Loen, Norway

July 4 –

Today we anchored in the fjord at Loen.  We were supposed to anchor in Olden, the next arm of the fjord from ours, but for some operational reason we had a change.  It was supposed to be rainy today, but when we disembarked for our tour it looked pretty promising.

Today’s tour was an all day one that took us to some of the most spectacular scenery yet.  We set out in our bus with our guide Olav along the fjord to the town of Stryn. This is the largest town in this area with a population of 7000.  From Stryn we headed away from the fjord following a river which led us to Stryn Lake which has the most beautiful turquoise water.  The water comes from the glaciers on the surrounding mountains and is crystal clear.

Stryn Lake

A picturesque village on the lake

Our drive continued on winding roads and through several tunnels up into the mountains where we stopped at a place called Djupvasshytta at an elevation of about 3500 feet.  Here in this place well above the tree line is a lake which just in the last two weeks finally became ice free.  There were still some ice floes floating in it. The surrounding landscape is pretty desolate. All around are snow covered peaks, some with glaciers.  We had a brief stop in a hotel there for some coffee and then set out for “the roof of Norway.”  Our destination was up a hair-raising road that climbs to the summit of Mount Dalsnibba.  At the top we were at close to 5000 feet above sea level.  The road is privately owned and was just paved  and had guard rails added in the last few years.

 

Lake next to the hotel at Djupvasshytta.  You may be able to see little white specks in the water.  Those are ice floes.

At the top are a viewing platform and a gift shop.  From the platform you can look down to Geiranger Fjord, one of the top three tourist destinations in Norway.  The weather gods once again smiled on us so we had a wonderful view down to the fjord where three cruise ships were anchored.  Along the road on the way up and all around the viewing area were hundreds of little piles of rocks purposely stacked.  These are called varda in Norwegian and people build them because supposedly you will return to this place if you do.  The varda actually have a different origin though.  Before modern communications, the Norwegians had developed an early warning system in the event an aggressor was approaching.  Atop a stack of rocks they would light a fire to alert the countryside.  The flames could be seen from one mountain to the next and the population would be warned as each succeeding varda was lit.  The signal would tell the local men to gather whatever weapons they had and meet in a designated place for their community.

Geiranger Fjord 5000 feet below

A varda

Another interesting thing along the roadway was a series of little wooden sheds.  Up in these mountains needless to say they get lots of snow.  Black dirt is stored in the sheds.  As spring approaches, road workers were sent out to the sheds to remove the black dirt and spread it on the roadway.  This dark material helped to speed up melting.  Or at least that’s what Olav told us.

Little shed for black dirt.  I wouldn't want to be sent out to spread it with 15 or more feet of snow everywhere.

From Dalsnibba we took the winding road down to Geiranger stopping along the way to take photos of the Flydal Gorge, the most photographed sight in Norway. At this spot you can see the town and fjord below with the tremendous cascade of water pouring down from the heights above.  In the town we had a very nice lunch in the Hotel Union. Of course the main course was fish.  What else would it be in this country that has such a huge fishing industry?

 

Another view of Geiranger from lower down the road

The waterfall rushing down at Flydal

After lunch we boarded a ferry for a trip along the fjord.  This was the commercial ferry which carries people, cars and buses from Geiranger to Hellesylt at the other end of the fjord.  Along the way we were treated to a water level view of the many waterfalls along the sometimes very sheer walls.  At the other end we reboarded our bus and started back to Loen.  The valleys that we traveled through are some of the few relatively flat lands around so we saw a number of farms and more livestock than we had seen in other places.  The road that we took followed along the old king’s post road built several hundred years ago.  Our weather luck had worn out on us.  As we got off the ferry the raindrops started, but that was okay since we’d been able to see all the sights we were supposed to.

We arrived back at the tender dock and shortly after we boarded we set sail for our next stop Bergen.  The route tonight takes us through the fjords, all of them scenic, but we won’t be staying up to see them.  We have an early tour tomorrow.