We had to wake up early in the morning to catch the 8 am express boat going to Balestrand. The boat took about 4 hours and it went through rugged and majestic Sognefjord, the largest fjord in Norway! The boat is called "express" for a reason: it was going really fast, around 60 km/h according to my tablet's GPS. It was almost impossible to stay at the bow (front part), because of extremely strong winds. But inside the boat was very comfortable and even had a cafe on board.
The fjord looks very interesting from the water, its sides are cliffs rising almost straight out of the water, some of which even have ice caps. Some cliffs are rocky, some are covered with trees and every flat place has a house or a farm. Overall, the fjord is a very unusual place with mountains surrounding a narrow inlet of salty water and it rugged charm is hard to describe with words, so look forward for the photos!
As the boat was nearing our stop (Balestrand), it started to rain heavily, so I dug out our raincoats from my suitcase. We asked the way to the hostel at the local Tourist Information, but still managed to take a wrong turn and walk too far from the destination, so by the time we finally found the place, we were rather soaked and even the suitcases were sodden. We got our rooms after a while and changed into dry clothes, however it was still raining heavily, so I processed some photos while Julia took a nap. Then I went out for a while, took some photos at the quay while the sun was out for a bit. I also dropped by a grocery store and bought some sandwich ingredients, which is a great way to save time and money when travelling.
After I came back, it started drizzling again, so I took a nap as well. When we woke up in the evening, it was rather nice outside, so we went out and explored the tiny village stretched along the fjord. There were a couple of old hotels, two old viking burial mounds and some interesting houses decorated with wood carvings and dragon heads. Overall there is not much to do in Balestrand, and originally I wanted to take a boat to Vik to see Hopperstad Stave Church, but stupid rain has spoiled all plans. Still, the views from the village were magnificent, with huge cliffs towering over dark water, low clouds crawling across some cliffs, ice caps here and there, silver rivers streaming down cliff faces and pine forests covering the slopes.
Sognefjord in a nutshell day 1
Friday, August 02, 2013
Balestrand, Western Fjords, Norway
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