Loen, August 20, 2024

In the early morning, we entered the approximately 100 km long Nordfjord (specifically the Innvikfjord). We docked in Loen. The place is surrounded by mountains that rise over 1000m high, and further inland, the mountains reach up to 2000m.

Since we heard that the Iona with 5,200 passengers would be docking in the neighboring town of Olden, we immediately took the cable car up the local mountain Loen, the Hoven (1,100m). From there, one could gain an excellent overview of the surrounding area. However, it was windy, cold, overcast, and occasionally rainy. There was a paragliding launch site, but flying was out of the question. So we soon descended back into the valley. Down below, the expectation was confirmed: there was already a huge queue.

After that, we looked for a bus that would take us to the glaciers. Unfortunately, they had already stopped the bus service in Loen a week ago. Therefore, we had to first go to Olden, where the huge ship had docked. There we found a bus and had to wait a tolerable amount of time to head towards the glaciers.

The ride was beautiful. Occasionally, the sun shone, occasionally it rained. In any case, the Nordfjord so far resembles our image of a fjord the most.

After the bus ride, we walked to the church in Loen and saw that Loen had been affected by landslides twice in the early 20th century.

With that, we had reached our daily goal and returned to our ship, where we enjoyed ourselves.