Tag Archives: Landscape

Troll Freaks

7 Replies

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

4 Replies

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.

 

Day 14 – Bolsena to Montefiascone – dreaded but actually delightful

2 Replies

Tuesday 27 May 2025 – Having seen the elevation profile of today’s walk, I had been expecting a day of unremitting toil and had prepared myself accordingly, which means starting off with walking sticks in hand, ready to help me up all those hills.  Le Vigne was reasonably well up the first one, and we started off uphill but not too steeply, and bade farewell to Bolsena.

I noticed that there was a ferris wheel by the lakeside – just visible in the upper right of the picture above. Soon, we were on a woodland track

and largely in the shade, which was very pleasant; not that the day was hot per se, but it’s always nicer to be out of direct sunshine. We could look back at Bolsena and see that ferris wheel clearly now,

and the views over the lake in the morning light were lovely.

We passed a variety of different scenes as we went along.

A cluster of beehives

Nearly big enough to be called a ford

A longish section led through woodland on a clearly prepared trail, intended for use by mountain bikes as well as walkers,

until we left the Bolsena commune and entered that of Montefiascone,

which, an info board informed us, was the highest point on the Via Francigena. Despite this stark warning of uphill labour to come, the pleasant woodland trail continued

occasionally giving us lovely views over the surrounding countryside

until we came to a point where we could see the town of Montefiascone itself,

indisputably much higher than we were at the time. The trail turned into a strada bianca, but at least it offered occasional shade

and, somewhat after the halfway point, there being no formal coffee stop on the route, we found an informal shaded resting place to share some fruit.

As we neared the town, we passed several very posh-looking residences

many of which showed no more sign of occupancy than maybe a car being parked outside, and we wondered what the various stories were about these houses. Were they second homes? Farmers’ houses? Holiday lets?

We broke out from the woodland into the open for the final part of the walk, and were rewarded with more views

before the final pull up into the town.  Montefiascone is the Sarría of the Via Francigena – the point that’s 100km from the eventual destination and walking from which will earn you a certificate at the end, in this case in the Vatican at Rome. There’s even a formal mark,

outside a church, the Chiesa del Corpus Domini, which is a very substantial building

with some nice terracotta work on the front

and a lovely calm interior.

A side chapel

Embroidery above the chapel

The only tedious bit of the day came next, a longish pull up some steep streets to reach the town

Montefiascone is apparently world-famous for Est! Est!! Est!!! wine

and further tediously up towards the old city, past a rather unused-looking fairground setup (maybe for future use or from a past feast day?)

and another very chunky piece of religious masonry (more on this tomorrow).

We made it (via a side trip to get milk at a Coop) into the old city,

where the upness continued to sap my sense of humour as we toiled up this street.

Really, this last section was the only tedious and laborious part of what otherwise has probably been the most enjoyable walk of the Via so far.

The 100km USP of the place seems to drive a certain pilgrim-friendliness.

Our hotel was the Urbano V, where we arrived just before 2pm. Our room was available so we were able to take our bags up (in the lift! hurrah!!) before wandering out to find some lunch.  The receptionist thought that perhaps a restaurant called Dante would be open, and so it was. It describes itself as having Cuisina Tipica and we had a decent enough meal. It has a rather informal air about it, and they don’t seem to expect much in the way of passing tourist trade, with little concession made to those who can’t speak Italian; but the service was affable, and the food both good and copious.

After lunch, we needed to go for a walk. Obviously. We headed back to the hotel to make ourselves (relatively) respectable so that we could enter any passing churches, and set out to see the sights.

It’s a funny old place, Montefiascone. It has buckets of historic significance and charm, but it could really do with a good wash and brush up to show itself off well, like Bolsena does.

There are some really scruffy corners, which is sad to see, as it seems to tell of a city that is not inhabited by that many people.

We passed the orthodox parochial church and looked in.

Montefiascone, it is clear, has a great historical significance, having once been a Papal possession in the 12th and 13th centuries. The castle that sits above the town

was often the residence of popes and is named Rocca dei Pappi, and the city was a significant gathering point for pilgrims on the way to Rome. There is a pilgrim’s tower

from which, apparently, you get a 360° view of the surrounding countryside (there is no lift, and I wasn’t in the mood for steps up, which just goes to show what a poor pilgrim I really am). There is an enormous basilica, the cathedral of Santa Margherita, which has one of the largest domes in Europe.

The cathedral was built substantially in the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1670 it suffered a serious fire, with repairs taking a further decade. The interior was elaborately restored in 1893, and is

jaw-dropping.

On the way back from this wandering, we had a delightful Camino-style occasion. Outside the Caffè Centrale, on the piazza near our hotel, was sitting one of the two ladies we’d been able to help on the road to Acquapendente. We got into conversation, which led inevitably to gin and tonic. She is another Jane, who is also walking to Rome with her friend Yvette. Yvette was sadly absent, recovering from a bout of something dreadful, but it was really pleasant to talk to Jane. The occasion developed even further when another couple we’d been talking to at intervals over our journey, Susan and Andy, happened by, which led, equally inevitably, to more gin and tonics. This sort of encounter is relatively commonplace on the Camino de Santiago, when pilgrims in their thousands throng the route; we were delighted that we had encountered similar serendipity on this much less-travelled route.  It won’t happen again, as the others all depart tomorrow whilst we have a rest day; but it’s a pleasing memory to take away with us.

During the preceding wanderings around the city, we saw a few more things to explore further; we have a full day tomorrow to do so, and I will regale you with them in tomorrow’s post. Check in later and see what else the town has to offer, why don’t you?