I woke up at some point during the night because the whole ship was rocking quite a bit. Everyone told me that Hurtigruten is like a river cruise, where you're always close to the land and therefore there's no rocking. I can't confirm that, it was rocking both from side to side and up and down. At first, I was afraid of getting seasick, but after a few minutes, I was gently rocked back to sleep. And Dad, who even ordered "anti-vomit patches", didn't notice any of it. So I would say: we can handle being at sea, the patches won't need to be used, which means we can continue to enjoy a beer or a glass of wine for dinner (and maybe one afterwards). Phew ;-)...
FIRST BREAKFAST ON BOARD & VISIT TO ALESUND
The next morning, I overheard a British passenger proudly talking about watching the sunrise at a quarter to 3. Who needs that? That's where my motivation as a Norway explorer clearly ends! I was already awake at 7 o'clock, but that didn't qualify me for the early riser prize. Dad was already ready in the cabin, and he took his morning walk around the decks, for example to inspect the two available whirlpools. I'm not sure if I'm going in there yet. And for me, there was enough space in our cozy small cabin to get ready for breakfast.
And it was really great as expected! The buffet is huge, there's a lot of cheese (good for me), a lot of fish (good for Dad), delicious coffee, although from a machine (good for both), eggs in all variations with bacon (yummy), fluffy homemade bread, and sweet treats like cinnamon buns (only interesting for me). But I had to hurry a bit because we would only stop in Alesund for half an hour. That's not much, but enough for a quick walk around the beautiful Art Nouveau port. So I quickly finished breakfast and ran to the exit on Deck 3 with the chip card.
Alesund is definitely a great city to spend more than 30 minutes in, but we made the most of the little time we had.
CHILL OUT & ARRIVAL IN GEIRANGERBack on board, we wanted to use the "Explorer Deck" on the 7th floor for a relaxing morning of reading. Because the excursion we booked wouldn't start until 1:30 pm.In the evening, the bar is located on Deck 7 (where we are sitting right now while I write with Campari O in hand), but during the day there are many comfortable reading chairs where you can lounge. Through the large windows, you can casually observe the beautiful Norwegian landscape. After Alesund, we would be sailing through various fjords for over 4 hours, heading towards Geiranger - the most famous fjord in Norway. View from my reading chair today: Lunch was served from 11 o'clock today because of our excursion, but we weren't hungry yet. At some point, I got myself a shrimp and egg sandwich from the onboard bakery (it was so good, they put plenty of shrimp on the sandwich, they have plenty of them), but we skipped the official lunch. Instead, we went to the front of the ship (I forgot the technical term again) on Deck 5 at 1 o'clock sharp and watched the impressive MS Polarlys sail into Geiranger. Geiranger translates to "narrow fjord", so it's wrong to say "Geirangerfjord". That would mean "narrow fjord fjord", which sounds silly - we learned all that today. ;-)!
OUR EXCURSION BEGINS
We were repeatedly told that we had to be ON TIME at 1:30 pm on Deck 3 so that the excursion "Geiranger with Trollstigen" could start properly. We followed that and were ready to disembark along with many other passengers of all nationalities.
But as always with all the boarding and disembarking, it took quite a while before we were on the ferry that would take us to the shore. Because the ship cannot dock directly at the shore of Geiranger. We had to make this experience together with an MSC ship and the Queen Elizabeth, which had also just arrived. We feared the worst! That means a small town next to us will be overrun by two other ships.
FIRST STOP: EAGLE'S VIEW OF GEIRANGERBut here you can see that the people here deal with tourists daily and they are very good at their craft of maneuvering thousands of people through small villages.As we disembarked the ferry, we were immediately navigated in a very friendly but firm manner through the small village towards the bus parking lot. There were really a lot of buses! Since we belong to the "German" category, our bus was No. 2, together with Hans-Werner, the tour guide. As you may have guessed, Hans-Werner is also from Germany and moved to Norway with his wife 8 years ago. Now he entertains his compatriots who only come here on vacation with excursions in his new home. In advance: Hans-Werner took his job very seriously in the next 8 hours and proved to be a walking encyclopedia of Norway. He even recited poems written by his wife in between! He definitely earned his tip in the end, even if I only remember about 5% of all the facts.With the bus - a praise also to our bus driver, he had great fun driving on many hairpin bends (one of them was called "Eagle's Curve") up the fjord. Here we were allowed to get off briefly at the viewpoint, but since it was really tight up there, and about 10 more buses were looking for parking spaces - next to various cars and campers - and pedestrians were crossing fearlessly everywhere, it was a short pleasure. But Hans-Werner still made it a real event ;-): SECOND STOP: SMALL RIVER TURNING INTO RAGING WATERThe memory gaps are already starting here, I can't remember which waterfall we stopped at. I only know that we were guided through beautiful landscape and at first, the river was flowing calmly before it turned into this "raging waterfall". Hopefully that's enough information for you ;-). THIRD STOP: TROLLSTIGENStop is not quite the right word here, because Trollstigen is a long serpentine road that takes you higher and higher through a fantastic mountain landscape before descending again in dizzying curves to sea level. I had - safety first - packed the vomit bags that are in every cabin, but luckily they were completely unnecessary! And - as the name "Trollstigen" suggests - trolls play a big part along the way: At the main visitor center, we also had a little snack in the form of coffee, tea, cheese sandwiches, and cream-filled waffles. Beforehand, Hans-Werner told us that triathlons and marathons take place on the Trollstigen hairpin bends. The fastest triathlete only took about 2.5 hours last year, crazy! FOURTH STOP: BY FERRY AND IN THE HEAT BUS TO MOLDEAt some point, we had arrived back at "sea level" in the valley and drove through the blue-green landscape - because there is water everywhere, it's green everywhere, and there are mountains everywhere. And the sun was blazing from the blue, completely cloudless sky. The whole time. For almost 7 hours now. In the bus without air conditioning. I was hot!Then we had to take the ferry again for the second time today because it's not always possible to drive around the fjords on the route, it would take too long or sometimes it's simply not possible because there is no road. These ferries with a maximum travel time of 15 minutes are really practical. And I always took the opportunity to escape the stuffy and warm bus. In Molde, and finally escaping the bus (after a heartfelt farewell to the bus driver and Hans-Werner, of course), we had dinner in a hotel at the pier. Cod and for dessert, apple sauce with cream. I liked it! Because our ship wouldn't arrive in Molde until 9:15 pm and the restaurant on board would already be closed, and we wouldn't get any more food. That definitely had to be prevented!When all the food was consumed, we went down to the pier, where the MS Harald With was still anchored, another Hurtigruten ship. If we had boarded there, we would have gone straight back to Bergen. So we waited until our MS Polarlys turned the corner. Nice to see the two ships side by side like that ;-)! It's almost midnight here now and the sun is still shining... really amusing, this midnight sun! And tomorrow: Trondheim - and we finally want to see what the onboard lunch has to offer!
