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According to Fjord Norway, the regional tourist board, Norway's four western counties are quite simply "the world's most beautiful destination!"

Indeed, Norway's celebrated fjords are all many tourists know about the country. These long, narrow arms of the sea, often stretching some kilometres inland and surrounded by high hills or cliffs, are hugely popular destinations for cruise ships, day-trippers and longer-stay visitors alike - above all in Norway, even though some other countries, such as Chile and New Zealand, can boast similar geographical features.

The Fjord Country offers endless opportunities for outdoor activities all year round: skiing (even during the summer!), rock-climbing or hiking over glaciers; boating, fishing, cycling. A vast range of land- and seascapes, from the spectacular fjords themselves to the breathtaking mountain passes and the ever-changing coastal areas, is accessible by car, bicycle, boat, and on foot. The fjords, waterfalls and mountains of the region, encompassing the counties of Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Hordaland, and Rogaland, have become the archetypal vision of Norway.

When glaciers retreat
Norway's fjords were formed by glacial erosion during the succession of Ice Ages which ended more than ten thousand years ago. Fjords are basically underwater valleys, similar to those created on land by rivers and streams. Only glaciers can create valleys below sea level, however; and when the glaciers retreat, it is these valleys, filling with seawater, that become fjords.

The best-known of the western Norwegian fjords, and the most spectacular ones by far, are Sognefjord, Geirangerfjord, Hardangderfjord and Lysefjord. Geirangerfjord has been listed as a Unesco World Heritage site together with Nærøyfjord, a branch of Sognefjord.

Each is unique: Sognefjord for its size (the world's longest and deepest), Geirangerfjord for its many superb waterfalls, Hardangerfjord for the exquisite flowering of its fruit orchards, and Lysefjord for its spectacular cliff formations such as Pulpit Rock, where only the most daring venture out to the edge.

Cultural treasures
Although the farms of the fjord country are small and difficult to work, there are oases of easy living in handsome manor estates and ornate wooden hotels in Swiss or dragon style that were built in the very early days of tourism. In this part of the world, the sea was the main thoroughfare until relatively recently. Many of the coastal towns and villages, though now well out of the mainstream, survive as cultural treasures that are well worth a detour.

The great coastal cities of western Norway were also founded on the wealth of the sea: Kristiansund on cod, for example, and Ålesund on herring. Today Ålesund is known for its magnificent Jugend (Art Nouveau) architecture, while nearby Molde is the city of jazz festivals and roses. Norway's second largest city, the Hanseatic city of Bergen, is the gateway to the fjords and the birthplace of composer Edvard Grieg. Attractions include the picturesque market square (Bryggen), a thriving open-air fish market, and a funicular (Floibanen) to the top of Mount Fløyen.

To the south is Stavanger, the Norwegian oil capital, which boasts the largest area of old wooden houses in Europe. Many of the whitepainted buildings and cobbled lanes date back to the time of sailing vessels. At the sardine canning museum you can taste the freshly smoked product straight from the oven. An impressive Petroleum Museum is a more recent attraction.

Outside Stavanger, the coastal district of Jæren is an attractive stretch of long beaches, flat fields divided by stone fences and distinctive, low, white houses. The white city of Skudeneshavn on Karmøy island outside of Haugesund is another architectural gem. Karmøy is an idyllic choice for a holiday, offering stunning ocean views and excellent fishing.

There is no shortage of tour operators in western Norway offering anything from day trips to organized cycling or riding holidays, or rail travel combined with cruises and coach trips. Some package tours of 10 days or more take in a sampling of almost everything: fjords, valleys, mountains, lakes, national parks, cruises and some of the most spectacular railroad journeys in the world.

• Møre og Romsdal
• Sogn og Fjordane
• Hordaland
• Rogaland

The famous Atlantic Road with its eight bridges winds like a sea serpent through the forceful ocean, over islets scoured smooth by the elements, from Kårvåg on Averøya to Vevang on the mainland. Wind and weather make for a great variety of experience, from howling storms sending breakers crashing over the road to a calm and peaceful sea.

The road was acclaimed as the construction of the twentieth century. The British newspaper ”The Guardian” has called this the finest tourist road in the world.

