Flåm, Norway

Although today Flåm is bustling with tourists in summer, it was once a secluded farming settlement with roots going back many centuries. The name “Flåm” means “plain” or “flat piece of land” – describing the little river valley where the village lies at the fjord’s end. People have lived in this area since Viking times, farming the valley and fishing the fjord. By the 17th century, Flåm had its own church – the modest wooden Flåm Church built in 1670, which still stands today. This church replaced an even older medieval stave church, indicating Flåm’s long-running importance as a local parish for the surrounding farms.

For most of its history, travel to Flåm was primarily by boat, as the steep mountains made overland journeys arduous. The fjords were the highways of western Norway, and until the 20th century, reaching Flåm from the outside world meant arriving on a ship or undertaking a challenging trek over the mountains.

The dawn of tourism in Flåm can be traced to the late 19th century, when adventurous European travellers (especially English and German) began coming to see the fjords. By the 1880s, Flåm was a stop for steamship cruises, and a few local guesthouses were hosting intrepid visitors. The village’s evolution accelerated with the coming of the Bergen–Oslo Railway in 1909, which ran high above Flåm but didn’t yet have a branch line down to the fjord. In 1908, Norway’s parliament approved building the Flåm Line railway to connect Flåm with the main line at Myrdal.

Construction began in the 1920s, and the project was an extraordinary feat of engineering for its time – workers spent two decades carving out tunnels and creating a spiralling rail bed that could handle the extreme gradient. By 1940, the Flåm Railway opened, first for freight and then for passengers.

This provided a vital transport link for Flåm’s residents, who until then had relied on boats or footpaths for mail and travel. It also laid the groundwork for future tourism: what began as a practical transport route soon became a famous sight in itself as word spread of the line’s dramatic scenery.

Through the mid-20th century, Flåm remained a small agricultural community. The fertile valley and hillsides were used for goat farming, fruit orchards, and hayfields. In fact, just up until 1996, local farmers at places like Otternes were still running their farms in the traditional way without modern machinery. However, tourism steadily grew. By the 1960s, cruise ships had begun anchoring in the fjord (they were too large to dock, so passengers would tender ashore).

The original Fretheim Hotel, established in the late 1800s, expanded to welcome more international guests, offering a comfortable stay amid the wild nature. The Norway in a Nutshell tour – a popular packaged daytrip including the Flåm Railway and fjord ferry – started bringing many visitors from the 1980s onward. In 2000, Flåm built a new pier that allowed large cruise ships to dock directly, and tourism truly boomed. Today, nearly half a million people visit annually, far outnumbering the roughly 350 residents of Flåm.

The Flåm Railway Museum (opened in 1998) and other initiatives preserve the area’s heritage, showcasing how the village transformed from a quiet farming hamlet into a world-renowned travel destination. Visitors can still sense old Flåm in the church and in preserved farmsteads, even as modern Flåm buzzes with sightseeing trains and fjord cruiseboats.