have a boat tour that gets you up close to the waterfalls, it’s boring and you should skip it if you have an option to do a basic boat ride because once you’ve seen one scenery like that you’ve seen them all, quite frankly. Go get a tour on one of the zodiacs, those tiny raft-like boats -which all town offer- to get up close to those waterfalls. Then you see and feel the power of these waterfall. It’s literally deafening to be that close to them. The other trick, if you want to maximize your experience with waterfalls, is to time your trip with the time that the snowcapped mountains will melt, which is end of spring to summer, as I was doing. This way, the melting snow feeds the waterfalls, making them more powerful, but also, where you see that snow meet these waterfalls, you will see that water turns blue out of nowhere, in some places. The conditions to see this better are as they exist in Alaska, with overcast, snow and fog. I did get to see this in Trollisten area of Norway, under the cloud cover, melting snow everywhere and complete fog in all directions, at a bridge with barely any wiggle room for a car and people to simultaneously be on the road. Be on the lookout for that road trip post, soon.

When we got to Geirangerfjord, and the scene changed up dramatically. I could see the sky look so dramatic, I could see the mystic look with pockets of mist lining the mountains, it was like a movie. It was mist, not fog, the rule is it’s called “mist” if you more than 1000 meters visibility but called “fog” if you have less than 1000 meters visibility). The Geirangerfjord is my most favorite of the fjords, because it creates such great scenery, from so many angles all around the town of Geiranger, I’ll talk about these places in a different piece, but that air and the mist that comes in from the ocean, turns into deep and thick fog in many locations, and it can get to a point where you can’t see anything in front of you, which I didn’t see while out in the fjords itself but on land, on the roads, or hiking, it was wild to witness a whole mountain overtaken by fog. Geirangerford is the most entertaining because it also has interesting waterfalls that are powerful and up in your face. You can take small zodiac boats that will let you get up close to the waterfalls, but any of the boat tours will get you close enough to get some great photos and not get wet while you do it. There are many options for boats but once you take 1 you’ve taken them all so there was no need to do another boat tour because you see the same exact thing no matter which style of boat type you take. If you took a ferry to bring you to Geiranger, you basically do the same tour, for free, so you could easily just take the ferry in from a place that offers the ferry and then you don’t need to order a boat tour! Save time and money this way. Except, when coming into Geiranger, the first day, just like the other fjords, it was sunny and with good skies, so I thought it was going to be boring, initially. Then, I got back to my hotel room and saw that I got the hookup from the hotel, and I was positioned directly facing the fjords mountains! I took out my amazing and trusty tool, Photopills. I saw that the sunset was going to be right in front of my window, right over the ridges of the mountain of the Geirangerfjord, so I want to try to get back in time to see if I could get out there and get a quick picture or something, if I could get back in time for the sunset. The problem with that plan was the app was showing that there would be no sunset until after 11pm! Yes, 11PM! I was running around the whole time, 8am out to different places, so I didn’t know if I was going to make it or not. I just threw one of the action came on a magnet and set it to record timelapse mode until my external battery gave out. So, here, that sunset helped to get a different, cool looks at the fjords, and the picture in the inset there was done on my phone. Oh, I was also testing out my new phone, bust or beauty, I was determined to put that new phone to work. I couldn’t last though, I was too tired so I just snapped a few pics and went to bed. Here is another thing if you think you’re going to get some starlight photos, YOU’RE NOT, or at least not in summer. The sun still lit up the sky, that sun didn’t go down. I got up at like 3am and the sky was not Black, it was still light out beyond the fjords. It was only dark where I was because the light was being blocked by the mountains of the fjords. That made it useless to take night time photos, since the sky remained lit the whole day, so I figured that maybe the best time to return, to do that would be in the after summer is completely over, but sunset photography would help create some excitement to the fjords. When I realized where the sun was setting, I wanted to get back to the spot that you see in the picture just below this paragraph, so I could get this angle toward the fjords and I couldn’t do it because this view right here, it was completely overrun with clouds and fog the very next day, despite how clear it was out here on this day. However, the very next day, when I was heading out north, not via the fjord but over the mountain to the right, I looked up at this very location in the photo below and I was thinking to get up there until I saw that the area was completely engulfed in cloud and fog cover!

