Norway - Day 5.

We had a relatively late start this day. Although it was Sunday, there probably wasn’t a Catholic church within 100 miles. Our guide in Bergen, Norway’s second biggest city, pointed out the one Catholic church there. That was probably the closest! I don’t think I could have even gone to a Lutheran service. In fact, there doesn’t appear to be very much religious life at all. Our Oslo tour guide mentioned that only 2% of the registered Lutherans go to church with any regularity. She also mentioned that there are now almost 150,000 Catholics in Norway and that the churches are bursting, mostly due to the influx of Catholics both from Vietnam in the 80’s and more recently workers from Poland.

The little church at Loen

I was up early, so I walked up to the little village church near the hotel. Our guide had mentioned that there were two monuments to the residents of two small villages wiped out by floods caused by rockslides in the early 20^th century. On the way up to the church, I passed some apple orchards loaded with fruit just about ready to be picked. The church and its surrounding graveyard were very picturesque. It was a beautiful morning with sunlight and clouds clinging to the tops of the mountains.

 

On the way to Øye

Our first stop of the day was actually for lunch. We headed up over the mountains and into a rugged mountain valley. Sheep and goats grazed lazily along the side of the very narrow road. It’s quite interesting to see how Norwegians manage the narrowness of their roads. There are apparently almost universally observed unwritten rules that govern who gets the right of way, and it’s not necessarily the bigger vehicle! Once again, the scenery provided a spectacle. Eventually we emerged at the end of the valley where a fjord also ends. There sits the Union Hotel Øye, a venerable vestige of another way of travel from an earlier time. Guests- and there were many notable ones - used to arrive by ship on the fjord and then carts and horses transported them to the hotel. The hotel has been recently renovated and it retains all the charm of its heyday. Our lunch was served in a very elegant dining room. It made one feels special just sitting there.

The Union Hotel, Øye

This was another of the many “eat and run” experiences provided by the tour. Soon we were back on the bus and headed for a ferry that would take us down the Geiranger Fjord. This fjord is a UNESCO protected heritage site. It began to rain lightly as we boarded and the sun played hide and seek for most of the hour plus voyage. The scenery in this fjord is the quintessential fjord landscape. A special feature here were the large number of waterfalls that come spilling down from the tops of these incredibly high mountains. The play of sunlight on the light rain created rainbows that spanned the fjords in an arc. If ever there were a landscape that suggested the presence of magical creatures, this would have to be one. 

Rainbow in the Geiranger Fjord

Here and there, isolated farmsteads clung to tiny parcels of land at the

edge of the water. It must have been like living at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. In most cases, the only way in or out was over water, or, in winter, over ice. It’s hard to imagine the isolation. Soon enough, though, we were steaming back to civilization, leaving the magic of the fjord behind us.

The ferry docked in the town of Geiranger and we re-boarded our bus that had driven around the fjord while we were sailing. We left the little town and began to climb, and climb, and climb. We were headed for the summit of Mt. Dalsnibba, which overlooks the Geiranger fjord from a height of about 5,000 feet. The weather had worsened and the temperature began to drop. The road up is a collection of impressive switchbacks. The agility with which our driver took us through them was both exhilarating and impressive. Soon we were above the tree line and the landscape began to resemble that of an alien planet. Again, we could see sheep grazing among the rocks. I couldn’t help wondering who they belonged to. Nobody lived this high up.

The view from the summit

 Over the driver’s seat, there was a display with both the time and temperature. I was watching anxiously as the temperature sank from 6º C to 5º to 4º. We were getting very close to the freezing mark. And then the rain turned to a snow squall. Fortunately for my nerves, we were just pulling into the parking lot at the summit. We all bundled up as we exited the bus. As if on cue, the snow suddenly stopped, the wind slowed and the clouds cleared away and we could look from our 5,000-foot perch down onto the fjord on which we had just been sailing. It was quite a thrill! The many Japanese tourists who were also at the summit were positively giddy with joy that their photo op had appeared.  They rushed en masse to one side of the mountain with such speed that I thought the mountain might tip over. Luckily, it didn’t.

Port-o-Potty at 5,000 ft.

Our tour director had organized a nice surprise for us when we returned to the bus. She had two bottles of aquavit, the ubiquitous Scandinavian fire-water. That certainly helped to take the chill off. It also helped ease the descent back down the mountain. We arrived back at the hotel around 6:00 and that was the end of the organized activities. Most folks took advantage of the hotel’s supper buffet. I think most, like me, were tired after the day’s activities and hit the hay relatively early that night.