Waterfalls and Nature HAL tour. Our tour started with a drive up (about 2,700 feet in elevation) through the Mabodalen Valley. There are five tunnels enroute, including one with a 360 turn while climbing in elevation. Our first stop was at the Voringsfossen waterfall, which cascades about 600 feet. There was a very impressive metal and concrete pathway which gave one a variety of views of the valley and waterfall. Carolyn found a little troll outside the gift shop. We then proceeded to the Hardangervidda National Park and the Sysen Dam, the main reservoir for the Sima Power Station located near Eidfjord. The dam is about 2,600 feet long, 800 feet wide at the base, and constructed from stone, sand and gravel. The water is taken from the bottom of the lake through a series of pipes to the coast where it turns several turbines to produce electricity. Our final stop was at the Hardangervidda Nature and Wildlife Center where we viewed a movie about local animals, waterfalls, and the dam. We had noted many homes with grass roofs, but the nature center had two small goats trimming its roof. When we returned to Eidfjord, we decided to ride the local Troll Tram on a one hour tour of the city. In just a few minutes we were outside town watching farmers mow hay with John Deere equipment before coming to an overlook with a nice view of the ship and fjord. Further down the road were three rock burial mounds with the remains of more than 300 Vikings from around 1000 AD. Our tour ended back in town where we drove by the new church built in the early-1900’s and then stopped at the old stone church built in 1309. Our guide told us that there was a group who knitted sweaters for the trees along the waterfront.

Atlantic Highway and Haholmen Island - HAL Tour We passed several dairy farms on the way that sell milk to the Jarlsberg cheese factory which our guide told us ships all its product to the US. The Atlantic Highway, a major tourist attraction, runs across an archipelago of partially inhabited islands and skerries with eight major bridges. Some of the bridges have multiple turns and switchbacks. It is often used for automobile commercials and is the site for several scenes in Bond 25. The highlight was our visit to Haholmen Island which started with a great ride on a “Viking” ship, accompanied by dolphins, in beautiful weather. Once on the island, we had a piece of cake, some coffee, and a Hansa Beer before watching a video of the Saga Siglar, a reconstructed Viking ship that sailed around the world before being destroyed in a storm off Barcelona. The remnants are built in as part of the theatre. Following the show, we walked around the island which offers accommodations and dining. On our ride back, we saw several quarries for limestone and granite.

HAL Tour - , Best of Skjolden, which didn’t show us much of the hamlet, but lots of the mountains and surrounding area. We passed the ice-blue Lake Fantesteinsvatnet before climbing about 4,700 feet through the Breheimen National Park to Northern Europe’s highest pass at Sognefjell Mountain. Along the way we saw many stone cairns, called varde, which marked safe trails over the passes. We lost count of the number of sheep grazing at the higher elevations and cattle down lower. We made a few stops along the way for photos, including one at the glacier where Carolyn threatened Bob with a snowball and another at a lake that was still frozen in places. Like in Eidfjord, the water passes through underground piping to an electrical generation station at sea level. The water in the rivers was blueish-green indicating the presence of moraine from the many glaciers. We arrived in Lom, a small city on the other side of the mountains where we visited the Norwegian Mountain Museum which displays many recent archaeological findings and a full sized model of a wooly mammoth based on remains found nearby. We walked across the road to the Lom Stave Church, which was built in the 1150’s. While churches of this period were built with stone in Southern Europe, churches in the Scandic countries were built with wood. Of the hundreds of churches built, only about twenty remain, all in Norway. After the Reformation, the Lom Church was expanded and converted from Catholic to Lutheran in the mid-1600. Our guide explained the basics of stave church construction without any nails and pointed out the more recent (1600’s) additions. This type of construction has allowed several stave churches to be moved to distant locations. Most of the newer buildings have beautiful roofs covered with slate tiles. We had a delicious salmon lunch followed by a dessert of berries and cream at the Fossheim Hotel. As we began our journey back to Skjolden, we stopped at Elevester to see the Saga Column which features decorations depicting Norway’s history from King Harald I (AD 860) to the National Congress of 1814.