Alesund Norway

Today we cancelled the tour we had booked as rain was in the forecast and instead just wanted to walk around this pretty town of Alesund.  This is a bigger town with a population of about 60,000. 

 We spent the morning walking around old town for about 3 hours, then went back to the ship for lunch. 

 After lunch back out again and we were trying to decide what to do. There is a walk up 427 steps to a lookout, but we had such great views of the ship yesterday in dock on our tour that we decided it really wasn't worth it. When at the port leaving the ship we met up with a couple from Ireland while we were looking at the hop on hop off bus options map. They gave us their ticket and said we should try to use it, it wasn't stamped or anything. We walked over to the starting point and the guy said this is a reused ticket isn't it, Andre said maybe I said yes. He was a really nice guy from Switzerland that we spent some time talking to and he just let us on. 

We would have been extremely disappointed had we paid anything for this tour, never mind the $100 for the 2 of us it would have cost. It was the worst free tour we have ever had. We just stayed on for the entire route, listened to the head sets and off again back at the beginning. Really a boring tour unless you were using it to get to one of the outskirts, which I can't imagine many people doing. Maybe if we were to do it earlier in the morning we would have had a chance to get off the bus and do the 20 minute walk to the lookout rather than the 400 steps, but we were worried about how much time we had.

Back to the ship and supper again. Like all cruises it is never ending eating.

Does not get much prettier than this. The narrow part of the harbor in Alesund

Our cruise ship in the back

Statue on the main waterfront square

Alesund harbour lighthouse, now a one room hotel

My kind of shopping

My Favorite Danish word Iskrem

Would prefer this ship over our huge 5,000 passenger ship. Maybe one day...

The extend of our wildlife photography on this trip A Hooded crow

Walking street, much busier later on

Maritime museum

Flag at half mast due to the fact that the King died recently

At a lookout point, not the 400 step one

On the Hop On Hop Off bus now 

converts to $4 Canadian a litre

Open-air museum offering historic homes with exhibits & period boats from medieval times to present.

Back on the ship

You can see the 400" steps to the lookout

View of Alesund from the ship

Good timing, leaving town as the rain starts. 

One of the Northern Gannet that followed the boat