Undredal Stave Church

When my daughter and I were exploring the fjords, one thing we didn’t add to our itinerary was any of Norway’s famous stave churches. We’re not heathens or anything, lol, we just didn’t feel the need to go and find one. Even though they popped up on many a ‘to do’ list that I’d found while planning our adventures. But then we found ourselves in Undredal, (after driving down a fantastic road with goats that blocked traffic, which brought us insane amounts of joy) and we literally found ourselves in front of one. It was open, and the entry fee was 6 euros or something, so I decided on our list or not, we should probably go in. We had honestly stood debating it for a few minutes before we realized the chance would probably never come again, and boring or not, we’d be supporting the local economy, which we’re always fans of. So we gave the young woman our money, told her we were fine without a tour and in we went.

I’m pretty sure I gasped. I am certain I said, ‘oh my gosh, I love it here so much’, because that’s the sort of thing I’m likely to say when I’m stunned speechless. I don’t really do speechless that well.

I now want to go back to Norway and explore the other stave churches there. Just saying.

Undredal was built in 1147. Geez. It’s the smallest church in Scandinavia in regular use. The deer-head chandelier is medieval. I think that’s worth going in for, to use deer-head chandelier in a sentence, of the wooden kind anyway. I wouldn’t have liked it nearly so well if the deer heads were, you know, actual deer heads. The angels and biblical folk paintings on the ceiling are most likely from the 1700’s and were discovered during renovation in the 1980’s. How psyched must they have been to find those beauties?

There isn’t one thing I don’t recommend about the fjords of Norway (except perhaps the brown cheese, though it’s worth a try anyway), and I think it’s safe to say if you find yourself wanting to visit a stave church, you totally should.  Behind the quiet interior could quite possibly be a little bit of amazing.