Tag Archives: Landscape

Day 5 – Not as originally planned

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Wednesday 3 September 2025 – Mother Nature played a few games with Kuba’s plans today. The idea had been to do a landing and walk to a glacier. This one, actually,

but keen eyes on the bridge had spotted a polar bear nearby.

Yes, there really is a polar bear in this picture, which gives a good idea of how keen are the eyes of the crew. Here’s a closer view.

This meant that we couldn’t land, mainly for the polar bear’s benefit, since it would have been shot if it had started to make a nuisance of itself.  So we cruised around in Zodiacs instead. On the shores of the fjord, which is called Wijderfjord (I’ll let you guess why) there was an abandoned trapper’s cabin from the days when that sort of thing was permitted.

There was plenty of bird life to be seen – the ubiquitous kittiwakes and other gulls, who found the various islets very convenient scouting posts for any possible picking on other species they could consider.

On the shore line, we saw a gang of purple sandpipers fossicking around and feasting on the region’s delicious seaweed.

There were arctic terns flitting about,

and every so often coming over to check us out.

The geology was fascinating: close-to, layers of different coloured rock made some lovely patterns;

and, far-off, we had some wonderful landscapes.

Specifically, there was a canyon for us to explore.

This river flows from Five Mile Lake; but we could only go a short distance up because there was quite a considerable current flowing out of it into the fjord. You can see what looks like rapids further up the stream in this picture.

Having cruised the canyon, we then made a landing, which I hadn’t expected,

and took a short, but somewhat exhilarating hike

up to a viewpoint,

where we got a different perspective over the canyon

and the wonderful scenery.

Kuba (left) and Gunnar are the guides that drive the Zodiacs and lead the excursions.

They are both armed and dangerous, mainly to any importunate polar bears.

On the hike, we saw some interestingly split rocks,

and some of the local vegetation.

Then we headed back to the ship.

Kuba explained that his original plan had been to do the canyon and associated landing in the afternoon, with a somewhat longer hike to Five Mile Lake.  But it wasn’t that far from where we couldn’t land earlier because of the polar bear; the bear could easily have covered the distance to the second site during the morning, so we couldn’t risk an afternoon hike there, hence the abbreviated morning walk.

Instead, for the afternoon, we moved around the corner into Woodfjorden and did a landing at Jakobsenbukta. Again, the scenery was awesome.

The shore was basically a glacier river delta, with lots of water (and driftwood).

The weather was incredibly mild, possibly as warm as 8°C, so most of us were wearing (relatively) light clothing and carrying very little.  The exception was Doina and Denis, who live and breathe (and make a living from) online content, so they were fully kitted up.

The site was not one that Kuba or Gunnar had ever visited before – they had taken a look at maps and decided that it looked promising for a short hike; having landed, they then discussed which direction we should go.

The direction they chose wasn’t a problem for most of us; we’d followed instructions to wear our rubber boots. Not everyone had, though, so there was a bit of a hold-up whilst people worked out how to cross a water-filled channel – not deeper than wellie boots, but deeper than hiking shoes!

The delta had areas of still, calm water, which made it a fantastic source of my favourite kind of image – reflections!

The view back to the ship was quite impressive, too.

Jane spotted a footprint,

which we assume came from a reindeer, as did a small pile of droppings we passed. We also passed some Campion moss

which has evolved a survival defence against being eaten by reindeer, which is one of the few animals which can digest normal moss. Thus, it being slow-growing, this clump could be quite old. (Campion, The Wonder Moss?) We were enjoined to take care and avoid walking on it and others like it.

Our walk took us towards the near ridge you can see below, with Kuba leading and Gunnar behind (so he was the rear Gunnar at this point).

However, Rolf’s footwear developed a technical problem

and so Kuba and Gunnar had another planning session and decided to split the party. Kuba led a few of the party, including Rolf, obvs, back to the landing site, where (I think he had to spill the beans on a surprise, here) they could help the ship’s crew, who were planning a bonfire.  Gunnar took charge of the rest of us and we walked on to the ridge. It’s important for the man with the gun to go first in order to be able to protect the rest of the group if need be, so Gunnar was now our forward Gunnar.

We got to the top of the ridge, which gave us a chance to take in the fantastic scenery. Kuba had explained that the triangular rock was caused (as can clearly be seen here) by two converging glacier flows.  Geologists call this shape a “horn”

and I guess the most familiar to Europeans is the Matterhorn. The other famous one is Artesonraju in Peru. You may never have heard of it (I hadn’t), but you’d recognise it as the mountain which inspired the Paramount logo. To the left of the horn above is a cirque – a circular ice field with a glacier emerging from it.  The light was great for landscape photography.

