Stegastein viewpoint — Attraction in Aurland

The only reason this review has any stars is the view, but even that can be had around any other corner, anywhere in Norway, so if you can, avoid this place until well before or after hours, when everyone else is sleeping.

The road up to the viewpoint is not for the faint of heart. For some reason, they allow full size busses on the narrowest and curviest of the roads in Norway, so way too often, you can get stuck without the ability to pass. We had to backup and somehow make the 10 cars, RVs, mini busses, trailers, motorcycles, and everyone else behind us back up with us.

Once you do get to the top somehow, there is no parking available for the dozens of vehicles coming from the top and bottom of the mountain, and if you're 'lucky', a bus just unloaded 50 to 70 people (on top of the 100 others loading and unloading from their RVs, cars, mini busses, motorcycles, electric rental buggies, regular bikes, electric bikes, and God-knows-what-else with wheels and they're all in rush to get to the overloaded lookout point, so you can't move even if you just gave up on the whole idea and just want to get the hell out of there.

OK, so you finally parked, because after 15 minutes of waiting for the horde to move, you need to at least go pee (yes, they have toilets up here) to make this nightmare worthwhile. While you're there, let's see if you can squeeze into the body-on-top-of-body lookout area, adding to the weight limit of the construction hanging in the air, kilometer above the sea level.

No, you can't. That would be another 15-20 minutes of waiting or 5 minutes of elbowing others in line and getting a selfie or a few shots of the (truly spectacular) view. So you settled for the worst shot from the base of the lookout and you're trying to leave in disgust of the human race.

Ha! You can't even leave now, because even more people came in the meantime, and now your driver's door is blocked by a guy parked parallel to you, blocking half the width of the road, even though you already parked with two wheels on the curb, just to squeeze into the spot. After some contortions, you get into the car, wait another 5-10 minutes, and you're finally saying -...

So you're a fjord-fanatic too, huh? Cool, then let's talk about Stegastein Viewpoint. This daring platform extends 30 meters from the mountainside and sits a staggering 650 meters high above the Aurlandsfjord. The panorama here is stunning – a sweeping vista of the fjord, dramatic mountains, and sprawling landscape that will simply steal your breath away. It's so iconic, it's easily one of the most photographed viewpoints in the region – and for good reason!

It's part of the famous National Tourist Road ("The Snow Road") and was designed by Todd Saunders and Tommie Wilhelmsen, completed in 2006. If you're visiting Flåm, this is an unmissable sightseeing trip!

Now, for a little heads-up: finding adequate parking can be tricky, and this spot gets packed with tourist buses, taxis, etc. If you don't want to play "spot the fjord through the selfie sticks," my top tip is to go very early in the morning or late in the evening. That's when most visitors are still tucked away or done roaming the Norwegian roads. I got lucky.

That said, make sure to plan your stop carefully if you want to avoid frustration and truly soak in the majesty of this incredible place. You'll...

So you decide to go to Stegastein. A simple trip to see a nice view, you think. Oh, how wrong you are. The journey itself is a complete nightmare. The road is a narrow, winding ribbon of tarmac that seems specifically designed to test your will to live. It's barely wide enough for one car, but somehow also the chosen playground for an endless stream of monumentally wide camper vans. The act of getting past one is less a maneuver and more a diplomatic incident.

Then you get there. The car park is not so much a car park as it is a cruel, mathematical impossibility. There are more people than spaces, and every single person with a vehicle is engaged in a silent, but furious, battle for a patch of asphalt.

And yet.

And yet, you get to the edge. You step out onto the platform. And the view… my word. It's utterly insane. It's not just a view; it's a full-on, magnificent spectacle. The fjord, the mountains, the sheer scale of it all. It's a proper, brilliant piece of scenery.

It’s a complete and total nightmare to get to. But it's worth every single second of the terrifying drive and every single...