Flåm is a village at the inner end of the Aurlandsfjord, an arm of the Sognefjord. The village is located in the municipality of Aurland in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. The village is located along the E16 highway, about 7 kilometres southwest of Aurlandsvangen, 12 kilometres south of Undredal, and 15 kilometres east of Gudvangen.The village of Flåm is a popular tourist destination and has been so since the late 19th century. It currently receives almost 450,000 visitors a year. Most come to enjoy the scenic 20-kilometre Flåm railway between Flåm and Myrdal, one of the steepest railway tracks at 1 in 18 in the world. There are also a few spirals.A former rail station building in Flåm now houses a museum dedicated to the Flåm railway.The harbour of Flåm receives some 160 cruise ships per year, including MS Independence of the Seas and RMS Queen Mary 2.

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Lofoten is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Though lying within the Arctic Circle, the archipelago experiences one of the world's largest elevated temperature anomalies relative to its high latitude.Lofoten was originally the old name of the island Vestvågøya. The first element is ló and the last element is derived from Norse fótr, as the shape of the island must have been compared with a foot of a lynx.Winter temperatures in Lofoten are very mild considering its location north of the Arctic Circle – Lofoten has the largest positive temperature anomaly in the world relative to latitude. This is a result of the Gulf Stream and its extensions: the North Atlantic Current and the Norwegian Current. Røst and Værøy are the most northerly locations in the world where average temperatures are above freezing all year.

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Reine is a fishing village and the administrative centre of the municipality of Moskenes in Nordland county, Norway. It is located on the island of Moskenesøya in the Lofoten archipelago, above the Arctic Circle, about 300 kilometres southwest of the town of Tromsø. The 0.33-square-kilometre village has a population of 329. The population density is 997 inhabitants per square kilometre.Reine Church is located here and it serves the northern part of the municipality.Reine has been a commercial centre since 1743. Today tourism is important, and despite of its remote location, thousands of people visit this village annually. The village is situated on a promontory just off the European route E10 highway, which passes through the village. Reine is located immediately to the south of Sakrisoya and Hamnøya.The largest weekly magazine in Norway selected Reine as the most beautiful village in Norway in the late 1970s. A photograph over Reine from the mountain Reinebringen has been used for the front page of several tourist brochures and books.

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Gudvangen is a village in the municipality of Aurland in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. It is a popular tourist destination and is located at the end of the Nærøyfjord where the Nærøydalselvi river empties into the fjord. The highway E16 passes by the village. Heading southwest on the highway leads to Voss while heading northeast the E16 enters the Gudvanga Tunnel on its way to Flåm, Undredal, and Aurlandsvangen. The nearby village of Bakka lies about 5 kilometres to the north. The Kjelfossen waterfall is located just to the southeast of the village.The name Gudvangen comes from the old farm name. The first element is gud meaning a "heathen god". The vang word is still in use referring the open space in front of a place of worship like Aurlandsvangen and Vossevangen. In Gudvangen, there have been several places of worship since pre-Christian times.

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Mågelibanen is a funicular with double track line arranged on a timber trestle work in Skjeggedal in Odda, Hordaland, Norway. From the station close to the Ringedals Dam and the lake Vetlavatn, the funicular ascends 430 meters to the top station Mågelitopp, 860 meters above sea level. The Mågelibanen is part of an industrial landscape connected to the listed hydroelectric power station in Tyssedal and the industry in the city of Odda.Mågelibanen was built 1911-1912 by AS Tyssefaldene for transportation of workers and equipment to the mountains in connection to the building of a 600-meter long transfer tunnel between the lakes Øvre and Nedre Bersåvatnet in the Tyssedalsfjellene. The funicular was later used for supervision and maintenance of mountain installations. The funicular has also been used for new hydroelectric constructions in the area.In connection to the 50th anniversary of AS Tyssefaldene in 1956 the funicular was upgraded and given as gift from the company to the people of Tyssedal. When the funicular opened, it made the spectacular rock formation Trolltunga and the attractive mountain plateau of Hardangervidda accessible to the public.

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Lofoten is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Though lying within the Arctic Circle, the archipelago experiences one of the world's largest elevated temperature anomalies relative to its high latitude.Lofoten was originally the old name of the island Vestvågøya. The first element is ló and the last element is derived from Norse fótr, as the shape of the island must have been compared with a foot of a lynx.The sea is rich with life, and the world's largest deep water coral reef is located west of Røst.Lofoten has a very high density of sea eagles and cormorants, and millions of other sea birds, among them the colourful puffin. Otters are common, and there are moose on the largest islands. There are some woodlands with Downy birch and Rowan. There are no native conifer forests in Lofoten, but some small areas with private spruce plantations. Sorbus hybrida and Malus sylvestris occur in Lofoten, but not further north.The animals mistaken as the extinct Great Auk turned out to be some of the nine King penguins released around Norway’s Lofoten Islands in August 1936, there until at least 1944.Lofoten offers many rock climbing and mountaineering opportunities. It has 24 hours of daylight in the summer and has Alpine-style ridges, summits and glaciers, but at a height of less than 1,200 metres. The main centre for rock climbing is Henningsvær on Austvågøya.The main areas for mountaineering and climbing are on Austvågøya and Moskenesøya. Moskenesøya is the most complete area for climbing. For more information, see the books by Dyer and Webster.