After some moments for people to take in the view

we headed back down the way we came.  Agnese, the other Italian lass, found a fossil

which Gunnar told us was strictly not to be taken away from the scene. Apparently there is a chance that baggage will be scanned to check for illicit stone or fossil removal, with fines as a penalty, so no-one took the risk. No, they didn’t. Really, officer.

We could smell the bonfire before we could see it, and then there it was,

brilliantly setup by the ship’s crew, who were doing the environment a favour by consuming some of that driftwood.

Someone had even had the idea of using driftwood to create a bridge over that awkward water-filled channel.

Everything was beautifully set up, with Anni manning the bar

 

so quite quickly we had a relaxed, party vibe going on the beach.

Russell the Viking, together with Chief Officer Morten and AB Rasmus

Gunnar and AB Malte doing competitive seesaw

Proof that two females are the equal of one male?

The evening sun gave us a marvellous backdrop.

Once back on the boat, we had yet another splendid dinner from Roger, our Swedish chef (but no muppet, he), who had cooked fish that had been caught from the boat the previous evening. And timing allowed another fishing session for those who wished to join in.

As backdrop for this, we had a rainbow

and a fabulous sunset

which I think made a fittingly splendid end to another splendid day. It may not have been as originally planned, but Kuba and the skipper between them hatched up a good plan B (and then C) so that everyone had a great day.

Kuba has a plan for the morrow, too, of course – he always has a plan. Let’s see whether circumstances allow it to proceed in its original form, eh?

Troll Freaks

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Sunday 24 August 2025 – Jane had come up with what seemed like a very decent way of spending a day for which we had no pre-planned activities scheduled. We would head towards the coast at Åndalsnes, about 100km to the north west. If the weather there was as good as the forecast was for here, we could take a cable car there that promised to give us excellent views over the fjord, Romsdalsfjorden (and so it sodding well should, at £40 per head for a return ticket!). There were various Things To Do Or See en route, so if the weather closed in we could still get some touristing done.

The route to Åndalsnes is as straightforward as that from Oslo to Dombås – simply drive along the E136. The road basically runs along one side of the valley created by the Gudbrandsdalslågen river, and so provides some great valley views as one drives along.

The road leads through an attractive town called Bjorli, which features an unusual roundabout decoration.

We had started out in sunshine, but it soon became clear that the weather was closing in somewhat.

and we got some nice dramatic scenes as the walls of the valley rose beside us.

A very attractive roadside church grabbed our attention (devotees of this blog, of which there must be possibly one or two, will know that we love Interesting Churches)

and so we stopped to take a more detailed look and some more photos.

Sadly, even though it was Sunday, it was closed, so we didn’t get a chance to look in. Personfully swallowing our disappointment, we moved on towards our next stop, which would be the Troll Wall, Trollveggen. We passed a very handsome building which I think is called Horgheim Gard

and parked up at Trollveggen, which is the tallest vertical rock face in Europe, about 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) from its base to the summit of its highest point. Actually seeing the highest point was a bit of a challenge, as you can see,

but we both had a shot at taking a photo of the most dramatic bit (that we could see, anyway).

One of those was shot on a Samsung phone and one on a Nikon Z6III. It’s a tribute to the quality of modern phone cameras that there’s not a lot to choose between the two, in terms of image quality.

In the first of those two pictures you can see a railway line, and Trollveggen has a railway station building,

which is a stop on the Rauma line (more on this later), which normally operates between Dombås and Åndalsnes, though I believe it’s affected by a landslip at time of writing. Beside the station building is an exhibit commemorating the secret mission to transport Norway’s gold reserves from Oslo via the Rauma line to Åndalsnes, and thence overseas, during WWII; it was disguised as mundane cargo. The successful enterprise was facilitated by the Norwegian resistance fighters and held significant symbolic importance for the Norwegian people.

There’s a visitor centre there, with the obligatory troll for selfie-hunters

and, rather morbidly, a monument to the people who have lost their lives either by trying to get to the top of Trollveggen or by jumping off the top – it’s a magnet for lunatics base jumpers.

Note, in reading the list of names and dates, that base jumping from the top of Trollveggen has been illegal since 1986.

Having refreshed ourselves with coffee and cake at the visitor centre there, we decided that the gondola idea was unlikely to give us great photo opportunities, so we merely started our journey back towards Trolltun at that point. Jane had, of course, found other points of interest for us to take a look at as we wended our way. Unsurprisingly, the weather improved as we moved away from Trollveggen, and we got some more decent views en route.

