Where the fjord ends and the world's most scenic railway begins
Flåm sits at the innermost tip of Aurlandsfjord, a branch of the mighty Sognefjord — Norway's longest and deepest fjord — and is the terminus of the Flåmsbana, one of the steepest standard-gauge railway lines in the world. The 20km train ride descends 863 metres through thundering waterfalls, past the Kjosfossen waterfall where a Huldra (Norse forest sprite) is said to dance, and through 20 tunnels hand-drilled by workers in the 1920s–40s. The village itself is tiny — barely 500 residents — but handles over a million visitors a year, many arriving by cruise ship.
Flåm's railway, the Flåmsbana, was completed in 1940 after 20 years of construction by hand, without electricity. Workers drilled 20 tunnels through solid granite, including one with a 180-degree spiral inside a mountain. The line descends 55.6 metres per kilometre at its steepest — so steep it requires five independent braking systems. The Sognefjord, at 1,308 metres deep, was carved by glaciers during multiple ice ages and has been a major shipping route since the Viking Age. The nearby Borgund Stave Church (1150 AD), one of Norway's best-preserved medieval wooden churches, is 30 minutes aw…