The tourist route also includes the road onward to Bud, through the landscape of fishermen and farmers along Hustadvika. The road and the landscape offer wonderful cycling and walking opportunities.

The ”road in the sea” offers many spots for angling. The area is also rich in seabirds and seals. Out here by the open sea, nature’s challenges include wind and wave surfing, diving in the ships’ graveyard of Hustadvika and other exciting prospects.

Geiranger - Trollstigen is a road through west Norwegian nature at its most powerful, with a dizzying view of sheer mountainsides, deep fjords and fertile valleys. Since the childhood of tourism, Geiranger and Trollstigen have been visited by tourists from all over the world.

The road called Trollstigen has been a magnet for tourists since opening in 1936. Being able to drive up this steep mountainsides is thanks to the skills of engineers and road builders. In Geiranger, Ørnevegen and the road to Dalsnibba offer some elevating drives to unique viewpoints. At the top of Trollstigen, bold new architecture will leave a mark of our own times in the building of viewing ramps spanning thin air above the road. Elsewhere on the tourist route, Gudbrandsjuvet, Ørnesvingen and Flydalsjuvet are stopping points offering an exciting interplay between unique nature and creativ architecture.

Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord represent the fjord landscape of west Norway on UNESCO's World Heritage List. The ancient nature and the paths up to the area's high pastures and mountains bring peace to those who keep their feet on the ground.

Gamle Strynefjellsvegen is a piece of cultural heritage more than 100 years old. Between the mountain village of Skjåk and the fjord village of Stryn there were several ancient routes for the transport of people and essential goods. It was a strenuous and slow journey. In 1881 the decision to build a road between Grotli and Hjelle was made. Swedish navvies and local people from both sides of the mountains took part in the hard work of construction. In 1894 the road was ready for use, a masterpiece of road building and engineering.

In 1978 the old Strynefjellsvegen was replaced by a new 12-kilometre long road with three tunnels that remained open all year. However, it is still the old road that provides a view and perspective. Nature displays its contrasts along this stretch of road, with the rounded, glacier-scoured forms to the east and a steeper, more precipitous topography to the west.

Gamle Strynefjellsvegen is closed during winter and opens in June. Right up until the 1950s, snowploughing the road was manual labour. Two hundred men with spades dug their way through miles of several metre high snow banks, but that is history now. These days the snowploughs clear the road in a matter of days.

At Tystigen it is still possible to ski far into the summer. Otherwise, high summer and autumn is the time for walking in the mountains. The road is also excellent for cycling. 

The road makes its way between fjord and valley, over a high mountain pass between blue ice, jagged peaks and emerald green mountain lakes. At Fantesteinen, 1,434 metres above sea level, the road marks the highest mountain pass in northern Europe.

This mountain pass has long been an important trading route. From the coast and fjords in the west, salt and fish were carried across the mountains. Leather, butter and tar made their way in the opposite direction from the valleys to the east. In former times, travelling over these mountains was far from safe. The law didn’t reach up here and tradesmen and farmers would travel in groups as protection against robbers.

The road over the high mountains between the Sognefjord and Bøverdalen opened to motor vehicles in 1938. The pass is closed in winter, but is snowploughed ready for opening around 1 May. Driving the newly opened road, between banks of snow up to ten metres high, is a wonderful experience.

The rest area at Mefjellet is in the form of an amphitheatre of natural stone, with a panoramic view across mountain and moorland where Knut Wold’s stone sculpture stands commandingly. The glass map at Nedre Oscarshaug helps identify the Hurrungane, Skagastølstindane and other mountains.

Sognefjell provides access to the Jotunheimen National Park, which contains 27 of Norway’s highest peaks, with Galdhøpiggen the highest. A detour from Gaupne will take you into Jostedalsbreen National Park and Norway’s largest glacier, at almost 500 square kilometres.

The road over Gaularfjell takes the traveller into Fosseheimen from the mighty Sognefjord, which is the world’s longest and Norway’s deepest fjord. The protected Gaular waterway, with its many lively rapids and waterfalls and shining lakes, is like a row of pearls along the road. The drive is exciting and varied, along narrow fjords, on twisting roads up steep mountainsides, over high mountains to sheltered valleys.

