Day 2 and its Alesund

By leannemareeblogNovember 6, 2016 ( 6 )

Had a decent night’s sleep and kicked off the day with a fine buffet breakfast. Aderyn, thought of you when I had jungle oats. Then followed that with the finest soft boiled egg ever! Don’t ask me to explain, it was just the perfect soft boiled egg!

We took some pics on the top deck and mosied around the ship. Sat in the scenic lounge as we docked at one little port for 30 min or so. We arrived in Alesund at around 12pm. We had not pre booked a tour, so just pulled on our walking boots and headed into the little town.. Ålesund is a town and municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is a sea port, and is noted for its unique concentration of Art Nouveau architecture. I guess we walked around 5 or 6 kms today. We walked as far as the Church. Weather was crisp at around 5deg, no wind, so quite comfy. There has also been no snowfall in the low lying areas yet, so easy to walk and get around.

We got back to the boat just before 2pm and were lucky enough to be in time for lunch still. Again a buffet, my highlights today were a pork dumpling broth and the roasted beetroot. We had a good laugh at the cleaning lady, who decided not to make my bed as she could see that things were done in a “special way” in my room. She may have been referring to the tucked in and overlapping duvets, or the pillows piled like soldiers to one side. Or she may have been referring to the plaster and tissue covering the blue lights of the underfloor heating, or the tissue and teabag covering the phone. 😂😂 Even I understand how weird I am.

This afternoon was washing day, so we got that out of the way. While the machines were going, we attended a talk on the different excursions. They are hellishly expensive, as is everything in Norway. So where practical we will do our own thing in the various ports.

Then we headed off for some downtime in our respective cabins, but that was rudely interrupted by some stunning scenery. So mad dash for jackets and beanies and we were on the top deck sightseening again. It was about 4pm, the waxing moon was just appearing above the mountains and the sun was starting to set. The sky was clear and pink and blue, against the dark mountains covered in snow on top. Oh….and it was frikken freezing! Had forgotten about gloves! The wind was biting cold, so we only lasted about 20 minutes. Scary to think that this is just the practice round for how cold it is still going to get. It is expected that tomorrow will be -8!!!

Nearly time for din dins and then we will spend some time on the top deck “Hunting the lights”. It is a cold, clear night so the chances should be quite good. There is an app called Norther lights which indicates conditions are right. So here’s hoping. Watch this space for the updates…..