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Trollstigen is a serpentine mountain road in Rauma Municipality, Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of Norwegian National Road 63 that connects the town of Åndalsnes in Rauma and the village of Valldal in Norddal Municipality. It is a popular tourist attraction due to its steep incline of 10% and eleven hairpin bends up a steep mountainside. During the top tourist season, about 2,500 vehicles pass daily.During the 2012 season, 161,421 vehicles traversed the route, compared to 155,230 vehicles during 2009.The road is narrow with many sharp bends, and although several bends were widened during 2005 to 2012,vehicles over 12.4 metres long are prohibited from driving the road. During the 2011 and 2012 seasons, buses up to 13.1 metres were temporarily allowed as a trial.At the 700-metre plateau there is a car park and several viewing balconies overlooking the bends and the Stigfossen waterfall. Stigfossen falls 320 metres down the mountainside. The pass has an elevation of approximately 850 metres.Trollstigen is closed during late autumn and winter. A normal operating season stretches from mid-May to October, but may sometimes be shorter or longer due to weather conditions.Trollstigen was opened on 31 July 1936, by King Haakon VII after eight years of construction.A major tourist facility including a museum was completed in 2012. Several viewing platforms have been constructed and older constructions improved upon. Trollstigen was officially opened as a national tourist route by the Minister of Transport and Communications on 16 June 2012.Trollstigen itself lies within the Trollstigen landscape protection area,while the alpine area east of Trollstigen, notably Trolltindene range, is part of Reinheimen National Park.In the summer of 2005, the road was repaired and about NOK 16 million was spent on protection against rockfall, making the road safer to drive on.

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Lysefjord is a fjord located in Forsand in Ryfylke in south-western Norway. The name means light fjord, and is said to be derived from the lightly coloured granite rocks along its sides.The fjord was carved by the action of glaciers in the ice ages and was flooded by the sea when the later glaciers retreated. The geology of Lysefjorden was thoroughly investigated and described by Professor Bjørn G. Andersen in his Master's thesis ”Om isens tilbaketrekking i området mellom Lysefjorden og Jøsenfjorden i Ryfylke”.[1]End to end, it measures 42 km with rocky walls falling nearly vertically over 1000 m into the water. Because of the inhospitable terrain, the fjord is only lightly populated and only has two villages on its length - Forsand and Lysebotn, located at opposite ends of the fjord. The few people who live or lived along the fjord are only able to leave their homes by boat, as the slopes are too steep for roads.Lysebotn, at the far eastern end, is largely populated by workers at the nearby hydroelectric plants at Lyse and Tjodan, both built inside the mountains. At the Lyse plant, the water falls 620 m to the turbines, producing up to 210,000 kW of electricity; at Tjodan, the water falls 896 m to yield an output of 110,000 kW. The two power plants provide electricity for more than 100,000 people. A spectacular road which rises almost 900 m through a series of 27 hairpin bends links Lysebotn with the outside world.Lysefjord is an extremely popular tourist attraction and day trip from nearby Stavanger, from where cruise ships travel the full distance of the fjord. As well as the extraordinary scenery of the fjord itself, two points along its length are popular side trips. The rock of Preikestolen, located above a vertical drop of 600 meters, can be seen from the fjord, but is more impressive from above. At the end of the fjord lies the Kjerag mountain, a popular hiking destination with even more spectacular drops.On the east side of the fjord lies the town Lysebotn.Not only is the fjord long and narrow, it is in places as deep as the mountains are high. Only 13 m deep where it meets the sea near Stavanger, the Lysefjord drops to a depth of over 400 m below the Preikestolen.French writer Victor Hugo poetized in Toilers of the Sea admiring the scenery after a visit in 1866 that the Lysefjord was the most terrifying of the ocean reefs.

BASE Jumpers are legally allowed to jump here.

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Reine is a fishing village and the administrative centre of the municipality of Moskenes in Nordland county, Norway. It is located on the island of Moskenesøya in the Lofoten archipelago, above the Arctic Circle, about 300 kilometres outhwest of the town of Tromsø. The 0.33-square-kilometre village has a population of 329. The population density is 997 inhabitants per square kilometre.Reine Church is located here and it serves the northern part of the municipality.Reine has been a commercial centre since 1743. Today tourism is important, and despite of its remote location, thousands of people visit this village annually. The village is situated on a promontory just off the European route E10 highway, which passes through the village. Reine is located immediately to the south of Sakrisoya and Hamnøya.The largest weekly magazine in Norway selected Reine as the most beautiful village in Norway in the late 1970s. A photograph over Reine from the mountain Reinebringen has been used for the front page of several tourist brochures and books.

