Ferries from Årsnes ferjekai

Årsnes is one corner of a Hardanger triangle with an island in the middle, and its 102 active sailings split three to one: 38 across to Gjermundshamn, 13 to Varaldsøy in between.

Where the boats go

• Gjermundshamn — about 20 minutes, 38 sailings.
• Varaldsøy — about 20 minutes, 13 sailings.

Operated by Skyss as county road transport.

⚠ The island call is a quarter of the service

Roughly one departure in four from here goes to Varaldsøy rather than straight across. On a triangular route with a single vessel that is the difference between a twenty-minute crossing and an hour.

Read the calling order on the board, not the queue in front of you.

Where this puts you

Årsnes is in Kvinnherad on the Hardangerfjord's southwestern shore, and this crossing is the short way between the Kvinnherad district and the Bergen side of the fjord. Without it the road runs a long way round the fjord arms.

Rosendal, ten minutes south, is the district's main village.

Baroniet Rosendal

Norway's only barony is there — a manor house from 1665, the smallest of its kind in Scandinavia, with rooms furnished by successive owners over 250 years and a walled renaissance garden.

It runs a summer concert season and is the single reason most non-local traffic uses this crossing.

Varaldsøy

The island in the middle has a small permanent population and no bridge. Both ends of the route serve it, which is the whole reason the crossing is shaped this way — and why thirteen of its sailings exist at all.

At the ramp

Nothing is reserved here. Cars form a line, the line loads in the order it formed, and the crossing is charged automatically against the registration plate. Anyone on foot or on a bicycle pays nothing.