The Sognefjorden is Norway‘s longest fjord, and if you were to cruise along it – and we had, overnight – then you would eventually arrive at the town of Skjolden – and we had, in the morning. For the second time in 2022 we had arrived in Norway, and for the second time it was aboard Sky Princess, but you’ll know that already because you’ve definitely read the previous part of this travelogue series where I covered our two sea days on the cruise ship.
When you travel to the Norwegian fjords you have to be prepared for any kind of weather. You can’t be one of those people who hit Facebook groups and says “We’re going to Norway in June so what will the weather be like?” because nobody knows. You can only hope for the best, but prepare for the somewhat less good than that.
It was raining in Skjolden. Some of that rain was coming from the clouds above us, but some seemed to be coming from the clouds that had decided it was nicer down near the water and had descended to save themselves some time and effort in getting people damp. That’s laziness from the clouds, but it did make for some interesting scenic views, even if they weren’t the ones we might have wanted.
We particularly enjoyed the views from the top deck as we came back from breakfast, not of Skjolden itself, but of the fjords around the ship and the way the clouds pushed fingers of themselves around the landscape. Something delightfully mildly threatening about it all.
Our day in the port of Skjolden was one with an excursion booked. We like excursions and will almost always book one if it’s our first time anywhere, and that was certainly the case here.
Our trip would eventually take us far from the fjords towards Lom, and the route would lead up over mountain passes, quite some height up. To break up the journey we had a few stops for photos on the way. While it’s true that you can’t guarantee the weather in Norway, you can at least guarantee some stunning views and old, impressive landscapes, and…
Ah.
The first stop was at the Nedre Oscarshaug Viewpoint. Perhaps on a clear day it would be a place from where you could see for tens of kilometres and bask in the sense of scale of the world around and your smallness within it. We simply got up and personal with more cloud. Many people didn’t bother getting off the tour bus, but I’m pleased to say that the majority of us laughed and headed outside for that chilly, drizzly experience you can see in the photographs below. There was a lovely dullness to the sound; the cloud really smothered the ambient noises.
A more interesting photo stop on the drive from Skjolden to Lom occurred next, both in terms of what could be seen and in terms of what the place represented.
In March 1813, six men with ages ranging from 20 to 57 from the Boverdalen valley, along with horses, tried to cross the mountains in search of grain. They didn’t succeed and succumbed to death by freezing. Memorial stones were erected at the Mefjell crossing for them.
The highest point of this mountain pass in Norway is almost one and half kilometres and we were still seeing snow and packed ice on the ground in late June, so it’s not hard to imagine what those men were facing towards the end of winter two centuries earlier. Arguably, the low visibility and quiet, chilled air lent this point of interest even more solemnity than it already had. The Mefjell Crossing Memorial Stones proved to be a very poignant stop on this excursion.
In the next post in this travelogue series we’ll continue through Lom to see a stave church, museum, and controversial column.