Norway's adventure capital — zip-lines, paragliding, white-water kayaking, and skydiving in fjord country
Voss is a small Norwegian town between Bergen and the fjords that has reinvented itself as the adventure sports capital of Scandinavia. The combination of Lake Vangsvatnet, the surrounding mountains, the nearby fjords, and the rivers draining from the Hardangervidda plateau has created a natural adventure playground: Voss Voss paragliding, the Nærøydalen zip-line (one of the world's longest), white-water kayaking on the Vosso River, skydiving over the fjord, and mountain biking on the surrounding ridges. The annual Ekstremsportveko ('Extreme Sports Week') brings 3,000 competitors to Voss each…
Voss has been a significant Vestland market town since the Viking Age — it sits at the junction of routes connecting the west coast to the interior of Norway and has records of habitation since 900 CE. The medieval Vangskyrkja (Voss Church, 1277) is one of Norway's oldest preserved stone churches, built from local steatite (soapstone). The town was an important early stop on what became the Bergen Railway (1909), which brought tourists from Bergen into the interior. The adventure sports identity developed from the 1970s when paragliding and white-water kayaking pioneers recognised the topogra…