Day 5 21st June 2011
Flam to Geiranger
Didn't get to sleep till one am, still pretty light, so breakfast at 7 now seems ambitious. It was ambitious; we could have slept on today. Typical. Oh well a few eye drops and we are ready.
After a quick breakfast we headed off to see the ship arrive in Geiranger. We'd lit an extra turbine apparently and made up nearly an hour but still had to rearrange the tours, not that we've booked any. So we headed for the deck to watch the action. The dulcet tones of John the commentator explained the feature and geology, he has a slight lisp and everything is very very something so it's a bit monty python! Anyway we learned of the glacial erosion, etc etc.
Actually it's pretty stunning, the whole scale of things and the waterfalls everywhere. Hopefully some good pics. As we headed into the mooring there were several quite sizeable ships which we dwarf. Including The World, which is the boat you can buy an apartment on and it permanently sails around, like a floating timeshare. We are anchored here so it's tender to the shore. We decided to miss the rush and go after lunch so we looked for a quiet tea bar, but after ordering realised it was the holding pen for the tender waiters! Anyway we supped our tea and wandered round deck 2 then back to the room for an hour before lunch.
We took lunch in our grill restaurant which was nice as it was nearly empty. You can pretty much ask for anything and if they can accommodate they will. After lunch we took the tender over to the town which although smaller, 300 people, there was a lot more going on. Tina wasn't too keen on the whole tender process as the guide had mentioned the fjord was 1,000 metres deep but it was pretty painless, although waiting for one first thing would have been a bit of a bun fight. Tina spotted a helicopter so we headed for that and took a trip round the bay and over the mountains. Quite amazing, they climbed to 5000 feet and over the dalsnibber mountain with its glacial pools and snow everywhere and again the scale was just difficult to describe. The usual German 'queue and best seat' grabbers of course but we got some pics and a great ride. After that we wandered a bit and then back to the ship, the 12 year old was on there which is when we discovered she was actually 35, oops. Also they paid almost as much as us for a much smaller cabin, excuse me, stateroom as we booked last minute. Oh well, just have to get another paper round.
Back in time for afternoon tea and a nice scone, then down to the cinema which is a 500 comfortable seater - only 6 people in it - and watched Rabbit Hole with Nicole Kidman and the biker bloke from Erin Brockovich. Good film, quite sad about a couple whose 3 year old was run over. We missed the sail away, but it was a bit windy anyway. Just enough time to get ready for dinner, sort out the scaffolding under Tina’s dress formal tonight and off we went. Once again she looked fantastic. The gang were all there and quite amusing now we are all getting along. The conversation degenerated much more quickly today than at first, a measure of familiarity I suppose. Today we got on to swingers as Tina was convinced we were being 'tested'. Turns out they knew more about it than they initially let on but denied it! We did get two more Maurice tales, one where he had to prosecute a farmer for bestiality with his pig, which was cruel but entertaining. The pig apparently was unharmed, for some reason the slaughterhouse complained. And another story about his barrister friend and an unusual liaison which he had no one else to confide in. All entertaining. As no one has asked yet what Tina does she's going to explain she is a sex therapist, she's wanted to bring that into the dinner conversation for ages. As we left dinner we walked back with Shirley and Nigel and Tina told them what she did for a living so Shirley was dying to tell Maurice so that will be fun tomorrow.
After diner we went to see Jacqueline Roche and her violin which was excellent, then off to bed. Still seems weird to have no darkness past midnight.....
Day 5 Flaam to Geiranger
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Geiranger, Møre og Romsdal, Norway
Other Entries
2025-02-06