Ornes or Urnes is a village in
Luster Municipality
Luster is a municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located at the end of the Sognefjorden in the traditional district of Sogn. The administrative centre is the village of Gaupne. Other villages in Luster include Fortun, Hafslo, Indre ...
in
Vestland
Vestland is a county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the city of Bergen, where t ...
county,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
. The village is located on a small peninsula that juts out into the
Lustrafjorden
The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, en, Sogn Fjord), nicknamed the King of the Fjords ( no, Fjordenes konge), is the largest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the sma ...
, the innermost part of the
Sognefjorden
The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, en, Sogn Fjord), nicknamed the King of the Fjords ( no, Fjordenes konge), is the largest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the smal ...
. The village sits on the east side of the fjord, directly across the fjord from the village of
Solvorn. Ornes is notable because it is the site of the 12th century
Urnes Stave Church.
There has been a regular ferry route from Ornes to
Solvorn, across the fjord, since 1859.
Media gallery
File:The Fjord at Ornes.jpg, Boathouses at Ornes
File:Urnes.jpg, View of the Ornes area
File:Stave church Urnes - panorama HDR.jpg, Stave Church at Ornes, looking across the fjord
File:Urnes - Stavkirke - Extérieur 02.JPG, Front view of the stave church
Name
The
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
form of the name was ''Órnes''. The first element is the preposition ''ór'' 'out, outstanding' - the last element is ''nes'' '
headland, naze'. The common (but wrong) form ''Urnes'' is from the time of Danish rule ("Wrnes" 1563, "Vrnes" 1666, etc.).
References
Villages in Vestland
Luster, Norway
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