A better than expected panoramic tour in the south of Norway

Thursday – 4 July 2013 – Kristiansund, Norway

Silver Cloud sailed southwest out the Alta Fjord in the Arctic at 3:30 pm Tuesday. We had a terrific sail out and great gins and tonics (or was it terrific gins and tonics and a great sail out) with scenery to blow one's proverbial socks off. Yesterday was a sea day with great views of the Norwegian off shore islands, and finally we found open seas and headed back to actual sunrises and sunsets. Of course, twilight is all one gets this far north, but theoretically there was a sunset at 12:30 am overnight. Sunrise this morning was at 2:20 am.

We arrived at 8 am at the small port for the lovely three island municipality of Kristiansund in Southwestern Norway. We opted to blow our remaining "use it or lose it" on-board credit on the ship's excursion entitled, "KSU – A: Atlantic Ocean Road & Kvernes Stave Church". This four hour 70 mile bus tour consisted of exactly 3½ hours of going to the stave church in the nearby town of Kvernes and riding on a $80,000,000 four mile stretch of Norway's "Atlantic Ocean Road." No fooling.

I'm not a fan of what the ship calls, "Panoramic Tours". These are essentially the tours for the possible walker and cane crowd. You know, where one couple (usually elderly but not always) grabs seats in the very first row of the bus with (usually but not always) the woman proclaiming loudly, "his knees", apparently something equivalent to, "first dibs". Years ago I found out that some tour participants' excuses do not work as well, such as the woman who announced, "car sick", when taking the best seat in the bus because some wise guy among the passengers hollered, "So, why did you book a bus tour?." (I did get into a bit in trouble for that. Oh well.)

As they say, "actually", today's tour was quite nice. The ride to "one of the newer" stave construction churches (newer since it was built only in 1300) passed picturesque salmon farms in the fjord and included a ride under the wide part of the fjord in a typical Norwegian infrastructure rich four mile long tunnel. This engineering wonder (we returned in a somewhat shorter but just as impressive one) is 850 feet below sea level, the deepest auto tunnel in the world if one was to believe (or understand) the tour guide. 

Norwegians do not tend to lie about their tunnels, but this guide was German. She spoke Norwegian quite well. Unfortunately, that was the only foreign language she knew fluently. But the stave church was quite charming as well as unusual. The curiously dressed local guide at the church and her colleagues explained a lot, quite a lot, about the construction that uses staves to hold it together (like a barrel) since despite the rough winter weather and high winds off the water, nails were not used. I don't know what is more amazing, the fantastic art that decorates the entire structure's interior or the fact that it lasted until 1400, much less 2013.

Next we had a long but scenic drive around one fjord or another passing lots of dairy cows as well as salmon farms to, now wait for this, the Atlantic Ocean Road. Actually, only the most famous and scenic part I think the guide sounded out from her notes. We also found out about the rough weather along the road because there's a YouTube video on it that shows people being blown off the bridge. That fact came from the guy (with the knee issue) sitting in the first row on the bus. I guess he had a computer as well as the best viewing on tour buses.

In the remaining half hour before "All Aboard" in downtown Kristiansund, Barbara blew half of our remaining Norwegian kroner on an authentic garment. (See above: it's the red hat that says, "Norway", on it). We returned to the ship for the last time on this 27 day cruise and immediately rode up the lift to have lunch in the Deck 7 Terrazza restaurant.

Tomorrow is a sea day. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to packing up and leaving the ship after probably the most unusual itinerary in many years of my sea voyages. That's because I hate packing to go home. But I'll probably have some additional comments either from the ship tomorrow or in the next few days after arriving back in summer weather with real nights Boulder. Stay tuned, and thanks for following along with us.