I already did a post about the P&O ship Iona which I was on last week and this post is about the places we visited.

Stavanger

After two nights at sea we reached Stavanger, which is a fairly big city. We only explored the areas near the docks. This consisted of the shopping area and the old town which both had lots of quaint wooden buildings, but there was plenty of newer concrete to be seen. This old street had the ship towering over it, but was very pretty. We found a gallery with lots of art made from glass and bought a piece to take home.

There was a nice homewares shop in town with lots of cool stuff, but it was not cheap. There is a lot of street art there. I think this represented a tree with changing temperatures on the rings.

We could see a fancy modern building up the hill and found it was a museum that covers the local printing and fish canning industries. This was more interesting than it sounds. They covered the history of printing, which was important there as they needed to put labels on the cans of fish as well as producing various literature. The canning part was in the old factory where it all happened with lots of the old machines.

There is a place by the docks with a virtual reality experience telling the history of an early Norwegian king. That was fun.

Olden

The next day we reach Olden, which is a village up a valley. Obviously they have to pick places that the massive ship can get to. They said that if the seas are too rough then they cannot get inland, but we had no such issues.

This view was from a hill we walked up. The clouds parted enough to see the ship and the village 500m below. The river of bright blue glacial melt is quite a sight.

We looked in a couple of old wooden churches on the way up. This one did not even have electricity. I think they had to be rebuilt after fires.

They do like a living turf roof there. I expect the winters are tough. They also like a flagpole in the garden.

Hellesylt

The next morning we arrived in the even smaller town of Hellesylt which is a long way up the Geirangerfjord. The scenery is spectacular and the weather was kind to us. The clouds did clear. I suspect they added some land to make a dock and to build on. There was a fairly large factory off the the left. You will see some snow on the hills and the melt from that must swell the river that comes roaring to the fjord.

You could take a trip to the glacier by bus or hire an e-bike or Renault Twizy. We had booked a kayaking trip on the fjord. That was good fun. Some people jumped in, but the water was cold. There is actually a small beach with a pier and diving platform that seemed popular. Both my kids jumped in from there after the kayaking.

We had arrived there before most people were up, but the cruise out to sea was spectacular. These are the Seven Sisters Falls, but there was plenty of water coming down from the peaks. We passed several towns and also saw farms perched way up the hills. That must be a really hard life. You can see why the vikings were so tough if they could survive there.

The views were stunning and it is a fairly unspoilt landscape. I cannot imagine that you could do large scale farming or logging there. That far north it stays light pretty late in summer, but the nights will be long in winter.

Going home

We were supposed to have a final stop in Haugesund where we were going to visit a viking village, but the ship had technical problems that slowed it down and so they had to go straight back to Southampton.

Apart from a school skiing holiday this was my first trip to Norway and I would like to go back. I think we would perhaps get a camper van and tour around to see more of it. You can get ferries to the less accessible places.