Alesund – A Walk Ashore

At The Top

   

The 418 step

Today we were in the city of Alesund. It is somewhat larger than Flam. For those fans of the Amazing Race, it was one of the cities on this year's race. The city has about 45000. The things to see are limited. We had decided to just wander around and not take a tour at this stop. We were away early today after breakfast in the dining room. Our first destination was Mount Aksla which was the check point on the race. The attraction is the 418 steps to the perfect view point of the city. The vistas of the area and the town centre are quite nice. The weather was overcast again today (usual weather here). We did not find “Phil”. We were sure we had it right! We took a different trail back to the city centre. This trail was sloped with few steps. After the last 2 days of uphill climbs, we did not want to do the steps again which by the the time we started down were quite busy. Besides the Crown

Another Race Venue

Princess there is a Holland America ship in. That make about 5000 extra people in town. We walked through the main mall, then along the small waterway where another part of the race was filmed. Again lots of people. The buildings have a rather unique design. It seems to be a mix of European and Baltic. We walked along the water crossed the bridge and made our way to the Alesund Church. The church itself was not “fancy”. From there we headed back to the ship. We only found one bar but did not go in. It was a hole in the wall where the locals were

gathered. I went in but Judy did not like the looks of the place. We wandered a bit more and returned to the ship.  We are currently farther north than the division between the prairies and the NorthwestTerritories. That places us just “south” of Iceland. Sunrise is

down to about 3:30am and sunset at 11:30 pm. We will be in continuous daylight in a few days. We did go to Afternoon tea today. We found out that is being held but it is not listed as an activity as in the past. It is shown under dining options. As we sailed away there was

Fire Boat Demo

a fire boat demonstration. We have seen others but this was a nice send off.As we left Aseland we spotted where the third part of the race was filmed! Then it was off to see the comic. Neither of us liked him tonight.  Dinner was very good again and we are enjoying the company of our new friends from England and  Australia. We did stop at the entertainment (lead singer of the Hollies) but we left. He never seemed to make a connection with us. Tomorrow will be a long walk around day. The city has just under 200,000 people.