Kongevegen: Galdane
When I finished with my Maristova – Kyrkjestølen – Maristova trip (plus one additional summit climbing) I have still a half day to organize. I decided to eat something first and good place for it is Borgund Stavkirke Museum, which includes café. It took several minutes to get there, but unfortunately museum’s door was closed. I found out that they are open up to end of September, so I came about two weeks too late. I looked at old wooden church instead. There was a young man from the museum who waited for some group of tourists, but he didn’t agree to let me in.
In this case I ate sandwiches from day before and decided to take another trip. The one I have planned to go next day. I saw some others, who headed to Vindhellvegen, located behind Borgund stavkirke and to avoid any crowd, I took myself to Galdane.
Galdane is a scenic route along river of Lærdalselvi, placed a few kilometers from Borgund. I parked my car on parking lot at beginning of trail. On this place river is whirling wild in the gorge. The path beginning on another side of the bridge. The route is easy, especially when you go from east to west. Otherwise you will have to climb once or twice on steep road. The road is wide and good maintained. On some places you can find info board, telling about this place, people who lived here, how the road was built or a legend of king’s Olav horse, which was passing the narrow canyon and created round shapes on rocks. There are also old, German machine gun locations. Additional attraction is beautiful Soknefossen waterfall (Sokni Waterfall) and two twin bridges.
The route has approx. 5,5km but I found in internet info about 4,4km. The trail ends on pavement along E16 road. I reach the road 630, which is old, parallel to E16, narrow way. It goes in the same direction as the trail, but on other side of the river. Going back along this road I could see Galdane trail from the other point of view. The road has no pavement, but there is no traffic on it. Vertical, high rock wall on one side and the mountain river on other, makes this road amazing to travel. There is place to stop and relax as well. I found also two other hiking trails leading from there. Reaching the place, where I left the car was easy. It was along the same 630 road, which leads further to Borgund.
This post was originally published 2017-10-21 on https://kraina-trolli.pl.
