Olden
Olden sits where the Oldeelva river meets Nordfjorden, a village of 522 people flanked by two wooden churches — one white from 1759, one deep red from 1934 — that face each other across the valley floor like punctuation marks on either side of a long sentence. The emerald water of Lake Oldevatnet stretches eleven kilometres south toward Briksdalsbreen, a tongue of the great Jostedalsbreen glacier that reaches down from the plateau above.
More than 360,000 cruise passengers passed through in 2023, which means the waterfront can feel crowded by mid-morning. The village itself, though, is small enough that you can walk clear of the port traffic in ten minutes and find yourself beside the river with almost no one else around.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to time it for Singerheimen — the nine deep-green buildings William Henry Singer built in 1921 are open for guided tours and afternoon tea, and the pace there is genuinely unhurried. Arrive on a weekday if you can; weekends draw the coach traffic. The old church from 1759 is usually unlocked during daylight hours.
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Book directly at the providerHow Olden came to be
Farming families have worked the land around Olden for more than 700 years, the Brynestad families among the longest-rooted. The industrial chapter arrived in 1890 with the Innvik woollen mill — powered by hydroelectricity, it grew into one of the largest surviving wooden industrial structures in Northern Europe, turning out suits, blankets and upholstery until it closed in 1972.
In 1913, American artist William Henry Singer Jr. and his wife Anna arrived by boat. Anna reportedly said upon seeing the valley: 'I have found my country.' Singer was heir to a Pittsburgh steel fortune but had walked away from business for painting. By 1921 he had built Singerheimen, a compound of nine deep-green buildings that is now a listed heritage site.
Who and what shaped it
People who shaped it
Landmark buildings
Plan your visit
On the map
When to go
July peaks around 16°C during the day and drops to about 8°C at night — pleasant for walking, though the valley receives over 2,100 mm of rain annually and showers arrive without much warning. February is cold and dark, with December averaging barely 18 minutes of usable daylight per day, so winter visits are for people who know what they're signing up for.
Right now
Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.