
Skjolden is a village in the municipality of
Luster in
Vestland
Vestland is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The county is located in Western Norway, and its administrative centre is Bergen, where the executive and political leadership is based. The County governor (Norway), County Governor is based in ...
county,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
. It is located at the end of the
Lustrafjorden
The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, ), nicknamed the King of the Fjords (), is the list of Norwegian fjords, longest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the small village ...
, a branch of the
Sognefjorden
The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, ), nicknamed the King of the Fjords (), is the longest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the small village of Skjolden in the muni ...
. Skjolden is located at the innermost point of the
Sognefjorden
The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, ), nicknamed the King of the Fjords (), is the longest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the small village of Skjolden in the muni ...
, Norway's longest fjord, and the length of the Sognefjorden is measured from Skjolden to the island of
Ytre Sula where the fjord meets the ocean—over 200 km. The valleys of Mørkridsdal and Fortunsdal meet at Skjolden, just west of the
Hurrungane mountains.
Skjolden is home to about 200 people.
The village is located along the
Sognefjellsvegen road, about west of the lake
Prestesteinsvatnet and the mountain
Fannaråki. Skjolden is about northeast of the municipal center of
Gaupne and about northeast of
Hafslo. North of the village is
Breheimen National Park, home of the glaciers
Harbardsbreen and
Spørteggbreen and the mountain
Tverrådalskyrkja.
Notable people
The village was home to philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.
From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...
who lived here after 1913 during some periods of his life; the longest one was 13 months. Important parts of his works were written here. He had designed a small wooden house that was erected on a remote rock over the Eidsvatnet Lake in 1913 and called "Østerrike" (Austria) by locals. It was broken up in 1958 to be rebuilt in the village. A local foundation collected donations and bought the house in 2014; it was dismantled again and re-erected at its original location; the inauguration took place on 20 June 2019 under international attendance.
Media gallery
File:P1000394Vassbakken.JPG, View of the Vassbakken waterfall
File:P1000393copySkjolden.jpg, Skjolden village
File:Skjolden, Luster.JPG, View of the village with waterfall behind
References
Villages in Vestland
Luster, Norway
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