When it comes to scenery, Norway takes a backseat to no one. Not even Switzerland is more beautiful, even on a dismal day like today. Our route took us through deep green valleys, along rushing streams of milky blue, past turquoise glacial lakes and up Sognefjellet Road, the highest in Europe, to craggy, misty mile-high peaks of Jotunheimen National Park where 60 glaciers spawned dozens of waterfalls, and rainbows magically materialized then vanished.
Ice fields, Jotunheimen National Park
We corkscrewed up mountain roads and down to nameless fjords with more waterfalls. Three hundred miles in all, and it would have been more if not for the tunnels, engineering marvels 5, 10, and even 25 kilometers long. Great photos lay around every bend in the road; Borgund Church, scenic valleys, and cute towns.
"Girl with Pink Umbrella," Urnes Stabe Church
Urnes Stabe Church, another WHS, has black tarred walls that protect it from the 300 days of rain, the reason, we guess, that so many other buildings in Norway are black rather than red. The red pines from which it was built, 60 feet high, were trimmed of branches, the bark girdled, and left standing to dry for ten years before being cut down. Boat-building techniques keep the church stable; fire has been its only threat for more than a millennium.
