Alesund
We had an early start today with our port arrival to Alesund at 7:30 AM and our tour starting at 8:30.
We boarded a bus with about 20 other people for a tour called Land of the Trolls.
The tour was 8 hours long and took us up into the mountains around Alesund. We don’t do that many long bus tours but this one sounded interesting and took us into the interior of Norway.
We traveled over an hour before our first stop and a beautiful waterfall. There is an ancient legend that our tour guide Metta happily explained about a young woman who fell in love with a young man named Gundbrand but her father forced her to marry someone she didn’t like. At the wedding, after everyone had too much to drink, Gundbrand arrived and kidnapped the bride. He escaped with her by jumping over the waterfall.
Our next stop was a long stop up in the mountains at the Troll Road Plateau to the Trollstiegen Viewpoint with most spectacular views. the normal route to the plateau, up a narrow road called the Troll Road with 11 hairpin turns has been under construction because of a landslide 2 years ago so we took an alternate route with was still beautiful. We could see the The weather was a bit overcast, and significantly cooler than at our previous stir but the walk out to the gorge provided some truly amazing views. Part of this walk was a bit steep but well worth the effort. As one might expect from the names, there are multiple troll legends in this part of Norway.
Our lunch stop was at a nice roadside restaurant in an area known for its strawberries. the food was excellent. It was our first taste of Norwegian cuisine on the trip.
After lunch we stopped at an interesting church called the Rose Church. A guide gave us some of the interesting and strange history of the church. The whole interior - walls, ceiling and pillars - was decorated in 1799 by traveling craftsmen. Back at that time men and women were separated for services and pregnant women, dubbed “unclean” were relegated to the balcony.
Our last stop was at the Skodje Bridges, a set of stone bridges. The views were beautiful.
We arrived back in Alesund to our ship and spent the rest of the evening back in our room.
Tomorrow is a sea day so we’ll have to find something to do on board the shiip.
As I write this it is 11:14 PM and the sun will not be setting until 11:38.The sun will rise at 3:30 AM and it will never get totally dark. In 2 days we will go above the Arctic Circle and we will not see a sunset for about 5 days.. It is definitely hard to get used to.