June 19 - Fjaerland/Mundal to Sognadal

After a wonderful stay at the Fjaerlandsfjorden Hotel, we headed back north to Skei, past beautiful mountain reflections in the fjord, and then continued south along E39. The road wound its way along the shores of Jolstravatnet (lake). We turned off onto Hwy 13 at Moskog, and headed southeast towards Dragsvik (near Balestrand) on the north shore of Sognafjorden. This road was amazing too. It initially snaked around through treed hills, and then began climbing up to a mountain pass. Every time we felt that there couldn’t be more to see … there was! From the mountain pass, down we wondered until we reach the fjord.

Once we reached Dragsvik, we changed our planned route. Instead of traveling east towards Sogndal, we took the ferry across Sognafjorden to Vangsnes so that we could visit the Hopperstad stave church (1140) and the Hove stone church at Vik.

Once on this side of the fjord, we continued south along Hwy 13 over another mountain pass, Gronddalsfjeller. Near the summit of the snow-covered pass, we stopped for lunch at a look-out. Here, we were attacked by several ‘carnivorous, people and car-licking’ sheep. As Sherrill got out of the car, she was aggressively accosted by a mother sheep and her two lambs, looking for hand-outs. Sherrill tried to shoo them away, but to no avail. I went out to help and they came after me. When we tried getting back into the car, the sheep tried to nose their way in too. When we eventually got back into the car without them, the sheep initially just stood there eyeing us as we ate lunch, trying to ‘guilt’ us into giving them something, I.e., when you‘re sitting in small car, you‘re just about eye-to-eye with a full-grown sheep. This didn’t work, so they began to lick the car. It sounded like they were tearing bits off, so out I went again. Thankfully, other unsuspecting cars pulled into the roadside stop, and their distraction saved us. There were several sheep and their lambs going from car to car with the same routine. At one point, one couple got out of their car to look at the view, and left their car door open … wrong! One of the sheep just about made it inside their car, licking everything in sight, before the owners came scurrying back. And so, lunch was an event with both food and entertainment.

Once we reached the turnoff to Hwy 50, we turned onto familiar road! We had traveled along part of this road from Gundvagen - Stalheim - Voss by bus when we were on our way to Bergen on June 22nd. We were now headed in the opposite direction. The valley down into Gundvangen is narrow and steep-sided rocky cliffs with many waterfalls. At the turnoff to Gundvangen, we traveled through 12 km and 6 km tunnels, and a couple of kilometres on open road to reach Flam. These two tunnels were just a warm-up. After Flam, we went through 2 more tunnels to Autland, and through the 24.5 km Laerdal tunnel to Borhogi. Yes, ~25 km in the dark … the world‘s longest tunnel! To give drivers a little break from driving through such a long tunnel, there are three large rock chambers with special lighting. The bluish light in the white-painted chamber roof simulates filtered daylight through an opening in the tunnel. Along the tunnel floor, soft yellow light gives the impression of a rising sun. The intended effect is to give drivers the feeling that they‘ve driven through four ‘short‘ tunnels, instead of an extremely long one.

Once we in the sunlight again, we headed towards Borgund along E16. Along the way, we took a detour to see the old town site of Galdane along the Laerdalsolv River. The river here was a narrow gorge with many rapids and waterfalls. In the past, the only way to get up and downstream was along precariously constructed catwalks just a few metres above the fast-flowing turbulent waters of the river. These walkways are still there, but incomplete; just enough to give you a sense of what it must have been like to travel along the cliffed edges of the river. Yikes!

We continued along the old highway until we reached Borgund and the 1180 single nave stave church there. Two local young people gave us a tour, and answered our innumerable questions about the church and its history. It was great to hear these two young people talk with such great pride about their church, and about being baptised there (the last ones in the old church; there is now a new church right beside the old one). To our surprise, there was also an excellent museum about stave churches at Borgund (this was not mentioned in the tourist brochures and books).

As the sun had not yet set, we headed to Sognadal with a brief stop en route at the Kaupanger stave church (late 1100’s). This was indeed a long day, so we were ready for bed.