Today we anchored off the little village of Loen, a tiny place at the easternmost end of Nordfjorden. It wasn’t a very promising looking day. It was cloudy and spitting rain. I’ve been here twice before and the last time Seabourn offered many more tours and Al and I took a great one that brought us very high up in the mountains and then down to Geiranger Fjord, which I think is probably the one most often seen in travel magazines and cruise brochures about Norway. This time around they only offered one that didn’t involve hiking, a three-hour driving tour around the fjord and to a nearby lake, so that was what I booked.
I'll confess up front that I'm going to include some photos from the last times I was here because I want to remember how very pretty it can be when it's not a rainy day.
As I tendered ashore and walked to the bus it was cold and raining, not an auspicious start at all. We took off with our Italian guide whose name I never caught because I couldn’t hear him over the PA system on the bus. As we drove along the fjord’s shoreline off in the rainy mist I could see two more ships, both much larger than ours. It turned out one was a German ship from the Aida company and the other a British P&O, both carrying somewhere around 4000 passengers so perhaps that’s why we had such limited tours offered. All the tour operators may have been otherwise occupied.
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| Pretty gloomy, wouldn't you agree? |
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| By contrast, this is how it looked last time. |
The scenery is pretty even in the rain. There are waterfalls cascading down the very green steep slopes of the surrounding mountains. There was still a little snow at the peaks. We went through several tunnels (Norway has many including the world’s longest car tunnel at more then 15 miles long). When we came out we began driving around the shoreline of Lake Hornindalsvanet, Europe’s deepest lake with a depth of 514 meters. We stopped at an overlook where we could take some photos in the drizzle. Our ride took us through a couple more tunnels and we came to the town of Nordfjordeid where we stopped at a hotel for a bathroom break and a cup of coffee and some very delicious cake. On the way back to Loen we stopped once more at what was supposed to be the highlight, a scenic overlook atop a cliff with a 1600 foot drop down to the fjord. Unfortunately when we got there we were engulfed in mist and clouds and there wasn’t much to see except for ghostly shapes in the distance.
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| I took this from the bus when for a brief moment it looked like it might clear off. |
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| But at the first scenic overlook it was misty again |
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| The church in the town where we had coffee and cake |
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| A waterfall up close and personal |
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| Nordfjord |
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| This is another cheat photo. This is one Katie took when were were here nearly 18 years ago. I didn't see any rainbows today. |
We got back to the tender dock and it was raining a little more seriously than before. I was glad that I had a rain jacket with me to provide some protection. Ours was the last tender and after the boats were secure we sailed away through the fjords. There was supposed to be a sailaway party on deck, but of course that didn’t happen. It had to be moved into the Grand Salon.
I had arranged for a German dinner for four of us in the restaurant so after predinner cocktails we went down and had a delicious meal of wiener schnitzel, red cabbage and warm German potato salad. That’s one of many things I like about Seabourn – with 24 hours notice you can request a special meal. After my friends and I went to a dance party in the Club and didn’t leave until nearly 12:30. Despite the weather it was another lovely day here on the Ovation.
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