Waterfalls and waffles day trip: what is on it
My verdict: a good day out and a poor food tour. This is six hours by bus into the Hardangerfjord, it sits in Bergen’s food category, and its entire food content across those six hours is one freshly made Norwegian waffle and a small tasting of a local drink. Everything else — more food, drinks, souvenirs — is not included. Book it because you want the Hardangerfjord and a waterfall you can walk behind. Do not book it because you want to eat. Non-folding wheelchairs and non-folding strollers are not allowed.
What you are actually booking
A fjord, a waterfall you can walk behind, and a guide with good stories, across a day that starts and ends at the Fish Market. It is the only listing here that leaves the city at all, and the only one guided in German as well as English.
It appears in the same category a traveller searching for a Bergen food tour will scroll through, which is how most of the confusion starts. Read the itinerary rather than the category and the day is easy to judge: it is a fjord trip with a snack in it.
The food content, in full
One freshly made Norwegian waffle. A small tasting of a local drink. That is the list.
Across six hours, on a day that includes roughly three hours on a bus, that works out at one snack. Additional food, drinks and souvenirs are not included, so you buy your own lunch somewhere on the route or you carry it. Compare that with thirteen tastings in three and a half hours and the difference stops being a matter of degree.
The waffle itself is a real Norwegian thing and a good one — heart-shaped irons, sour cream and jam or brown cheese depending on where you are — and it is worth eating warm where you are handed it. It is still one waffle. Day trips with a meal in them, labelled honestly.
Where the six hours actually go
The listing publishes its running order, which is more than most day trips do, and it is worth reading before you decide.
- Bergen sightseeing, 20 minutes
- On the bus, 50 minutes
- Fossen Bratte, a photo stop, 25 minutes
- On the bus, 25 minutes
- Norheimsund, 20 minutes
- Hardangerfjord, 25 minutes
- Salthammeren Stone Age carvings, 15 minutes
- Steinsdalsfossen, the waterfall you can walk behind, 50 minutes
- On the bus, 75 minutes
- Bryggen, 45 minutes
- Back to Nøstegaten 40
Roughly two and a half hours of that is sitting on a bus, which is what it takes to reach a fjord from a city. The single longest stop is Steinsdalsfossen, and it is the reason to go: a path runs behind the falling water, so you stand underneath the Hardangerfjord’s weather with the waterfall in front of you. The other fjord trips from Bergen.
Non-skid waterproof shoes are recommended and the recommendation is not decorative. The path behind Steinsdalsfossen is wet by definition, and Bergen is a city that gets something like 2,495 mm of rain across about two hundred days a year, so the odds of a dry day out are not with you. What to wear here.
English and German, which no other listing manages
Every other food listing in Bergen runs in English only. This one is guided in German as well, which for a German-speaking family is the practical difference between a day out and a day of translating for each other. Which listings run in which language.
It also means the commentary is doing a lot of work. Two and a half hours of the six are spent on a bus, and what fills them is a guide talking about Norway — the orchards, the fjord, the weather, the waterfalls — while the road runs east. If that sounds like a long time to be talked to, this is the wrong day out.
The access rule, which is stricter than it sounds
Non-folding wheelchairs are not allowed, and neither are non-folding strollers. That is a harder line than most day trips draw and it rules out a lot of families and a lot of wheelchair users outright. A folding chair or a folding buggy is a different question, but the listing is specific about what it cannot take.
If step-free access is what you need, two Bergen listings state wheelchair access: the Taste of Bergen walk and the cider tasting. The access page has all six. Which of these work with children.
What catches people out
Mostly the bus. Six hours with two and a half of them seated is a long day, and the stops are short: twenty minutes at Norheimsund, fifteen at the Stone Age carvings, twenty-five at a photo stop. People who wanted to wander find themselves back on board.
Then there is the weather, which decides what a photo stop is worth. And then there is the category problem, which is not the operator’s doing. This trip is filed where people look for food tours in Bergen, so some of the people who book it are looking for food. They get one waffle. What a food tour in Bergen actually means.
What works
- Steinsdalsfossen, where a path runs behind the waterfall
- The Hardangerfjord, which you cannot reach on a city walk
- A published running order, stop by stop
- Guided in English and German, which no other listing here manages
- Air-conditioned bus or van, meeting at the Fish Market
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead
Worth knowing
- The entire food content is one waffle and a small tasting of a local drink
- Additional food, drinks and souvenirs are not included
- About two and a half hours of the six are spent on a bus
- Non-folding wheelchairs and non-folding strollers are not allowed
- Short stops — fifteen to twenty-five minutes at most of them
- It sits in the food category and it is not a food tour
What the listing commits to
- Six hours with a guide, in English or German
- An air-conditioned bus or van from the Fish Market and back
- One freshly made Norwegian waffle
- A small tasting of a local drink
- Steinsdalsfossen, Fossen Bratte, Norheimsund and the Hardangerfjord
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours before it starts
What it does not
- Any food beyond the waffle
- Drinks beyond the small tasting
- Souvenirs
- Space for a non-folding wheelchair or a non-folding stroller
- A meal stop long enough to count as lunch without planning for it
Who should book it, and who should not
Book it if you have one spare day in Bergen and you want the fjord. Book it if walking behind a waterfall sounds like the best thing available to you that morning, because it probably is. Book it if you want a guided day in German, because nothing else here offers one.
Do not book it as a food tour. Six hours and one waffle is not a food tour and nothing on there is any point pretending otherwise; the Taste of Bergen walk is where to send an appetite. Do not book it if you use a non-folding wheelchair or push a non-folding stroller. Do not book it if long bus stretches are the thing you avoid. And do not book it on a day when you also wanted to see the city, because it takes the whole of one. How many days Bergen actually needs.
The alternatives
The Taste of Bergen walk below is the food tour this one is mistaken for. The home-hosted lunch has a small dog in the house.
The only real food walkBergen: A Taste of Bergen Food Tour with Fløibanen Funicular
Somebody’s kitchenBergen: Home-Hosted Lunch with a Local
Shortest · step-freeBergen: Norwegian Cider Tasting Experience
Frequently asked questions
Is the Bergen waterfalls tour a food tour?
No. It is a six-hour fjord day, and its entire food content is one freshly made waffle and a small tasting of a local drink. Everything else you buy along the way. Day trips with a meal in them.
Can you take a wheelchair or a stroller on the waterfalls tour?
Not a non-folding one. The listing does not allow non-folding wheelchairs or non-folding strollers. Two Bergen listings do state wheelchair access. The access page.
Can you really walk behind the waterfall?
Yes. Steinsdalsfossen has a path running behind the falling water, and it gets the longest stop of the day at about 50 minutes. Non-skid waterproof shoes are recommended. Other fjord trips from Bergen.