Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Fjærland
POP 300
The village of Fjærland (also called Mundal), at the head of scenic Fjærlandsfjorden, pulls
in as many as 300,000 visitors each year. Most come to experience its pair of particularly
accessible glacial tongues, Supphellebreen and Bøyabreen. Others come to be bookworms.
Thistinyplace,knownastheBookTownofNorway(
www.bokbyen.no
),isabibliophile's
nirvana, with a dozen shops selling a wide range of used books, mostly in Norwegian but
with lots in English and other European languages.
The village virtually hibernates from October onwards, then leaps to life in early May,
when the ferry runs again.
Sights
Supphellebreen & Bøyabreen
GLACIERS
You can drive to within 300m of the Supphellebreen glacier, then walk right up and touch
the ice. Ice blocks from here were used as podiums at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lille-
hammer.
At blue, creaking Bøyabreen, more spectacular than Supphellebreen, its brother over the
hill, you might happen upon glacial calving as a hunk tumbles into the melt-water lagoon
beneath the glacier tongue.
Norwegian Glacier Museum
GLACIER MUSEUM
(Norsk Bremuseum; 57 69 32 88;
www.bremuseum.no
; adult/child Nkr110/50;
9am-7pm Jun-Aug, 10am-4pm Apr, May, Sep & Oct)
For the story on flowing ice and
how it has sculpted the Norwegian landscape, visit this superbly executed museum, 3km
inland from the ferry jetty.
The hands-on exhibits will delight children. Youcan learn howfjords are formed, see an
excellent 20-minute multiscreen audiovisual presentation on Jostedalsbreen (so impressive
that audiences often break into spontaneous applause at the end), touch 1000-year-old ice,
wind your way through a tunnel that penetrates the mock ice and even see the tusk of a
Siberian woolly mammoth, which met an icy demise 30,000 years ago. There's also an ex-
hibit on the 5000-year-old 'Ice Man' corpse, which was found on the Austrian-Italian bor-
der in 1991.