I already had the special cruise scheduled, so I went down to the waters, to catch the boat, and the place was filled to the gills with people out there trying to get on several boats. There were whole busses of people being dropped off to get on the cruises out there, so they also confirm that Geiranger is the best of all the fjords. If you want extra context to what you’re seeing in the fjords, most will offer you a box that you can hear the captain better with, as he explains the terrain you’re seeing. Everyone on the boat had these radios and everyone remained active the whole time we were in the fjords, taking pictures, making videos, I had to work hard to find space to get in to be able to take the pictures that I wanted, but people were all in the way everywhere. They confirmed for me that they also agreed that this was the best of the fjords, hands down. Geirangerfjord has a lot of great waterfalls, some of the waterfalls began really high up on the mountain cliffs, on both sides of the fjord. There were even stories the locals told themselves that related the waterfalls, such as the Seven Sisters and Friar waterfalls. Of all the fjords, I think this was the only one I saw the huge ocean liner in. One of the cruise ships came to town and my hotel was facing out to the fjord. It was the best hotel stay I had, in Norway, and I certainly have to go back if I can get a view like that. Geirangerford was dark looking on my second day, and unlike the other fjords, the place got foggy very quickly and the sun was almost completely blocked out by 2pm. I only noticed because I did a hike to get a higher view and to visit a farm, and then I noticed that my camera was bugging out because I couldn’t get good light metering suddenly, but it was only 2pm, like I said. I was tempted to take another boat out to get a better look but I noticed that it was mostly cloud-cover and it wasn’t fog or mist, so that just made everything boring looking and trapped in. It was like we were under the over of the cloud and we were trapped inside the fjord with a lid on it. I looked out to the scenery and none of the color popped in the actual fjord itself, it looked boring out there. I noticed nobody was lining up to take the boat rides then either so I wasn’t alone in thinking some of these fjords were boring then the cloud came and took over the sky. That is when I realized that they kind of need sunshine out to encourage people to want to see those fjords, because people are there looking for color. Now, when you go out further into some of those fjords, you can see some good contrasts against the clouds, but where I was that day in Geiranger, they’re not taking you out that far to see the change in the sky, thus nobody wanted to take those boats that day. I did activities way outside of that area at the top of the day, because with that lost visibility, there isn’t a lot to do, thus, I went on a hike when I got back. The beauty of this place was that when people started to see the clouds on that 1 day it became cloudy, I noticed that everyone was gone! Nobody was in the streets, nobody was out taking pictures of the fjords, nobody was anywhere to be found. I was walking around with my 360 camera and didn’t see people for hours, and when I did, they were on the either on motorcycle or they were workers for some establishment. People didn’t see that the fjords being covered in clouds and fog was actually the better time to get out there and get some pictures that were different for once, different from all the other photos that other people take where there are no clouds around. The Geirangerfjord looked spooky to go into those clouds, and when I was taking pictures, especially with the camera phone, the pictures were horrible because the light couldn’t be properly refracted so the cameras showed photos that were not sharp at all. It’s because of all the fog, and I was trapped in it and had to go lower down in elevation in order to get some pictures off properly. I was on a hike and was too high up to see anything of note, which killed the pictures that I wanted to take at a spot I scoped out to take great photos from. So, this explains why there weren’t so many people out on the trains and going to higher elevations thus nobody was out in the streets at all, they gave up on the fjords photos.

When I left my hotel, to do the hike, or when I started packing to leave, anyway, it was 1pm, and it was sunny. Less than 1 hour it looked like a deep rain could come down, and it did rain over night that night, but the whole day before there were just accents of clouds, so the ones I saw overtook the fjord easily, and is common in many of the fjords. The sky can turn on a time in most fjords, and people told me to expect a lot of rain if I was staying in the fjords. If you’re at the mouth of the fjords, like where I was staying, you’re in a valley between the mountains of the fjords, so it’s going to be really dark. When I looked outside, that whole town was EMPTY. Nobody was outside but me! I walked up the tight roads to get to that hike, and I saw very few cars, I saw very few people, and the color was sucked out of the fjords. There was no rain, it was low chance of rain, I checked, but nope, people weren’t feeling moving around in two of the fjords when it was not sunny. As I went higher in the hike, I couldn’t get a look at the opening of the fjord because the clouds and the fog came into place as the hour hit 3pm, as I was going higher up on the mountain. It was a WASH! I did my hike and came back down, I had terrible views from up top of the mountain facing the fjord, because I couldn’t see any mountain tops nor the sky! That robbed the who damn view! That’s when it solidified it for me that these fjords didn’t compete with the Alaskan fjords really, and they were not terrible, but once you’ve done the ones I did, you will realize that you don’t need to see any more of them. I’m sure that if the overcast did not come in, and just the mist or fog cam out, then I would have gone out because those create really interesting views in fjords like Geirangerford, because it makes good contrast. The rain held off for the duration of my hike, so I was happy, but killed my viewpoint shots I wanted to get. After that quest failed, I head back down into town. When the rain came into play, it was light, and came over night, so it didn’t ruin anything during the daytime, thankfully. Be careful with those towns that center everything around tours of the fjords because when the conditions are not sunny, you may have nothing to do. People who I met up with on this tour, they didn’t do anything but stay in their rooms from 1pm on. The fjords towns are BORING mainly, with exception of Nærøyfjord and Geirangerjord, because you can go do other things in the neighboring areas going in the opposite direction of the fjords. At that point, I was looking forward to leaving that immediate town area, to go further east! The day I left though, it was brutal to get out of town, because that fog and clouding consumed the whole town by that final day, and in the morning. That day I did the hike and gave up on the fjord, it was over 22 C ( 70 F) and dropped to 10 C ( 50 F) by the time I got up the mountain, and when I came down it was 0 C (32 F) and freezing. So, I noticed that the mist was coming in late in that night, and there was no sunset for me to capture, unlike the night before, and there was no sky! I wished I could get out there in the fjord but of course it was 9pm by this time. I saw the fog set in, it was starting to overtake the sky. That freezing air is what made the conditions more and more foggy, so by the 3^rd day, when I left Geiranger, all that fog came in via the fjord and overtook the landscape. So, I guess it’s really a hit or miss with these fjords, but my personal preference is to have a day where it’s somewhat misty out, to add some character to the cliffs and the waterfalls, similar to what you are guaranteed to see in Alaska, which I still think are the best ones. I don’t like fjords on clear days, it’s boring so to me, when you see the pictures with the clear skies in the fjords, they have no character, and they are overhyped on those clear days. You see many pics of them mainly with homes in the pictures because the mountains of the fjords themselves are not that photographically interesting after you’ve seen too many. That’s when the fjords all look exactly the same, and after having done three fjords in a row like that, it was starting to lose its luster, with me. I’ll write in another piece about how I wanted the mist to make the fjords scenery more amplified, but instead what I got was something much worse, FOG, and how that affected the travel today. So, if you do fjords, check the weather before you go out and check if they have waterfalls, villages, snow, and all of these things that give the fjords some POP. If not, you’ll do like most people did in the boats I took, they went inside the cabin and were not that entertained- and I had one boat ride included in my tour and I didn’t take it. Don’t overdo it with the fjords tours, they’re not that special unless you’re trying to do some picture taking.

