Hardangerfjord Day Trip from Bergen: Steinsdalsfossen and Cider Orchards

While Sognefjord to the north of Bergen is sheer, dark and vertical, Hardangerfjord (Norway's second-longest fjord at 179 kilometres, lying immediately south-east of Bergen) is softer, wider and famously known as the orchard of Norway. Terraced slopes holding hundreds of thousands of apple, sweet cherry, plum and pear trees rise from the turquoise water toward the blinding white dome of the Folgefonna glacier. Because the western shore of Hardangerfjord at Norheimsund is only 75 minutes east of Bergen by public bus, it makes an effortless day out.

Option 1: Norheimsund, Walking Behind Steinsdalsfossen & Eidfjord Cruise

Board Skyss express bus Line 925 from Bergen Busstasjon (Platform O, right next to the train station) using a regular Skyss regional ticket. In 1 hour 20 minutes the bus climbs through the Tokagjelet gorge and drops down to the fjordside village of Norheimsund:

• Walk behind Steinsdalsfossen Waterfall: two kilometres west of Norheimsund quay (where Bus 925 stops directly outside the car park) thunders Steinsdalsfossen, a 50-metre waterfall fed by the Fosselva river. Because the water projects outward over a hollowed rock overhang, a dry, paved footpath with a railing climbs right behind the falling curtain of water without getting you soaked.
• Hardanger Maritime Museum (Hardanger Fartøyvernsenter): on the Norheimsund waterfront, watch traditional boatbuilders crafting clinker-built wooden Hardanger rowboats and walk across a rope bridge suspended over the fjord.
• Summer Fjord Cruise to Ulvik and Eidfjord (May to September): timed directly with the morning bus arrival from Bergen, the Norled Hardangerfjord sightseeing boat sails east from Norheimsund past Herand, Utne and the cider orchards of Ulvik to Eidfjord (where optional buses climb to the 182-metre twin drop of Vøringsfossen waterfall and its dramatic step-bridge over the canyon) before sailing back to Norheimsund for the evening bus to Bergen.

Option 2: The Rosendal Express Boat and Baroniet Manor

Year-round from Strandkaiterminalen in central Bergen, the Hardangerfjord Express Boat (Rødne) sails south through the coastal islands in 1 hour 55 minutes to Rosendal. Walk twenty minutes from the quay to Baroniet Rosendal (1665), Scandinavia's smallest castle surrounded by a fragrant 300-year-old Renaissance rose garden, kitchen garden and waterfall beneath the peaks of Malmangernuten.