#4/6 - AIDAnova - Flåm

On Wednesday morning we docked in Flåm. There, too, we were warmly welcomed by the sun. However, the weather is developing similarly to Ålesund. Throughout the day, the clouds are becoming more frequent.

The village has about 300 to 400 inhabitants, depending on the season. And now, 6000 tourists are arriving all at once .. 😅. About 160 cruise ships dock here every year. The little town is surrounded by high mountains, which provide a wonderful panorama.

After breakfast, we went ashore to get an initial impression of the area. Finally, we managed to admire the Nova in its entirety. Not so easy, because that thing is so big and there’s always something in the way 😅. We even met a troll 😁.

There's an insane amount to explore here. It's difficult to choose an attraction. We considered various options and decided on an excursion offered by AIDA.

At 1 PM, we departed by bus towards the village of Undredal. In this small village, there are many more goats compared to the number of inhabitants. Some are even lying in the middle of the street and don’t mind us at all. Patience is definitely required 😅. Not without reason: A specialty here is a specific goat cheese that is supposedly exported worldwide.

On the way to Undredal, we passed through a tunnel that is 11.5 km long. The type and intensity of the lighting is supposedly coordinated with psychologists. There are even different colors of lighting so that drivers don’t become inattentive. The longest tunnel in Norway is about 25 km long.

Undredal itself didn't really capture our interest. There's not much to see or experience here. However, there is the oldest still-existing stave church in the world, if that interests anyone 😅.

We then continued on to Gudvangen. Here, we made a stop for 8 minutes. We briefly walked onto a bridge and then back 😅. It was nice that the sun was just coming out and we could take some pictures. We also managed to use the restroom in a small shop, which was urgently needed 😅.

Then we continued right away to Stahlheim. Apparently, our Emperor Wilhelm II liked to vacation in a specific hotel there. That is exactly where we were heading. Unfortunately, the hotel is now closed, and we couldn’t pass through to reach the viewpoint accordingly. This caused considerable frustration on my part. When you pay for a service that you don’t receive, it’s … not good. However, we found an alternate spot and could still catch at least a small glimpse of the valley that the Emperor also once looked down upon.

After this stop, we headed back to the ship. We were slightly annoyed, as we didn’t really enjoy the excursion 100%. We should have either taken a bus ride to Stegastein (a very famous lookout) or taken the Flåm Railway to Myrdal. That would have been much more attractive.

From my perspective, it only made sense to sit down in the Viking pub and drink what is supposedly the best beer in the world (for 11.61 euros) 😅🙈. However, it did really taste good. But after one, I definitely didn’t need any more.

Afterwards, I bought a small drinking horn for home in the souvenir shop and still managed to have a good conclusion to the day 😃👍🏻.

In the evening speech by the captain, it became unpleasant again. According to the weather forecast model, a large storm is expected to form from a hurricane named Humberto 🌀 from the east coast of the USA and should appear on Norway's southwest coast within 36 hours. This would apparently result in waves of 8 meters and could be very uncomfortable. Therefore, they are trying to shorten our stay in Stavanger and set sail earlier. This way, we hopefully would only encounter the outskirts of the storm. Alternatively, it might be considered to cancel Stavanger altogether. This means it must be a significant weather event. The captain explained that statistically, you can expect one wave out of a thousand to be twice as high.

For the current night,