Skjolden, Norway

Today, we arrived in Skjolden (pronounced Shol-den).

We haven’t been here before, so we were quite keen to get ashore and explore. As we got our things together and headed towards the gangway, the crew were in the middle of one of their regular drills.

We warmed to the place almost immediately, with its tranquil waters and steep-sided mountains, and a glance at Maps.Me suggested a walk up one of the nearby hillsides, which we headed towards, but got distracted by an information board suggesting an alternative walk, to Asafossen waterfall. The map showed it as being not too far at all – quite a gentle stroll, in fact – in reality, we soon found out, it was a good hour’s mostly road-walking around Eidsvatnet lake.. and it was extremely hot.

Along the way, we were treated to a view of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s House, perched 45 metres above the lake on a rocky bluff. Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher of some renown, who loved Norway so much he had the log cabin built between 1914 and 1918, as an isolated retreat, and a place to think and work. A very nice spot too…

We also crossed a couple of bridges along the way, one of which is a metal hanging bridge that swayed and creaked as we crossed it.

Eventually, we reached a point close to the Asafossen waterfall, where coaches clearly pull up for a photo stop; a local campsite had signs up saying that they didn’t have toilet facilities for coach parties. Several people who had made the long walk from the village stood in front of what appeared to be a footpath leading towards the base of the falls, but which was crossed by some wire fencing. Everyone seemed uncertain of whether they should proceed along the track or not (despite the fact that a signpost pointed to this very location). In the end, not content with just turning round wand walking back to the village without getting any closer to the falls, I popped into the reception of the campsite and asked the lady there if it was okay to follow the pathway. She confirmed that it was perfectly fine to do so, since the farmer had simply erected the wire fencing to keep the cattle in.

With this simple confirmation, we, along with several others, climbed over the fencing and headed into the woods, towards the waterfall, which turned out to be magnificent…

By the time we arrived back at the ship, lunch had long since finished, so we headed onto the back deck where pizza is served all afternoon. We had a couple of slices of pizza and a drink (I had a beer), and then we also went into Afternoon Tea a little later, to stock up on sandwiches and biscuits.

Then we had a well-earned nap before the scenic cruising, for which we enjoyed the view from the front deck once again.