Norwegian fjords cruise - Olden

On the fjords cruise, the next port after Stavanger was Olden. I had passed through the town on the 2018 coach tour, when we spent the night in the nearby town of Loen. 

Early morning, looking back as we sailed up Innvikfjorden, which is an upstream arm of  Nordfjord. Nordfjorden is the sixth longest fjord in Norway, 106 km long and 565 m deep at the mouth. I was excited to see the snow.

The town of Loen

Approaching Olden and the sun came out -

The new cruise ships can turn around on their own axis, so it was no problem for our monster ship to turn at the end of the fjord. The population of Olden is approximately 500; our ship was carrying 3650 passengers plus well over 1000 crew. In May 2022 cruise ships will be there 15 times. Hopefully the locals will benefit from the income. There is a new jetty close to the town, opened in 2018. The tour buses were waiting for the first lot of passengers.

Some trolls to welcome us

The village is surrounded by farms.

After lunch, I took the open top glacier bus which goes to a view point, from where we could look towards the Briksdal glacier, which is one of the many ‘tongues’ of the Jostedalsbreen. The  Jostedalsbreen is the largest glacier on mainland Europe - part of it can be seen on the above map, shown as the white areas. In 2018 I had visited the Glacier Museum and saw the Boyabreen, Boya Glacier, at the south end of the glacier. 

On the bus we stopped at a river, the water comes from the glacier, flows through Oldevatnet lake and into the fjord at Olden. 

The waterfalls coming off the mountains were still frozen

The lake looking towards the glacier -

Looking back at the glacier from the ship -

When it was time to leave, we had a lovely farewell from the locals - typical "sailing" songs were played at full volume from the pub at the jetty and many people were waving flags from their houses. I'm surprised they still have the enthusiasm to do this with so many cruise ships calling each month. Onboard many passengers were waving Union Jacks and the Welsh flags from their balconies.   -

Sailing out of the fjord

A salmon farm, and the sun is setting as we apporach the open sea