Category: Norway and Norwegian Fjords

Norway and Norwegian popular ports and Fjords

While the primary attraction of Norwegian fjords cruise is the scenery, there is also a cultural element. There are historic landmarks and museums devoted to Norwegian history from the time of the Vikings to today’s North Sea oil exploration. For outdoor enthusiasts, there is hiking and kayaking. Cruise ships are a perfect way to see this area. Because the area is so mountainous, it is difficult to travel overland. That is one of the reasons the Vikings turned to the sea as their primary mode of transportation.

Norwegian cruise season runs from early May into September. The weather tends to be cool. It is also variable. A sunny day can become stormy and vice versa. With a wide variety of itinerary lengths and ship types, from mainstream to luxury and expedition, cruise travelers to Norwegian fjords have a lot of choices to tailor their Norway cruises to their interests.

Fjords are found in locations where current or past glaciation extended below current sea level. A fjord is formed when a glacier retreats, after carving its typical U-shaped valley, and the sea fills the resulting valley floor. This forms a narrow, steep sided inlet (sometimes deeper than 1300 metres) connected to the sea. The terminal moraine pushed down the valley by the glacier is left underwater at the fjord’s entrance, causing the water at the neck of the fjord to be shallower than the main body of the fjord behind it. Norwegian Fjords Cruises from include fjords like Nordfjord, The Stavanger region, The Sognefjord area, Romsdalsfjord, The Hardangerfjord region, The Geirangerfjord, Nærøyfjord…

Cruising Lysefjorden, Norway

Southern Norway’s Lysefjorden (Lysefjord) is a fjord in the municipality of Forsand, county of Ryfylke. Lysefjorden is conveniently close to Stavanger, Norway’s “oil capital.” The rest of Europe may be seen from this fjord more clearly than from any other.[…]

Cruising Hardangerfjord, Norway

One of the most stunning parts of Norway, the Hardangerfjord begins at the ocean around 80 kilometers south of the city of Bergen and is often regarded as one of the country’s most scenic regions. You are about to go[…]

Cruising Sognefjord, Norway

Norway’s longest and deepest fjord, the Sognefjord, reaches more than 200 kilometers inland to the Jotunheimen and Jostedalsbreen national parks. The largest glacier on the European peninsula, Jostedalsbreen, covers about half of Jostedalsbreen National Park. This national park is different[…]

Cruising Nordfjord, Norway

The Nordfjord is a well-known part of Norway’s western coast that provides excellent opportunities for outdoor recreation throughout the year. Near the Geirangerfjord and the Sognefjord, in the northern portion of Sogn og Fjordane County, is where you’ll find the[…]

Vikings History

The Viking Age in Western Norway Vikings, Norwegian and Danish, from Old Norse víkingr, were Germanic Norse seafarers, speaking the Old Norse language, who raided and traded from their Scandinavian homelands across wide areas of northern and central Europe, as[…]

Cruising Innvikfjorden, Norway

Innvikfjorden, a short arm of Nordfjord measuring around 4.5 kilometers in length and passing close to the village of Innvik, is located in Sogn og Fjordane. Skahellaren, Nesagarden, and Hogasen are close to Innvikfjorden. It’s also not far from Innvikfjorden[…]

The Sami People

The Sami are Norway’s indigenous people Travel to Northern Norway to experience their culture. Learn to throw a lasso, or try reindeer sledding. The Sami people also Sámi or Saami, traditionally known in English as Lapps or Laplanders, are an[…]

Midnight sun – light all night

What is Midnight Sun or Polar Day? There are a few months each summer when the sun never sets in northern Norway, well above the Arctic Circle. On or around the summer solstice (about June 21 in the northern hemisphere[…]

Norwegian Nortern Lights

When and where to find the northern lights in Norway Imagine yourself standing on deck as a brilliant display of green and purple lights swoops and twirls over the pure Arctic skies above you… If you go on a cruise[…]

Norwegian Fjords

Fjord Norway – a spectacular cruise destination Norway is often referred to as the land of fjords. The word fjord comes from Norwegian, where it can have a more general meaning: in many cases to refer to any long narrow[…]

Explore Norway and see the world famous Norwegian fjords

NordfjordeNorway from Vikings to Fjords to the Midnight Sun and Northern Lights In northern Europe, the thinly populated Kingdom of Norway, whose dominion includes the Arctic islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen, is partitioned by mountains and has a fjord-gashed[…]

Cruising to Alta, Norway

The town of Alta is the largest in the Norwegian region of Finnmark, and it is a great base from which to explore the region’s winter wonders, midnight sun, mountains, Sami culture, reindeer, and World Heritage rock carvings. Tree-filled valleys,[…]