Day 7 – 16 July 2023 – Alesund

Another early start with more amazing fjord scenery, this time having breakfast as we sail into the port of Alesund, the 3^rd largest city in Norway & the site of a large Viking settlement. The ship docks at 8.30 am & we enjoy the views from the ship. We are the first tour off the ship this morning & head onto bus number one for our journey. We follow the shores of the Storfjod with beautiful scenes of the mountains, waterfalls & the fjord. Alesund is spread out along the fjord with lots of small factories & businesses following the road. We pass the old octagonal church of Stordal built in 1789 & through a few small villages that are renowned for growing sweet strawberries. The strawberry fields have lots of workers in them picking the strawberries. 

Our first stop is at a lookout overlooking the Geirangerfjord, stunning views. Across the water is a small farm with buildings in a clearing 200 metres up a steep tree covered cliff. Apparently this farm was abandoned 30 years ago & the driver told us that everyone & everything they had was carried by hand up the steep cliff. We can’t imagine how hard that must have been. At the lookout is a Kokarsteinen, a stone shelter that was used by travellers between the towns of Dykorn & Vaksvik when the road was a mere track & most people walked.

As we continue on the scenery continues to amaze us & we stop next near Alstad where the Valldola River passes through a narrow gorge. The falls roar as the mass of water drops down & under the beautiful old stone Gudbrandsjuvet bridge. The viewing platforms & elevated pathways are relatively new & look great as they wind through the trees & over the narrow gorge. Back at the bus our driver greets us with a couple of punnets of strawberries, they are large & some of the sweetest strawberries we have tasted. From where the bus is parked we see the towering Trollkyrkja mountain ranges, the land of the legendary trolls.

We drive through more stunning scenery where the roads get narrower & the mountains higher, with lots of patches of snow on the sheltered parts of the mountains. Our guide Michael & driver Palmar explain that this winter had some of the most snow on record with this road covered by between 8 & 15 metres of snow only a bit over 6 weeks ago, amazing. We stop at a viewing place with new shop, café & toilets just above a pathway & viewing platform, with a small river running beside it. Our guide told us that the glass at the front of the café was destroyed by an avalanche of snow this last winter & it is still being repaired. Tereza met a new friend here, a small troll at the front of the shop. The complex has been really well designed & built, with the complex blending into the landscape when viewed from the other side. The toilets even have views of the mountains with large picture windows overlooking the river.

The views from the pathway & viewing platforms is absolutely stunning, it takes your breath away. There are two waterfalls overlooking a very narrow, very steep road with eleven hairpin bends leading down to the Isterdalen valley below. We see some parts of the old road originally built by Viking King Olav in 1028, amazing.  The Troll mountains tower above us.  Our bus driver takes us down the hairpin bends safely, going very close to cliff walls & road edges & very close to the oncoming traffic. There is some traffic control officers stopping traffic so that the buses can get around the sharper hairpin bends.

Trollstigen is our stop for lunch at the grass roof covered café with a family of trolls taking up residence outside & on the roof. The Troll mountains loom even larger around & above us. We have a delicious buffet lunch of 3 styles of salmon, all delicious, with salads, cheeses & salami, plus fromage for dessert, yum.

There is more beautiful scenery as we descend further down the Isterdalen valley before stopping at Trollveggen, where the temperature is 24 degrees, amazingly warm. Our guide tells us that this warm temperature is very unusual, along with the clear skies without any low cloud, we are very blessed with the kind weather. The Trollveggen is a sheer mountain cliff that is amazingly high, it is difficult to take in the scale & sheer size of the mountain range.  Tereza makes another troll friend, this one a little larger.

Our trip back to Alesund is full of more amazingly beautiful scenery & our driver takes us through new Alesund , showing us the shopping malls with underground shops & parking for 6,000 cars even extending under the road – amazing there is no parking lot above ground, very clever & neat. There are lots of new buildings around with schools & universities amongst the many new builds. Real estate is very expensive in Alesund with a new house costing around $4 million US dollars. Some areas are more expensive than others.

 This was an 8 hour excursion, it was worth every moment. We are the last tour bus back & we are among the last few passengers to board the ship, the gangplank is pulled in & the door shut as we wait for the lift. After calling into our stateroom to drop off our jackets we head up for dinner & enjoy another great meal as the ship departs Alesund & heads out to sea. Another really great day.