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Lofoten is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Though lying within the Arctic Circle, the archipelago experiences one of the world's largest elevated temperature anomalies relative to its high latitude."here is evidence of human settlement extending back at least 11,000 the earliest archaeological sites ... are only about 5,500 old, at the transition from the early to late Stone Age." Iron Age agriculture, livestock, and significant human habitation can be traced back to ~250 BCE.The town of Vågan is the first known town formation in northern Norway. It existed in the early Viking Age, maybe earlier, and was located on the southern coast on eastern Lofoten, near today's village Kabelvåg in Vågan municipality. However, the Lofotr Viking Museum with the reconstructed 83-meter-long longhouse is located near Borg on Vestvågøy, which has many archeological finds from the Iron Age and Viking Age.The islands have for more than 1,000 years been the centre of great cod fisheries, especially in winter, when the cod migrates south from the Barents Sea and gathers in Lofoten to spawn. Bergen in southwestern Norway was for a long time the hub for further export south to different parts of Europe, particularly so when trade was controlled by the Hanseatic League. In the lowland areas, particularly Vestvågøy, agriculture plays a significant role, as it has done since the Bronze Age.Lofotr was originally the name of the island of Vestvågøy only. Later it became the name of the chain of islands. The chain of islands with its pointed peaks looks like a lynx foot from the mainland. In Norwegian, it is always a singular. Another name one might come across, is "Lofotveggen" or the Lofoten wall. The archipelago looks like a closed wall when seen from elevated points around Bodø or when arriving from the sea, some 100 km long, and 800-1,000 m high.In 1941, the islands were raided by British Commandos during Operation Claymore in March and a subsequent diversionary attack to support the Vaagso raid in December.

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Bergen is a city and municipality in Hordaland on the west coast of Norway. As of 1 January 2014, the municipality had a population of 271,400 and the Greater Bergen Region had a population of 398,800, making Bergen the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers an area of 465 square kilometres and is located on the peninsula of Bergenshalvøyen. The city centre and northern neighbourhoods are located on Byfjorden and the city is surrounded by mountains. For this reason, Bergen is known as the city of seven mountains. Many of the extra-municipal suburbs are located on islands. Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland and consists of eight boroughs—Arna, Årstad, Åsane, Bergenhus, Fana, Fyllingsdalen, Laksevåg and Ytrebygda.Trading in Bergen may have started as early as the 1020s, but the city was not incorporated until approximately 1070. It served as Norway's capital in the 13th century, and from the end of the 13th century became a bureau city of the Hanseatic League. Until 1789, Bergen enjoyed exclusive rights to mediate trade between Northern Norway and abroad. The remains of the quays, Bryggen, is a World Heritage Site. The city was hit by numerous fires. The Norwegian School of Economics was founded in 1936 and the University of Bergen in 1946. From 1831 to 1972, Bergen was its own county. In 1972 the municipality absorbed four surrounding municipalities, and at the same time became a part of Hordaland county.The city is an international centre for aquaculture, shipping, offshore petroleum industry and subsea technology, and a national centre for higher education, tourism and finance. The city's main football team is SK Brann and the city's unique tradition is the buekorps. Natives speak the distinct Bergensk dialect. The city features Bergen Airport, Flesland, the Bergen Light Rail and is the terminus of the Bergen Line; Bergen Port is Norway's busiest. Four large bridges connect Bergen to its suburban municipalities.

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Preikestolen or Prekestolen, also known by the English translations of Preacher's Pulpit or Pulpit Rock, is a steep and massive cliff 604 metres above Lysefjorden, opposite the Kjerag plateau, in Forsand, Ryfylke, Norway. The top of the cliff is approximately 25 by 25 metres, almost flat, and is a famous tourist attraction in Norway.The tourism at the site has been increasing, around 2012, the plateau was each year visited by between 150,000 and 200,000 people who took the 3.8 km hike to Preikestolen, making it one of the most visited natural tourist attractions in Norway. In fact, there were so many tourists during the summer season of 2012 that a project to improve the path up to the cliff is currently under way.The old local name of the natural attraction is Hyvlatonnå. The name Prekestolen is a newer invention, around the year 1900 the lokal tourist organisation, Stavanger Turistforening wanted to promote the place for trekking and thus gave the place a more telling name. It has later on been adapted by the local community, and since the official form of Norwegian in the area is Nynorsk, the i has been added, hence the official name is now Preikestolen.

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Gudvangen is a village in the municipality of Aurland in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. It is a popular tourist destination and is located at the end of the Nærøyfjord where the Nærøydalselvi river empties into the fjord. The highway E16 passes by the village. Heading southwest on the highway leads to Voss while heading northeast the E16 enters the Gudvanga Tunnel on its way to Flåm, Undredal, and Aurlandsvangen. The nearby village of Bakka lies about 5 kilometres to the north. The Kjelfossen waterfall is located just to the southeast of the village.The name Gudvangen comes from the old farm name. The first element is gud meaning a "heathen god". The vang word is still in use referring the open space in front of a place of worship like Aurlandsvangen and Vossevangen. In Gudvangen, there have been several places of worship since pre-Christian times.

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