After a long and hot summer trip to Greece I decided to wind down for a couple of days in my beautiful neighboring country Norway. I had already visited most of the World Heritage Sites in Scandinavia but not yet the Stave Church of Urnes, a fact that had annoyed me for some time. So it was now high time to “tick it off” as my 146th site. Once in Oslo I embarked on the Bergen-train and traveled up the mountains to Myrdal where I hopped off in order to take the world-famous Flåm-banan down to the fjords and here catch a connecting bus to Sogndal.

Flåm-banen is a major tourist attraction in itself and as the train slowly makes its 860 meters way down to the fjords, through tunnels and mountainsides, you can enjoy a wonderful view including mountains, waterfalls and small villages. In Flåm you can catch ferries to Bergen and other destinations along the Norwegian coast.

My bus trip from Flåm to Sogndal took about 2 hours and on it’s way it passed through the 24,5 km long Laerdal-tunnel, the longest tunnel in the world. At the time I was ignorant enough not to be aware of it’s existence and certainly not of it’s length so after some 15 minutes of traveling through the tunnel I was beginning to wonder whether this was a surreal dream where I was captured in the mountain!??? Despite my worst worries the bus did get out and arrived in Sogndal and Sognefjorden shortly after.

The landscape in Sognefjorden - Norway’s longest fjord - is really Norwegian landscape at its best. It is here were the high mountains slopes rushes straight down into the fjords and narrow roads are winding its way up and down the mountainsides. The area is not very densely populated so its the perfect place to find a nice and quiet corner of Europe and enjoy the solitude or wander in the mountains.

The most comfortable way to get to the Urnes Stave Church is by car. For myself, traveling by public transport only, it had to be an expensive taxi ride from Sogndal to Solvorn were a small ferry boat took me across the fjord to Urnes, a small village with only 200 inhabitants that seem to specialize in raspberry cultivation (try some, it’s delicious). From the ferry you have walk for a kilometer up a steep small road that ends right by the Stave Church, a B&B and a museum.

The wooden church itself is very small and smell of tar. Inside it is dark and not room for more than 30 or 40 people. The interior is a mix of cultural influences where the oldest bits are medieval runic inscriptions thought to go back as far as to to the Viking age as well as 16th, 17th-century pulpit, altar and sacristy. The view from the church and the cemetery overlooking the fjord is absolutely astonishing and if you have the time I strongly recommend you to stay at the B&B in Urnes for a couple of days.