Skjolden was not on the itinerary originally, then Princess changed the port and took us to Skjolden. We couldn’t find any interesting local tours, therefore, we all booked "The Best Of Skjolden" excursion offered by Princess.
Skjolden is known as the gateway to the ruggedly beautiful Jotunheimen National Park. Covering 1,351 square miles, the park is home to a spectacular landscape of waterfalls, rivers, glaciers and some of the highest peaks in Europe north of the Alps.
Our first photo stop offered splendid views of the majestic Hurrungane Mountains. Considered one of the finest mountain ranges in Scandinavia, the mountains' huge vertical walls jut almost 3,300 feet high above a massive glacier.
Another photo stop at Sognefjell Mountain was the Stave Church in the tiny village of Lom.
After lunch we had our final stop to visit the Norsk fjellsenter which is the Norwegian Mountain Center and it is a visitor center for the national parks Jotunheimen, Reinheimen and Breheimen. The guide told us that they just received some new items found recently due to melting glaciers in these areas. It was interesting to see what were buried underneath of the glacier and just appeared recently due to global warming.
On the way back to the pier, we stopped by the Saga Column which is a 34 meter high column with sculpture and reliefs - designed by the sculptor Wilhelm Rasmussen in the 1920s. The pictures on the statue shows Norway's history from the battle of Hafrsfjord until the country got its constitution at Eidsvoll in 1814. We took some photos here and then rushed back to the pier.
The tour guide was an older gentleman needing a lot of improvement on his tour guiding experiences. He never told us about what we supposed to see and we had to press by asking him directly.
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