NATURE CALLS...

JET OFF TO NORWAY FOR VIEWS YOU WILL REMEMBER FOREVER, SAYS EMILY HEWARD

- EMILY HEWARD

SHIMMERING lakes and tumbling waterfalls whistle past my window. Behind them rise hulking mountains dappled by melting snow.

I’m on one of the world’s most beautiful train journeys, passing through a wilderness just a short one-and-a-half-hour flight from the UK.

Bergen is the gateway to some of Norway's most spectacular fjords and the king of them is the Sognefjord, stretching and splintering more than 125 miles inland from the sea through dramatic valleys carved by ancient glaciers.

This mythically beautiful landscape is in day-tripping distance of the city, where I’m staying on a Jet2 city break on a Norway in a Nutshell trip — (fjordtours.com, around £182).

After a two-hour train ride to Myrdal, we hop on the historic Flam Railway. Once crowned the world’s best train ride by Lonely Planet, it passes spectacular scenery including the Kjosfossen waterfall, with its own stop so you can see its force up close. We also pass Rjoandefossen at the perfect moment as the sun hits its spray, refracting a perfect rainbow.

We get off at Flam itself, positioned at the tip of Aurlandsfjord. This beautiful branch of the Sognefjord demands to be appreciated from all angles, so we take a minibus up to the Stegastein viewpoint that juts out from the mountaintop 2,130ft above the village - a feat of engineering almost as magnificent as the views below.

We then head back down to board a fjord cruise. Nature is part of Norway's national identity and is carefully protected, its elements harnessed to produce most of the country’s energy from hydropower. Most vehicles are now electric, including our ship.