Ålesund

Day 20

Dinner last night was Alexandria with The Gang again but beforehand we went to see Jay McGee a comedy vocal impressionist who sings with the Rockin Berries, in Carmen’s. He was good but not brilliant. We both had cocktails (Steve had two and according to him he was a bi tiddly when we went round dinner).

After dinner we all went to seen the Headliners in Destination Dance in the Curzon. They were absolutely splendid. They sang and danced through a range of numbers, including Roxanne with an Argentine Tango which has to be my favourite. We both thought they really were excellent.

This morning we due to go on the Hjorunsfjord Cruise but it had been postponed until 12.30 so that meant we had time to explore Alesund in the morning.

After breakfast in the Horizon we headed ashore around 9am. The plan was to walk into town and head towards some of the town’s main highlights. However as we left the ship what should we see in front of us but a land train and being a sucker for land trains there was no option but to jump on. The route took us all through Alesund to see everything, not just what had been on our agenda. It also took us up to Fjellatua on Mt Aksla which we had not planned to climb up to as it is 350m above sea level with 418 steps to reach it. We stopped there for 20 minutes to get some wonderful pictures of the Alesund and the surrounding area.

We finished in good time to have a coffee in town where we were also able to pick up on our retail therapy. We were both delighted to find a jacket that Steve had liked in Honningsvaag but hadn’t bought. We picked up a couple of other small things but I spotted a lovely jacket which I immediately fell in love with. I didn’t need it although I still tried it on but it was too small and they didn’t have my size. The lady said they were due to have a delivery that day and might have one later. But we doubted we would have enough time after our excursion. Money saved!

We were able to nip back to the ship before our trip to drop off our purchases and get ourselves ready. We left the ship and boarded our smaller boat for the afternoon cruise, leaving promptly at 12.30.

I’m not sure what we expected, but it wasn’t the trip we had. Nothing could have prepared us for how good it was. We had saved the best until last. I have always wanted to see the Norwegian fjords and today, instead of a smile plastered across my face, my jaw had dropped at the awe and beauty of what was surrounding us. I had imagined the fjords as relatively narrow waterways with high mountains to the side and that’s exactly how it was. I couldn’t believe the imposing majesty of it all.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the Captain suddenly announced he had spotted whales. As he said, we had hit the jackpot! We were surrounded by several pods of pilot whales. The Captain estimated there must have been around 60. We had a wonderful view but the photos don’t do it justice.

We could not believe what a wonderful finish we had had to our already wonderful Norwegian experience.

Then finally to round it off, we got back in time to head to the shop to see if my jacket had come in - it hadn’t 😪 BUT there was an even nicer one in my size that was cheaper. Yippee! What a finish.

We raced back on board because if we got there before 4pm we could submit our receipts and get the tax back. It was 3.45 and there was no queue. So plenty of time to head back to the cabin to get the receipts from the morning. We agreed I would head down to get the tax return and Steve would pick us up a beer and some sandwiches.

I headed down. The lady on reception pointed me towards another lady. It was 3.55 and she was starting to pack up. She told me I needed to fill out the forms attached to the receipts but most important was that I had my passport number. I didn’t! Was it worth it! Ok I’ll give it a go. I ran to the lifts, up to the 9th floor, ran along to our cabin grabbed my phone (which has our passport nos on it), ran back down the corridor, ran down the stairs and back to the lady. Some random bloke said “oh is that the lady you were waiting for!” And started talking to me - sod him! I started filling out the form (very badly but got the passport number right) whilst listening to the lady worrying about leaving the ship in time before it left dock. I handed over the completed forms which she said were ok and asked for my credit card…….i’d taken off my jacket when we first got on board and my wallet was in it😩. BUT I have Apple Pay so I pulled up the wallet on my phone and …… it didn’t work. She was about to walk away when I hammered in the passcode and all was fine. I’d done it 😔. I thanked her profusely for waiting - it was 4.08pm.

Back to the cabin and a celebration of sandwiches and beer.