Hardangerfjord cruise from Bergen: 179 kilometres of water

It is big rather than tight. Where Mostraumen is fifty metres across, the Hardangerfjord is measured in kilometres. The walls stand back, the light is different, and the scale reads as a landscape rather than as a corridor. People who expect a second Mostraumen are sometimes surprised by that.

It is farmed. The Hardanger district is orchard country — the slopes above the water carry fruit trees, and villages sit in the flat places where rivers come down. That gives the fjord a lived-in quality the wilder ones do not have.

And it has side arms that do narrow. The Fyksesund is the one to know: a thin arm off the main fjord near Norheimsund, and the reason the RIB trip from there exists.

The numbers. One hundred and seventy-nine kilometres long, the second longest fjord in Norway after the Sognefjord, and up to about 860 metres deep.

$88 — the seven-hour run to Rosendal. Two hours on the water each way and about three and a half hours ashore in a village with a manor built in 1665. This is the one to take if you want a day out rather than a boat trip, and it carries 644 reviews at 4.5.

$94 — seventy-five minutes by RIB. From Norheimsund into the Fyksesund, the narrow arm. Open boat, floatation suits issued, runs all year, and it is the highest-rated trip on this whole page at 4.9.

$136 — a hundred and five minutes by RIB. From Ulvik, further up the fjord, and the fastest way to cover a lot of Hardanger water.

The two RIB trips leave from villages on the fjord rather than from Bergen, so allow the drive out — they are for people already spending time in Hardanger, not for a day trip from the city.