Day 7 - Alesund

We are definitely not where we are supposed to be; but we did finally get out of the raging storm.

Wiki: Ålesund is a port town on the west coast of Norway, at the entrance to the Geirangerfjord. It’s known for the art nouveau architectural style in which most of the town was rebuilt after a fire in 1904, as documented at the Jugendstilsenteret museum. There are panoramic views of Ålesund’s architecture, the surrounding archipelago and fjords from the Mount Aksla lookout.

We skipped all the cruise offerings and chose to walk around the town on our own. It’s a very overcast day, but 45 degrees feels good even with the wind. I left the winter coat on the ship and just wore a light pullover on top of a couple shirts. Martha wanted to be more prepared for rain. To each his own. We followed the footprints to the town and we found some trolls! Evidently this area is known as the land of Trolls. Maybe we will see some.

Unfortunately, the town wasn’t ready for us as so many shops and restaurants were closed or open later in the day.

As noted above, Mount Aksla can be seen from the town so that was our first stop. Unlike many of our fellow travelers, we did not walk to the top. Kudos to those who chose that route. We chose Uber!

We did walk down the 400 + steps. There are plenty of seats if you need to pause on the way up or down. Fortunately, the ice was cleared, so it was relatively safe.

Once back at sea level we were on a reward mission to find a Pub or Restaurant. This was harder than you’d think as many places don’t open until well into the afternoon. The town is very pretty and if the sun was shining the pictures would be better. Note: Mount Aksla at the top of picture number 2. Yes, we walked that far.

We stopped and talked to a shopkeeper on our journey and mentioned that we did not think we would make it to any of our upcoming ports except Bergen, which is where we disembark. He said that due to liability issues, we would probably make it to at least Tromso, which is the next stop. We are in Alesund for another night so the engineers can look over the ship. As with all things involving people, in the absence of true information, we are probably just making sh&$ up!

We found a bar in a hotel and had a few beers and ran into others from our cruise. We cannot explain how scary the storm we went through was to us, but to other cruisers, it’s where we begin every conversation.

We seem to be on a bit of a pub crawl in Alesund and have stopped in Dirty Nelly. We ordered the Norwegian beer because we are in NORWAY! In our defense, we thought there was food at Dirty Nelly, but we read the sign wrong and thought we were at the famous chain Durty Nelly’s, but no. However, Maria, the most friendly bartender, ordered a pizza to be delivered to us. Score!!!

Of course we’ve run into shipmates at that bar too and one told us to check the local news. Sigh, I googled the ship to find out it has propulsion problems, which means it can’t steer. Which means we probably aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Just wondering why I have to read it in a captains forum and didn’t hear it from our Captain. Martha googled translated some other local news and they kept saying “rescue operation,” “pulled in by tugboats with coast guard escort,” “no acute danger to guests on board, at this time.” I asked at guest services about the stories and they are all “false”. Of course they are.

Night views…

When we returned to the ship we found out that we are not going any further north on this trip. They aren’t “saying” the ship is f’d but they are kind of saying the ship is f’d, lol. Looking at the weather where we were supposed to go, we would’ve had cool experiences but we probably wouldn’t have seen any lights. So, money back on those excursions and we will see what we see in other places.