The route offers a peaceful alternative to the main roads between Sogn and Sunnfjord. Here children and adults can experience trout fishing at its best and wander on good paths beside waterfalls and rapids. It is also possible to rent a boat or take a walk in the mountains. In Balestrand there are museums and galleries and a wide selection of services.

The road over Aurlandsfjell is a journey across a barren plateau of desolate landscape of snow and rocks with the occasional sprig of grass. A thousand metres down inside the mountain, motorists are passing through the blue and green light of the three mountain halls of the Lærdal Tunnel, at 24.5 kilometres the worlds longest. Both roads connect the pulsating tourist villages of Aurland and Lærdal in the heart of Sogn. Together, they make up a round trip of contrasts and an experience of the mountain from both inside and outside.

Travelling from Lærdal, the view that opens up on the descent towards the dramatic fjord landscape in and around Aurland is astounding, with the award-winning Stegastein viewpoint as the pièce de résistance. Made of laminated timber and steel, this platform sticking 30 metres out into thin air, 600 metres above the fjord gives the landscape a whole new dimension.

The old buildings at Lærdalsøyri, Flåmsbanen, Aurlandsdalen and Nærøyfjord, which like Geirangerfjord is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, are all attractions in the area that are well worth a visit. The salmon centre in Lærdal offers cultural history and a taste of salmon.

The landscape along the Hardanger National Tourist Route is for many the very essence of the national romantic nature of the west country, where the lush green, the waterfalls, the mountains and the glaciers have been attracting tourists for more than a hundred years. Hardanger is also home to a very rich arts and handicraft tradition, where boat building and textiles are at the forefront.

The people of Hardanger have grown fruit since the 1300s. The special soil by the fjords gives the fruit a particularly fresh, crisp taste. During the season you can buy fruit at small roadside stalls and eat your fill of apples, pears, plums and sweet cherries.

The drive alternates between the dramatic and the gentle: the moorland landscape, the steep mountainsides where the 145 metre Vøringsfossen and other thundering waterfalls show their muscles, the fjords, still as a mirror, with peaceful harmony and space for contemplation.

The area also offers many opportunities for walking, fishing and bathing. The Hardanger National Tourist Route includes the Steinsdalsfossen – Halne and Jondal – Utne stretches, as well as the future Tourist Route section from Tyssedal to Kinsarvik.

Ryfylke offers the traveller a varied, beautiful and fertile landscape, where green idyllic skerries and well-kept cultural landscapes are suddenly replaced by rockslides, polished cliffs, mountains and fjords.

Along the way you pass villages, towns and cultural attractions like old industrial buildings and the abandoned 19th century zinc mines at Allmannajuvet. The smelting plants of the town of Sauda, deep in the mountains and waterfalls of Ryfylke, offer a good starting point for a trip through Norwegian industrial history.

A network of paths with modern architecture has been established beside Svandalsfossen waterfall. Ropeid ferry quay now has a waiting room of daring design and work started in Allmanajuvet in 2009 on building an attraction of high international quality and design. A detour south from the road brings the traveller to Preikestolhytta, from which a prepared path goes up to the famous Pulpit Rock, with its magnificent but dizzying view over Lysefjord.

Jæren with open skies, wide horizons and endless ocean. Constantly changing weather and light. Mile upon mile of sandy beaches and sand dunes, only broken by boulders and salmon rivers. This is Norway's food basket with intensive agriculture in a flat, vast and well-kept cultural landscape, in an area with a mild climate the year round.

The Jæren coast is open to the sea and has always been regarded as one of the most dangerous stretches of the entire Norwegian coastline. Work on constructing lighthouses began in the mid 19th century. The aim was to lead North Sea shipping safely along the Jæren coast in bad weather, darkness and fog. Over the years a number of new lighthouses were built, with the Kvassheim Light, completed in 1912, the last of them.

Side roads down to the Kvassheim Light and other cultural heritage sites, boulders and sand dunes give an exciting glimpse of ocean and history. Jæren's thousand square kilometres or more represent the biggest lowland area in Norway and the long sandy beaches towards journey's end can offer the motorist some relaxation.