Webcams Overview by earthTV Europe – Norway

Norway: a mountain plateau on the railway line

Norway’s landscape can be approached through a single, remarkable setting: Finse, a small settlement high on the Bergen Railway between Oslo and Bergen. Snowfields, a mountain lake and the Hardangerjøkulen glacier surround the station. earthTV’s perspectives on Norway begin here, where the high mountains reveal how weather, altitude and travel shape a place.

Discovering Norway from the high mountains

At 1,222 metres above sea level, Finse is the highest station on the Bergen Railway. There is no road to the village, so the railway remains its connection with the rest of the country. This relationship between a small community and the line that serves it offers a clear starting point for understanding life in Norway’s high mountains.

The surroundings open onto some of Norway’s most distinctive terrain. The Hardangerjøkulen glacier rises to the south, while Finse itself lies at the northern edge of the Hardangervidda, one of Europe’s largest mountain plateaus. Lake Finsevatnet sits beside the settlement and follows the rhythm of the seasons, frozen for much of the year and open in the brief summer.

Snow and light change the character of the place throughout the year, drawing skiers in winter and hikers and cyclists on the Rallarvegen, the old construction road along the railway, in summer. From here, an interest in Norway can extend towards the fjords of the west or the valleys to the east. Let one high-mountain setting become your first reference point, and allow its landscape to explain the country around it.