Oh little Olden, you had big shoes to fill after the fabulous day and amazing scenery of Alesund. But guess what girl, you knocked it out of the park! O-M-G… yes, we woke up at 5 AM to see your beauty and you did not disappoint. Looking out the back of the ship from our balcony with the wake of the boat rippling the water while looking at the breathtaking scenery of the fjords was surreal. After drinking in all of that for awhile we then went to the front of the ship to our favorite viewing spot where you have to sneak thru the gym (past those crazy people that get up at 5 AM to workout!). The view was even more spectacular. Not sure how our huge ship made it thru the narrow fjord but we did and came to dock at this cute little port of Olden surrounded by majestic mountains.
Our excursion for today was a boat ride on Lake Loen. Well, at least we thought it was! We got on the tour bus right at the dock and they told us they had bad news. The boat we were supposed to take broke down and they would not have it fixed today. Another Titanic vibe??? At least we didn’t get out in the middle of the lake and then break down. I didn’t want to be pulling any Jack Dawson thing! Lol.
But we actually took the bus all along the side of the lake and saw the same scenery that the boat would have seen. And we stopped several times for photo ops. I’ve never seen so many waterfalls and they were coming down off these huge mountains and were so cool.
After reaching the end of the lake road we stopped at this quaint little lodge type place (I included a pic) where we had home made waffles with strawberry jam and whipped cream. Yummy!
We then headed towards the Kjenndal glacier. We stopped along the way where an avalanche occurred years ago and killed 61 people. I thought, why would we stop at a place that’s prone to avalanches?? And our tour guide seemed to be obsessed with death stories telling us not only about the avalanche but also about a tidal wave due to a huge chunk of glacier dropping into the water and taking out this whole family. Again, Titanic-like!!
We then got to the glacier and the bus parked in the lot and we hiked about 10 minutes to the base of the glacier. You could see the “blue ice” about half way up the glacier. I wish we could have walked up on to it but due to it melting due to climate change, it’s not allowed. We had gone on this excursion with our British friends and I included a great pic of all of us. They are really cool people and I hope we get to travel with them again. They’re actually going on a 22 day cruise in Jan 2023 that starts in Santiago Chile, goes down thru Patagonia and more fjords there, over to Antarctica, around Cape Horn and ends in Buenos Aries. WOW! They have invited us to go so who knows. Sounds fun!
Well that’s all for today. You may have noticed that I posted the first part of today’s pics earlier since I had great wifi at that little lodge in the middle of nowhere! Go figure! So now that I’m back on my not so great wifi on the ship I may not be able to upload the rest of today’s pics until late night tonight or tomorrow. On to Stavanger!
The Wandering Italian 