People without cameras and phones taking pics, they did not remain on the boat decks for more than many 10 minutes before they were bored with the fjords tours! If you do the tours, see if they offer them in Zodiacs, which set very low, and get up close to waterfalls, because that will give a much better experience as you’re looking UP on everything. I probably would have gone back out there if the Zodiacs were running, but the day I did the tour, those were all booked because the cruise line came in and took all the spots. Everyone came back and said it was ‘mid’ because it was no different that the other 2 fjords we saw. 🤷🏽 I just didn’t see how these Norwegian fjords compared to Alaska, they can’t, Alaska has them beat on things to keep you active visually when on those tours. I’ll make a part 2 to this and I’ll cover the Alaskan fjords and you can go back and forth with the comparison yourself and you’ll see what I mean. I can also share that the whole idea that Norway likes to use Trolls as its mascot is that they trolls are supposed to dominate the mountains from behind the mysticism of the mountains, but the idea is they’re coming from behind the clouds, fog and mist, to sneak up on you and maybe throw a boulder at you from behind obscure clouds. The scenery that matches the myths of them matches more in Alaska that Norway’s fjords. Possibly, going further north might produce similar but I didn’t even see 1 thing from wild life- ok maybe 1 or two birds, while in Norway. The fjords are still worth going to see, because the scenery is nice if you’ve never seen it and if you’re not doing too many trips to see them because they’re repetitive if you don’t see two completely different ones. You’ll have fjord exhaustion in under 2 hours, and I felt 1 boat ride could do that to people can’t find things to photograph. However, if you love nature and you love seeing GREEN TREES all over the place, then Norway is your place. I can imagine such a place if there were like color changes in the leaves like we do during fall foliage, but I don’t think that happens in Norway. Every time someone shows you how great the Norway fjords are, it’s 95% of the time ONLY talking about Geirangerfjord and only Geirangerjord. Every time you look up Norway fjords look at these pictures here, and match then up with the content I list is from Geirangerfjord and you will see it’s almost the same pics I put here, because it’s mainly from the same vantage points and it’s all people ever get excited about when it comes to the fjords of Norway. Still, I won’t lie, I liked them but it’s only because I know HOW to enjoy them and how to make them fun for myself- and wasn’t always successful in getting people in the group to enjoy the fjords most time. The beauty of the fjords that look like they are leading to jungles or something, meaning they’re “untouched” as they’re often described, as if you just left this land here for the entire existence of man, and this is how beautiful nature formed, that is what’s to love about the fjords of Norway. That’s NOT what people are saying they enjoyed about the fjords of Norway though, they’re talking about those villages and houses and farms made by humans, on the sides of the fjords, instead. They’re talking about the towns that are on the fjords and not the actual beauty of the fjords. THAT is the problem of the fjords, it’s mostly hype because people are not really describing the naturalness of, they’re talking about the man-made interference being beautfiul and they coming to see the man-made interference! Even right now, people I had in the group on that tour, they’re still not talking about those fjords, they’re talking about everything but those and sharing things other than fjords online. Go figure. 🤷🏽

As always, the finished products can be found on the main site of www.drunkphotography.com.