Day 3-Åndalsnes

Today the adventure really began. It started with an early alarm for an 8.30 start. Steve got the coffee which we had in the cabin whilst getting ready.  No rain was forecast so waterproofs weren’t necessary but we dressed really warmly with several layers. Then a quick breakfast in Horizon and off the ship.

Andalsnes is a very pretty little village with a population of around 1200 so a cruise ship disgorging 1800 passengers and crew more than doubles the population. Andalsnes is also the mountaineering centre of Norway.

Our first adventure was kayaking in the fjord. We were lead by Phillip who is English but grew up in Holland and now lives in Norway. He speaks with a slight Dutch accent but talks of Norway as home and the Norwegians as “us”.  He was a brilliant and calm leader. He was assisted by two Italians both called Allesandro but one would have given Vito Coppola a run for his money so very entertaining.

The fjord was both peaceful and beautiful with wonderful views up the surrounding mountains including the impressive Nesaskla right behind the town.

Before setting out we had been fully kitted out with dry suits which are always fun to put on but we managed a little better than we had last time in Iceland.

After a thoroughly enjoyable trip we decided to go straight up the Nesaskla in the Romsdalsgondolen which only opened in 2021 and is Norway’s longest cable car stretching 1676m and reaching the peak of 708m in under 7 minutes.

We had an exceedingly disappointing coffee in the beautiful Eggen Restaurant at the top because the milk machine had broken (sound familiar Sue and Pete?) so it was just black with cold milk - we deserved better.

We had a good walk around but the climb up to the summit proved to much for the man (there’s a song in there somewhere) so I went up part of the way on my own.

We had decided to come down in the cable car rather than walk. We had been told earlier (by Vito no 2) that it took about an hour, was very steep and uneven but with a good fitness level you could do it. I’m glad we decided not to. It looked incredibly hard from the top and we saw two young girls who had just climbed up. They were both incredibly fit (in all senses of the word) but were still breathing pretty heavily and they said going down was harder so they always took the gondola. One of them had climbed it 101 times!

After that we were both hungry so went back to the boat for lunch in Horizon.

We then went back into town for a wander. We went into a couple of shops but bought nothing and then to a cafe Phillip had recommended just on the edge of town. It was really quaint. Steve had a hot chocolate but I was too full for anything. We then wandered back to the boat via the mountaineering museum. This included a short film which left us extremely uncomfortable as it involved climbing to ridiculous peaks and also base jumping. The museum itself was small but interesting with plenty of history on equipment. Well worth the very reasonable entry fee.

Then back to the boat before 4.30pm and to write this. The boat will move soon and the signal will go so over to Steve.