Onward In Our Rental Car

By mid-morning Wednesday (July 7) we had picked up our rental car, a VW Golf hatchback, and were off on the last leg of our trip, a grand tour of Norway's West Coast via Loen, Gerainger, Alesund, Molde, Kristiansund and Trondheim.

First stop: Loen, where glacier melt-off comes tumbling down the mountains to sea level into Innvik Fjord. The Loenfjord Hotel is locate precisely where the last rapids meet the fjord, and there are plenty of benches from which to contemplate the effect of gravity upon water. Most of the water is melt from Jostedalbreen, Europe's largest glacier just a few miles inland (a distant view of one of the glacier's arms is seen in this view above from the village of Jølster en route to Loen). If you don't want to bother with a winding car or bus trip you could take a quick helicopter tour. One left every 15 minutes or so from the hotel's lawn.

Our one-night stay at the Loenfjord Hotel was marked by lots of celebration among a couple of tour buses worth of Spanish visitors. They crowded into the bar to watch the Spain beat Germany, 1-0, on a header in the 74th minute. Given that celebration, it's hard to imagine the festivities the following Sunday when Spain beat the Netherlands for the cup.