The second photo above was taken at the entrance to a path leading down, past a decent view of the valley and via a slightly perilous path

to a view of the Kylling Bridge.

This is a major landmark on the Rauma Line train journey, which might possibly live up to its billing as “the world’s most scenic train journey” as nominated by Lonely Planet in 2023, except for the landslip which has closed it for now. But it’s a very striking piece of engineering, designed by Norwegian engineer Joseph B. Strauss and taking some ten years in the construction.

Fortunately, we were able to see it in peace; a coachload of punters arrived just as we were leaving.

The next stop was at a waterfall, Slettafoss, which was also reached by a somewhat perilous path.

For some reason, at a bridge by the path, there’s a boutique selling Lapp souvenirs.

After clambering about there, we set off for our next riparian encounter, which is not only not signposted, it’s actually inaccurately located on Google maps. Fortunately, Jane had done her homework and knew that we had to take a path down past an abandoned farm.

This path was, you guessed it, slightly perilous.

Going down…
Down a slippery bit
Down a nice steep bit
Round a slippery corner
Through some branches
And round a final slippery bend

It was the most difficult of the paths we’d encountered today. And was it worth it?

Yes. It was. It’s actually the confluence of two waterfalls, and it’s really quite dramatic.

I’m really glad that we visited these sights on the return journey from Trollveggen, as the last of these was far and away the most impressive. However, we were not done; there were more Things To See!

The first of these isn’t even a formal tourist site, just a ramshackle house beside the road that Jane had spotted as we headed out that morning. But, disused or abandoned as it seems, it’s a remarkable building.

Our final stop was, sadly, not as rewarding as it might have been; the open air museum and church at Lesja closed its doors at 3pm, and we arrived there too late to see it in detail. The setting is quite striking. You can see the buildings of the museum as you drive down towards it

and the church sits above its surroundings like a sort of miniature Durham Cathedral

Because the church is part of the museum and maintains the same opening hours, we couldn’t look inside, but it was still worth a wander round the outside.

The graveyard is quite extensive, and runs down the side of the hill behind the church,

and to one side is a repository, possibly of displaced gravestones and other relevant fragments.

And so ended a very pleasant day of trolling about the place. The scenery has been fantastic, some of the sights have been really dramatic and all in all I think we can declare Phase I to be a great success. Tomorrow we head into Phase II, back in Oslo, with which neither of us are familiar, so we hope to be able to see and share some interesting experiences from our time there.

Day 21 – Campagnano to La Giustiniana – hot! and, in places, unrewarding

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Wednesday 4 June 2025 – We knew that today was forecast to be a hot day (30°C) and, because we had to cover a decent distance – over 25km – we decided to start early, so I set the alarm for (shudder) 0500. In theory, then, we should have been snuggled up in bed by 9pm yesterday in order to benefit from eight hours of good, solid sleep.

Ha!

Our hotel room looked out on a busy roundabout, with a couple of bars and restaurants on it or nearby.

At 9pm, there were just a couple of people sitting outside the bars. By 1030, there were crowds of folk all evidently and noisily having a whale of a time, which they continued to do for quite some while. So neither of us got a decent night’s sleep, but we still got up at 0500 and got on with it, so that we were having coffee and croissant(s in my case) at one of these bars

shortly after 0600, and off on the day’s walk before 0630 in nice cool conditions.

The low point (0500 alarm) was, annoyingly, quite shortly followed by a high point – the highest point of the day’s walk, in fact – as we had to climb 200m within the first couple of kilometres, which was harder work than was welcome at that hour (or, for me, any hour, really). At least it was nice and cool, and the road we were walking on was quiet. The reward was, of course, a reasonably decent view,

with the very real possibility that what we could see in the distance was our target for the day, or at least the start of the urban sprawl of Rome. It was pleasant walking in the morning cool.

We passed several of these sorts of things during the first part of the day,

and wondered what they were. I reckon that the wooden structure is for parking a horse and the stone block is a mounting block for when you want to use it again. We certainly saw some references, whilst walking narrow roads, that said that hikers and riders were obliged to proceed in single file, giving credence to the possibility that it was a standard horse riding route.  In theory the Via Francigena itself can be completed on horseback, but I think that could be quite challenging, not least for the horse.

