On to Loen

We got up about 6:15 and on the road by eight. The breakfast buffet was excellent as usual. We left Voss on the way to Loen. First we drove over the Vik Mountains. The weather was a little overcast and rainy. Since we had been at Edvard Grieg's summer home and our tour director, MariAnne had mentioned one of his songs, "Jeg elsker dig," that I had sung in a recital some years ago, I thought it might be fun to surprise Junel by singing it for her in Norwegian. So MariAnne let me and sure enough, she was surprised. She cried a little too. We have the reputation on the tour as the "cute honeymooners."

 
View of Vangsnes and the Sognefjord. (© 2006, Mark D. Williams.)  

We had a photo op at the top of the mountains before we descended to Vangsnes to take a ferry ride across the Sognefjord to Hella. The views and scenery are simply magnificent. I found and bought a little booklet that featured many, if not all, of the stave churches. The ferry ride was fun. We got off the bus to walk around the boat a bit. The ride was only about 20 minutes and were across in Hella and heading up along the fjord to Sogndal. There we headed north along the Fjærland road across some beautiful countryside. Everything is so lush and green--waterfalls everywhere (Think Fantasy Island).

 
Waterfall on the way to Skei. (© 2006, Mark D. Williams.)  

Eventually we came to Skei on the Jølsla lake where we had lunch and got to do some shopping at Audhild Viken's Weaving Workshop. They had lots of beautiful Norwegian sweaters. Junel and I each got one and best of all they were 40% off. Junel also picked up some gifts and some Christmas ornaments. We left around 1:00 for our next destination, the Briksdal Glacier. The narrow 1 and 1/2 lane road we were on was adjacent to Jostedalsbreen Nasjonalpark which explains all of the waterfalls. Breen is Norwegian for glacier. The Jostedal Glacier is 480 sq. km.

 
Another waterfall. (© 2006, Mark D. Williams.)  

We drove up to Utvik on the Innvikfjord then turned east to Olden. There we headed back south to Briksdal. We got out of the bus at a rest stop below the glacier that had a gift shop and a cafeteria. We transferred to some John Deere tractors pulling a six person cart up to where you could hike to the bottom of the glacier. It started raining so we grabbed the camera, the umbrella, got aboard the wagons and headed up.

 
Briksdal Glacier. Note the people at the bottom left for scale. (© 2006, Mark D. Williams.)  

The hike from where the tractors dropped us off was about another 15 minutes to the bottom of the glacier. We got some really nice pictures. The glacier ice contains minerals leached from the rocks it grinds up and so it has a pretty bluish color.

 
Briksdal Glacier near the bottom. (© 2006, Mark D. Williams.)  

From the Jostedalsbreen Souvenir Guidebook:

A glacier is like a sluggish river. The force of gravity pulls the ice down and grinds against the substratum tearing loose large and small stones and producing large masses of gravel and sand. This is how glacial streams get their typical gray-green color.

Blue-green glacial stream. (© 2006, Junel Bacigalupo.) 

We headed back to the tractors and down to the bus. We were all starting to get pretty tired. I dozed off for a bit. All of that fresh air can wear you out. The bus doubled back to Olden. Sometimes if we met another bus we would have to back up to a spot in the road wide enough for each to pass the other.

 
Gorgeous scenery on the way to Loen. (© 2006, Junel Bacigalupo.)  

We got into Loen around 5:00 and headed for the Alexandra Hotel. We thought about taking a jacuzzi, but I was tired and dinner was at 7:00, so I took a little powernap instead. The dinner buffet was the best yet. Lots of seafood and salad. I had some reindeer stew and steak. Junel had some pork and tandouri chicken. Why the Norwegians were serving Indian food I'll never know. They had some delicious desserts at the dessert bar. Chocolate mousse, apple pie, strawberry and raspberry tarts, and different cheesecakes. Uffda! Diet time when we get back. After dinner we visited a while, had a drink in the lounge, and listened to the band playing. Soon it was time to go to bed, but what a fantastic day.