BOOKINGThe mountains lie silent, blue, and heavy like stranded whales. The tourists are gone, the fjord people have wrapped themselves into their houses and lit the fire, outside we walk bundled in thick down jackets, barely poking out our heads to greet a neighbor. It feels as if everything and everyone has gone into hibernation. But then comes the light—the starry sky revealed in the winter darkness. At times the northern lights flicker above us. Yet the light we hold, the light no one can take from us, is the special fjord light. The long shadows, the sun brushing just the highest peaks, and the glow of houses scattered around the fjord in the dark of winter. That is the Fjord Light.
In 2005, Aurlandsfjord, Nærøyfjord, and Geirangerfjord were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as the West Norwegian Fjord Landscape. Not only because of the unique combination of narrow fjords and steep mountains, but also because of the vibrant communities that surround them. People who make their living from hydropower, or farming on the steep hillsides, or—tourism.
To sail across the fjord in the quiet electric ferry Vision of the Fjords in winter, with lights flickering from a handful of houses scattered along the shore, is to travel through a landscape the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once described as “the quiet solemnity”—a reverent stillness where everything seems to be waiting for spring.
Try it yourself: come and experience the Fjord Light.