We also saw several crosses, like this one,

but sequentially numbered; at the same time we saw signposts to the “Santuario del Sorbo”. The only Sorbo I had known previous to the Via was the actor Kevin Sorbo who played Hercules in the ridiculous but entertaining TV series about his adventures made by the company who also brought us “Xena – Warrior Princess”. Anyway, it turns out that this Sorbo is a river and the santuario is named for the Madonna del Sorbo. The numbers on the crosses increased, until, outside the santuario is

no. 14, so the assumption is that the series represents the Stations of the Cross. The santuario is a handsome building

with lovely frescoes behind the altar.

We began to see regular milestones (kilometrestones? – Ed) for the Via, telling us how far we had to go.

As well as a Madonna, the Sorbo has a parco, where we saw swallows resting on a telephone line

cows,

some of which surrounded today’s Mystery Object

and all of which were free to roam (there were a pair of cattle grids limiting them, but that’s all) – and at least one exploited this freedom quite liberally.

The parco animal life included horses, which we saw crossing the road

and, indeed, crossing it back again,

possibly having decided they didn’t want to mix it with the mob that side of the street.

The route took us towards the town of Formello, although we had to stay on the road rather than follow the official track.

We don’t know how seriously The Powers That Be didn’t want us going down that track, but they didn’t want people going up it from the other end, either,

and in the meantime, the view from the road was quite decent.

Formello is substantial enough to have several coffee bars, so we stopped at one for a second breakfast. The Via then took us past a building with a rather interesting mural on it,

made from all sorts of different materials – bits of stone, mirror glass, flowers and more.

It then dived into the old town,

which was really rather lovely.

and included some very pretty corners.

We left Formello at about 0930, having really enjoyed the walk thus far. Things rather went downhill (and uphill – Ed) from then on; this whole region is in an area called the Parco de Veio, and the trail entered an area of woodland

which encompassed its next ten kilometres;

and while we passed some nice scenes, it became, frankly, hot and tedious – a fenced path

that led relentlessly and unrewardingly on and on.  And down. And up. If there is a parco superintendento, my message to him is – put in some bloody parco benchos, will you? 10 kilometres is too far to walk in conditions such as today’s with nowhere to rest.

We left the woodland area within sight of the urban edge of Rome and these pleasingly ordered straw bales.

The route led towards Isola Farnese, which we rather hoped might offer the possibility of a coffee stop (or, more accurately, a beer stop). First, it passed something completely unexpected.

This is the Cascata della Mola Veio, and it has an impressive drop over the edge.

Isola Farnese disappointed in the bar stakes, and merged into La Storta, which we knew would offer some refreshment possibilities – but we had to toil on for about another 3km until about 23km into the walk, when we reached a bar where we could each have a glass of something cold. OK, two glasses of something cold. As we refreshed ourselves, we hatched a lunch plan that involved pizza, and walked along the main drag of La Storta , where it was clear we were very much into the edge of the Rome urban sprawl.

There were a couple of pizza joints on offer and one of them offered gin as well, which meant they got our business. They were a bit naughty, telling us that a pizza wasn’t big enough for two people, thus persuading us to order two pizzas. They were huge. One would easily have fed us both and we only finished half of each pizza; but they were tasty, and the lunch overall was  very good value.  They offered us the opportunity to take the remnants with us, but the idea of toting them along with us for the hot half hour’s walk to our accommodation didn’t much appeal.

Our target was in La Giustiniana, giust a little along the road from La Storta (which is the “official” end of this leg of the Via) – the  Resort La Rocchetta. In a departure from normal practice, they close the reception at 4pm, but Jane had been in contact to find out what would be needed if we were later than that. She had also asked if it might be possible to have a kettle in the room, and they conceded that, although this was not a facility available in the standard room we had booked, they might be able to find one for us. We optimistically diverted from the main drag to find a Conad supermarket to buy some milk, just in case, and finally sweated and toiled our way to the resort

for about 3.15pm – very, very hot and very, very tired.  We had covered over 28km in over 30 degree heat (which made it the toughest day of the Via so far for us) and we were very glad when the nice lady on reception told us that we had been upgraded to a superior room – so we had our kettle! Twining’s finest Earl Grey all round! Our stay at this hotel was very pleasant – we were able to relax in preparation for the morrow.

Tomorrow is the final day of walking, when we shall arrive in Rome, hie ourselves to St. Peter’s gaff in the Vatican and get our testimonium to prove our worth as pilgrims.  To avoid too much testy moaning on what will be an even hotter day, we might not walk all the way. Jane has a Cunning Plan but you’ll have to read the next entry to find out what that was.