Geiranger Tuesday 17th May, 2016

After a lovely relaxing day at sea yesterday and having attended the Captain's Gala Cocktail Party last night, the ship docked in Geiranger, Norway at approximately 8.00am this morning. On arrival the ship was turned 180 degrees to be facing ready to leave, quite an interesting thing to watch.  We were expecting to be taken off the ship by Tender, as it was moored in the middle of the fjord, however, to most peoples surprise, an extendable floating dock and walkway had been built, so we able to walk off the ship

 The Geiranger fjord is absolutely amazing.  In 2005 it was included in UNESCO's World Heritage List, and in 2006 it was voted No. 1 by National Geographic Traveller Magazine among all the National Heritage sites World Wide.
We had taken advise from various people and decided to do an organised tour from the Ship.  Our tour met at 10.45am.

 We were taken by bus from the village up winding road, with 11 hair pins bends, which was only completed in 1952. It had stunning views of the fjord and the ship, which got smaller and smaller the higher we went.





We were driven to place called Eagles Bend, approximately 1000 meters high with along the way there was a beautiful water fall and quite a bit of snow.














We then continued back back down the same road and through the village past a famous Octagonal Church which was build in 1842,  before arriving at the Flydal Gorge for some more spectacular scenery (again with the ship in the distance) There were people walking from the Church up the hill in National Dress, as it was Norway Day today. and if you look very closely at the people in the photo near the Church, you will see they are dressed in their National Dress.
On the way the the Flydal Gorge there was stone bridge, that the road went under and then did a 360 deg turn over the top.  The modern road avoids this by cutting straight through the hill. 

 As it was Norway Day, before boarding the ship, Donna, Lena John and myself decided to try some traditional Norwegian Cakes (which were delicious) and a Hot Chocolate.

The ship sailed from Geiranger at 5.30pm after having seen some of the most amazing scenery possible, however more was to come as we left the fjord.