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As I said, early morning tea was delivered by Kumar. Another day, another port! It’s Ålesund today! A pretty little town with a small harbour with old sailing fishing boats (just like in Brixham) in front of our ship …
The waterfront houses are very pretty …
… but some of the cars are a bit lost!
Seeing as how we have got onto vehicle number plates, I need to document something. We have seen a number of different plates. Specifically Green ones with black numbers …
Our guide told us vehicles with these plates are mainly (but not exclusively) used on commercial vans. The road tax is lower, but such vehicles can carry a maximum of three people. What he didn’t say was that there are a number of other styles in Norway. In fact there are eleven different colour combinations! These include black on orange (military vehicles), yellow on black for off-road vehicles (eg snowmobiles), white on black (rally cars which are approved for road use), yellow on blue (diplomatic corps) etc etc. I know, boring!
My favourite would be black on red (used for testing unregistered but roadworthy vehicles, prototypes etc. Issued at a cost of NOK 310 – about £30 – per day!). Boring, boring!
Well, I was interested anyway!
Today’s trip took us to several islands to the north of Ålesund. It gave us an understanding of the difficulties of land travel in fjordland! It’s basically all about bridges and tunnels – lots of tunnels.
The hamlet of Alnes on the island of Godøy is reached via a 1.5 km long, single-lane tunnel with just five passing places and no traffic control. I can just see that being useful as a crossing of the Dart estuary back at home!
Having safely negotiated the approach tunnel with just one hesitation, we can see why there are only twenty houses on the island. Twenty houses, one lighthouse and two beaches. We climbed the lighthouse …
… and the two of us walked down to the nearby beach which was lovely and peaceful – but probably very exposed in rough and stormy weather …
Returning to the ship, we paused first at Giske church …
Built of marble in the 12C, it features some beautiful wood carvings.
Finally, we stopped at Mt Aksla with stunning views over Ålesund and our ship.
Well that’s three days covered. Six more to go before we leave Norway – which we actually did a few hours ago! I’m so far behind!
Which just says what a brilliant trip it has been!