Leaving Flåm. Below are several photos from the cruise.

This is another similar vessel going in the reverse direction.

After disembarking, we boarded a bus that took a 20 minute drive back to Flåm, about 80% of which was inside a tunnel. After having lunch outside in Flåm, we took our rental car back up the windy road to the Stegastein Viewpoint, which we visited yesterday. The sky was a tiny bit lighter today and it was beautiful. Here are photos.

From there, we continued up the road, driving along one of Norway’s designated scenic routes, the Aurlandsfjellet (the snow road between two fjords).

The road climbed quickly above the tree line to a barren, tundra-like landscape, that still had many fields of snow and ice on ponds. We stopped at the Flotane viewpoint, where we took a short, cool and windy walk to a waterfall. The outside temperature was about 7C. Because it was cold and windy, we didn’t stop at the next two viewpoints and continued down along a rushing river until we reached the Lærdal Valley, located at the end of a small arm of the “King of the Fjords,” Sognefjord. 

We drove about a half hour from there to the Borgund Stave Church, one of the oldest stave churches still standing. We visited the small museum with information about stave churches, which we learned was a style of construction that was discontinued after the Black Death (1349) since there was no longer a population to maintain them. Post reformation (1537), Norwegian churches were no longer Catholic and were built from simple logs. There are only 28 stave churches still standing in Norway. From there we crossed the street to the church, which is situated next to a cemetery. 

After our visit to the church, we drove to Lærdal and then continued beyond to the end of the road and took the Mannheller–Fodnes ferry, a journey of about 10 or 15 minutes. Ferries in Norway are very efficient, a ticket isn’t needed, as cars are fitted with a fast-track type device that charges the fare. Our rental car agency added all the ferries and toll charges to our final bill. This was our first crossing of the large Sognefjord, which is Norway’s longest (around 200 km long), and at 1,308 meters deep, is also one of the deepest fjords in the world.

From the ferry dock, we had about a 20 minute drive to the town of Sogndal, where we will spend two nights. It is not the most attractive town in the Fjord region, but it is well located and offers plenty of services. 

Our first ferry crossing.

We took a very informative English language tour, which showed us some well-preserved carvings on the outside of the church. One wall of the exterior is in need of a new coat of tar, necessary to protect the church from the elements. There is a shortage of craftspeople who know how to make the tar. We then got a tour of the interior, which was remarkably decorated. The crucifix is one of the original decorations, and perhaps the oldest one in Norway. Many of the other decorations were added in later centuries, including paintings around the altar from 1601 (or maybe 1607, the date is hard to read). Here are the exterior carvings and a photo of the interior.

We then drove about a half hour along the Jostedøla River, rapidly flowing and glacial green. The canyon walls, as tall as 1,900 feet in some places, had waterfalls as far as you could see. We stopped at Breheimsenteret, the glacier center for the Jostedalsbreen National Park. There are wonderful exhibits about glaciers and the geologic and human history of the area. We got a great view of the Nigardsbreen Glacier from the center, part of the largest ice field (Jostedalsbreen, covering 487 sq. km) in Europe.

A nice waterfall in the valley, top; view from glacier

center above; and zoomed in on the glacier, below.

After finishing in the museum, we debated about the unsettled weather, but in the end decided to drive up the short toll road to a parking area along the glacial lake. From there we took a boat, which covered about half the distance to the glacier view point. We hiked along the shore for about 25 minutes to a view point over glacial moraine, aided by several staircases. Others younger and fitter than us walked much farther, right up to the face of (and even on) the glacier, but we settled for a somewhat lower, but still nice, view of the face.

The sun peeked out of the clouds while we were on the walk. About 2/3’s of the way back to the boat dock, it started to rain, softly at first and then quite a bit harder. The boat was just getting ready to leave when we got back to the dock. We were glad we made that boat!

Here are some views looking backward from the glacier before the sky opened up.

We then drove about an hour to our home base of Sogndal for another night. Tomorrow we have a long drive to Geiranger.  The forecast is for rain.

Here is the map of the areas we visited in the Sognefjord region.