Ålesund – Storhaugen viewpoint

We knew that we would be arriving in Ålesund at 8am, so my alarm was set for 6:30am. This was to allow us time to get ready and also have breakfast before we disembarked. We only had a two hour stop here so needed to make sure we had enough time to do what we needed to do.

We left the ship exactly at 8am and followed the route on the map that we had got from MS Trollfjord. There was a choice of two recommended walks: the Aksla Mountain hike and the Art Nouveau city walk. We had already decided that we wanted to look at the famous architecture here, so opted for the Art Nouveau city walk.

The original buildings of Ålesund, dated back to the 1500s when merchants began to settle in the area. Over two centuries, the town expanded and a small seaport was established. However, in 1904, a fire that lasted for 16 hours burned over 850 houses to the ground, and 10,000 were made homeless. Because the architectural style at the time of the rebuild was Art Nouveau, the new town was rebuilt as such.

We first went to the Storhaugen viewpoint which gave us some good views of the city. We had walked up some quite steep roads to get there before reaching the top. There was also a directional sign that showed the North Pole as being 3073km away, and the South Pole as 16931 km. I was more interested in the North Pole. When we were in Ny-Ålesund, deep in the Arctic Circle, we were only 1200km away from the North Pole. It showed that we had travelled quite a long way south since then.

We took some photographs and then headed back down the steep roads towards the more architectural hub of the town. There were some beautifully designed buildings, and I felt that we had only just seen part of it.

A building on the corner of Hellegata. I am unsure whether the burnt tree is from the devastating fire of 1904

We walked further towards the harbour and the main town area. Here we saw even more beautiful buildings. It reminded me very much of Brugge in Belgium, with cobbled streets and waterside housing.

Nørvøya

Just close to where this picture was taken a small vessel, the MS Bilfergen was moored up. It was built in 1921 by Johan T Nerhus in Ølve, Herdanger as a fisherykutter. Later on it became a car and passenger ferry, but only three cars would fit on it crosswise. It was modernised twice to allow for more cars, but is now protected in the Central Office of Historic Monuments in Norway from 2012.

MS Bilfergen

We carried on walking further into the shopping area, where it was still really pretty with lovely buildings, trolls and other statues. JC wandered off to buy some souvenirs and I waited outside and looked for interesting things to take pictures of. I didn’t go far when I found the art nouveau building at Kongens gate 10B. This is the one of the buildings which was rebuilt after the fire of 1904. It was constructed on three floors of 23 square metres by M Larsen who was a tinsmith. It is the narrowest house in Europe and has been given the honour of the Norwegian cultural heritage award “Olavsrosa”. This is an assessment of strict quality that is carried out by the professional council. It also has another award “Godt vern prisen” which means “Well preserved price”.

Europe’s narrowest house

After a successful shopping expedition we meandered back to the ship, taking some more pictures along the way. The ship sailed at 10am, we were only there for two hours and it is a shame that we couldn’t spend more time there as it is a lovely town. We went to a meeting after we sailed as one of the crew wanted to discuss our last day events and disembarkation in the morning, getting back into Bergen etc. It was all getting a bit closer and I wasn’t ready to leave yet!

We also went up onto deck 9 as there was a point of interest discussion about the fjord that we were sailing down, the Hjørundfjord. Some of this 35 kilometre long fjord is 440 metres deep, surrounded by waterfalls and steep mountainsides. Unfortunately, today there was quite a bit of low cloud on the mountains so we were limited to what we could see.

Two hours later, and after eating lunch, we arrived at one of the places on Hjørundfjord, the small town of Sæbø. This place is so small that there is no dock suitable for the ship, so we had to anchor down and use a tender boat to get us across the fjord to the river. To get to the boat we had to go down to deck 3, the car deck, to exit via a small door in the side of the ship. The tender boat only took roughly 30 people so we had a 10-15 minute wait.

Once we had arrived on the mainland, we took a look around. It really is a sleepy little town and there is not much going on there. It was quite quirky in fact. It is a place where people go hiking up a mountain called Gunnarråsa (370m), which gives some great views of the fjord. There are also two floating saunas that are heated using wood. Before we left the ship, Claes told us that some of the areas on the mountains were bare (we thought the trees had been cut down) and this was because there had been avalanches which had destroyed the woodland.

We wandered around taking in the calmness of the scenery and the fresh air. We only spent an hour there before we got the return tender boat back to the ship.

MS Trollfjord with the tender boat next to it

Back on board, it was sadly time to start packing our cases for our journey back to England. We have to disembark in the morning when we arrive back in Bergen. As there was going to be an earlier start because of the final celebrations of our stay on the MS Trollfjord, we thought we had better get as organised as we could.

The ship set off again just after 4:30pm, heading for our final destination of Bergen. We had pretty much sorted the packing so I went for a shower. Afterwards, I sat in my dressing gown in the bay window of our cabin and saw that the sun had started to break through. It was almost like entering a new world, as suddenly we saw the mountains, high ones at that. We were returning back down the Hjørundfjord and it was almost as if the sleeping trolls were waiting for the ship to pass. I quickly dressed and headed up to deck 9 where we saw the most beautiful sight ever, the steep mountains, waterfalls, narrow valleys, snow capped hills. The water was so calm that it reflected what was before us. Everyone on deck was quite mesmerised by the sight, this is something that I will never forget. We travelled part of the 35 km fjord until we reached open water again.

Hjørundfjord – Trandal

Hjørundfjord – Barstadvik

After the excitement of seeing the trolls, laid on their backs and waking up in the sunshine, we headed back to our cabin. It had been announced that we were going a little earlier for our evening meal, because the passengers were all meeting with the Captain and crew. We got ready and arrived at Bar 1893, where Claes gave us a glass of fizz. We sat in the bar and waited a while before saying a quick thank you to the Captain and crew before going to dine in Røst for the last time.

Tina was our server as usual and she explained that we were having a 5 + 2 evening meal, which meant that we would be having an extra two smaller courses. Our French friends, Francis and Isabelle, were already sitting at the table next to ours as usual.

The final evening meal went as follows:
First course – blini, caviar, sour cream, onion
Second course – beetroot, carrot, pine sprout syrup, smoked mayo
Fourth course – potato tagliatelle, frank josef (similar to chorizo), mushrooms, cress
Fifth course – halibut, gremolata, cabbage, white wine sauce
Sixth course – cheese, blackberries and walnuts
Seventh course – variation of sea buckthorn, white chocolate and caramel

Part way through the evening Claes made an announcement to thank everyone who dined in the restaurant and also gave him an opportunity to thank his staff. They have been the best people to look afterwards on our journey to the Arctic Circle and back.

(From the right) – Claes, Kåre, Oliver, Lena, Tina, 3 chefs

After another wonderful meal we said au revoir to our French friends and Claes took a couple of photos for us. They retired for the evening (they had an early flight in the morning) and we went to the bar for a final drink. Rasmus, the head barman, gave us a drink of what he recommended. It was some kind of apple drink with aquavit and he even added a smoke bubble on the top.

Afterwards, we went up on the deck just to see the moon, and spend a moment to reflect on the amazing adventure that we had just experienced. The Hurtigruten team made it the best experience possible and it is something that I will never forget. Full steam ahead to Bergen.