Olden — From Dawn to the Top of the World
Before Sunrise
My day started at 4am.
I was out on the promenade deck of the ship to watch it sail through the fjord to Olden. “A must see,” they told me.
At this time there was some light, but only just. Everything was blue-grey and murky, with conditions about as flat as photography gets. Not ideal. It was also bitterly cold and despite being well wrapped up against the elements I found it uncomfortable.
Judging by attendance, enthusiasm for this recommendation had varied considerably. All of five hardy souls had made the effort, each apparently having left partners and families sensibly asleep in bed. We stood spaced apart around the deck in near silence.
The five of us stood there quietly, nobody wanting to break the spell of the time and place.
Either that, or perhaps the sort of geeky people attracted to standing on a cruise ship deck at 4am to photograph a fjord are not naturally the most outgoing and talkative group.
Other people gradually appeared and disappeared. Couples drifted through. A father arrived with two children still wearing pyjama bottoms. There was also a surprising number of viewers dressed in clothing wildly unsuited to standing in near-Arctic temperatures.
By 6am I had had enough. Conditions for photographs had not improved and the scenery remained stubbornly monochrome. I retreated indoors and returned to the cabin carrying coffee and tea for my wife.
Eventually Olden came into view.
Morning Arrives in Olden
By now my wife had joined me and the view from our cabin balcony after docking was extraordinary. Looking out across still water, surrounded by mountains streaked with snow, there was a calmness that photographs only partly capture. Low cloud drifted around the mountain tops while reflections spread softly across the fjord.
We decided it was time for some breakfast.
Olden: view from our balcony
After leaving the ship I wandered further along the waterfront before our excursion, hoping for a different angle. I eventually found a spot almost at water level and took a photograph looking back across the fjord. Sometimes it is worth walking a little further. I was particularly pleased with that one — low to the water, mountains rising behind, and a perspective that felt slightly different from the usual cruise photos.
Iona at dock in Olden: Sometimes it is worth walking a little further
A Slightly Ambitious Plan
One thing that had occupied my mind over breakfast was whether our plan for the day was about to be either brilliantly efficient or completely stupid.
We had decided to squeeze two excursions into our few hours in Olden: Briksdal Glacier and the Loen Skylift, making sure we were safely back onboard by 4:30pm.
Facebook, naturally, had been enormously helpful.
One person confidently declared this could “100% be done.” Meanwhile several others appeared to be experiencing levels of anxiety suggesting we were attempting a military operation rather than visiting Norwegian scenery.
Our friends chose the more cautious option and decided not to risk both.
We carried on.
Into the Valley
In the end it turned out to be surprisingly straightforward, helped considerably by booking both through the same company. The first excursion departed directly outside the ship at 10am. After a short coach journey of around thirty minutes we arrived at the troll car station where, while waiting, we made our first purchase of the week: coffee.
The scenery was becoming steadily more dramatic
The troll cars are small open-sided vehicles that save visitors a long uphill walk and carry you steadily into increasingly dramatic scenery. They felt part golf buggy, part miniature mountain expedition.
Water rushed beside the route. Waterfalls appeared around bends. The mountains seemed to close in with every turn.
Once we arrived, we almost ran.
Not because of excitement exactly, but strategy.
Experience suggested that arriving with the main group meant photographs involving fifty strangers in waterproof jackets. We hurried ahead and found a perfect sweet spot between tour groups where, for a short while, only a single family had reached the lake before us.
The walk from the upper troll car station starts steeply but soon flattens out. And then suddenly the glacier appears.
Ancient Ice
Briksdal felt very different from what I had imagined.
Less bright white postcard ice and more ancient landscape.
Briksdal Glacier: Less bright postcard ice. More ancient landscape.
The lake in front of it was an extraordinary colour — clear green-blue water reflecting rock and snow with almost impossible clarity. The glacier itself sat high above, layered with ice and streaked rock, looking less like something frozen and more like something slowly moving through the mountain.
The colour of the lake hardly seemed real
Naturally I took rather too many photographs.
Not a bad view for the return journey
Coming back was simply the reverse of before and before long we were being dropped back beside the ship and almost straight onto the seven-minute shuttle bus for Loen Skylift.
Forty Minutes Later… Winter Again
Even from below, the cable car looked improbable. The cabins moved silently above forests of fresh spring green, climbing steeply towards Mount Hoven. Looking up, the summit station appeared to cling to the mountainside rather than sit on it.
Loen Skylift
The journey itself was almost as impressive as the destination. As we climbed, the landscape changed quickly. Near the bottom, spring had firmly arrived — fields bright green, trees covered in fresh leaves and small farms scattered across the valley floor.
The higher we travelled, the more winter returned, and forty minutes after returning to the ship we were on the top of the mountain.
Everything below suddenly felt much smaller.
And what a view.
My wife — not generally known for overdramatisation — simply said:
"It takes your breath away."
And honestly that was difficult to argue with.
Below us the fjord curved through the valley while tiny villages sat between patches of green fields and snow still lingered across the higher ground. Everything we had spent the morning travelling through had suddenly shrunk. Roads became threads. Houses became dots.
One boat crossing an otherwise still fjord.
The views seemed endless. Fjords disappeared into distant valleys while mountains rose layer after layer into the distance beneath heavy skies. Clouds rolled overhead, changing the light every few minutes and shifting shadows across water and mountainsides below.
Snow, Ice and Dignity
Someone had previously written “I ❤️ Norway” into the snow coincidentally with both my wife’s and my own initials!
Snow still covered parts of the viewing areas and paths. Enough remained for people to immediately abandon all dignity and become children again. Footprints wandered everywhere.
After exploring the viewing area we decided to walk down towards the helipad.
Snow still covered sections of the path and where it had become icy I attempted a careful detour around it.
Instead I stepped directly into deep snow and promptly fell over.
I stood up.
Then did exactly the same thing again.
Not my most dignified Norwegian moment.
Eventually I reached the helipad which turned out to be unexpectedly good fun. From certain angles it looked like an enormous drop-off — although in reality it was far less dramatic — allowing everyone to create photographs suggesting acts of extraordinary bravery.
Social media reality at work.
My wife seemed completely in her element, wrapped in hat, gloves and several layers, smiling into the cold wind while looking out across the valley below. In one moment she stood quietly looking towards the fjord; in another she climbed onto a rock and stretched her arms wide towards the mountains as though trying to take in the entire view at once.
I found myself doing something increasingly rare.
I stopped photographing.
For a few moments I simply stood looking.
No settings.
No compositions.
Just Looking.
No settings. No compositions. Just looking.
Then, because Norway apparently had one final detail to add, a paraglider appeared far below, drifting silently across the mountainside above the fjord.
The Small Things You Remember
Travel often gives you famous places.
What stays are usually the smaller moments.
The cold at 4am.
The quiet company of fellow early risers.
The blue green of a lake.
Snow under your boots in May.
My wife standing arms stretched into the wind.
And standing beside someone you love while looking out across a landscape that feels too large to fully take in.
One last picture of the day….
One last view as Olden slipped behind us.