Skip to main content

Ålesund and Random other Pictures

The last day in Norway.   Tonight we set sail for Newcastle - back to a wet windy UK we've had great cruise... good company, fantastic scenery, edible but unexciting food, comfortable cabin and some glorious sunny days even if the nights have been a bit disappointing.
Today we've been in Ålesund and it's very pretty little town - usual tourist tat lots of trolls, cafes and ugly hotels but with a lot of very nice art nouveau buildings due to devastating fire in 1904 requiring the town to be rebuilt.  So it's full of very charming different coloured houses all along the waterfront with lots of turrets and nice plasterwork/ work stone work detail.
There is an amazing looking viewpoint which I walked to the bottom of but honestly couldnt face the 418 steps to the top and wasn't sure how my knees would feel coming down... 
We've had several long very late (very late) nights looking for Aurora with very little success which is been a tad disappointing.
I was hoping to post some aurora pictures but I don't have any... however here is one by the Astrophotographer who is on board who has given me permission to use it. If you look closely you will see a green line just to the left of the moon.  Some guests got even better photographs later on that evening but we've had very little since.
I forget the name but its a Trolls hat that had an arrow shot through it - caught in the sunlight and so turned to stone...

We do have two more sleeps so we have not given up yet - but, staying up to the early hours, being on deck in minus temperatures for hours on a night is taking its toll, and one of our astronomers is down with the lurgy and the other is completely knackered.  The glamourous assistants are doing their best to keep spirits up - but they're pretty done in as well - and all for what seems like a very little return. We've seen a few glimmers of green mainly caught on camera across the dark skies.... a lot of cloud but last night we did witness a very beautiful mood rise. 
Dr Fred did a stargazing session last night and there were over a 100 people in attendance.... 
Stunning light from across the deck at sun set...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein.  We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows.  It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland,  it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers!  The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout.   It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers....  The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...
Post a Comment
Read more

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town.  Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now.  The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art....  Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...
2 comments
Read more

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira.  An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed.  First of all the weather is really splendid.  Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds..  Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm.    Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs.   In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill.  It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town -  completely over everybody's house...  So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...
2 comments
Read more