July 11 - Alesund, Norway

 Our tour today was a walking tour of Alesund.  The weather was absolutely perfect with temperatures in the low 60s and no wind.  A light jacket was all that was needed, and even that came off during parts of the tour.  

Alesund, like so many other cities, burned to the ground in 1904.  Of the 12,000 inhabitants, 10,000 lost everything but only 2 died, which was miraculous since it started during the night and went on for 15 hours.  Afterwards, the central area was rebuilt with brick or plaster exteriors and wider streets.  Most of the new buildings were in the Norwegian art nouveau style, which included interesting decorations and asymmetry.

Cute and practical signage.

These flower "pots" were all over the city.

Typical of the asymmetric style with different-shaped windows on each level, different materials (stone and plaster), and even different rooflines on the same building.


This was built by the local pharmacist and is now a museum.  The pharmacy was on the main floor and still has all the little drawers which stored all of his medicinal ingredients.  His was the only pharmacy in the area and judging by the furnishings in the living quarters upstairs, he did very well for himself.  

We learned that Norway is working on a ship tunnel to connect two waterways blocked by a very narrow strip of land.  Everything (including the ship) will be electric to minimize any chance of fire.  Sounds a bit scary to me.

Currently, the city garbage is collected the old-fashioned way with trucks.  However, they are working on a system of collection chutes, so you will simply throw your garbage into a collection bin, and it will be whisked away to the central sorting and recycling facility.

And they are also working on highways that will charge your electric car as you drive along.  Many of these innovations are being funded by the money Norway gets from their oil and gas.  It goes into a central government fund and is used for the people, with published information on where every Kroner is spent.  

Tom and Jan were on a later tour so Michael and I played Trivia with another couple and got a respectable 12/15, which was third.  As we were checking in for dinner at Compass Rose, we were offered a table at the specialty restaurant, Chartreuse, which we accepted.  That's probably my least favorite of the 4 options for dinner, but the lamb chops are always a good choice.  


Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 12, 2025 at 1:24 AM

    Congrats on a very respectable 12/15 in trivia! Was the lamb good? Love Norway’s innovation with waste management, cars that recharge while you drive AND transparency to where your tax Kroner goes. 🧐

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousJuly 12, 2025 at 1:25 AM

      That was from your twin train Min

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

August 1 - At Sea

Image
 Today was a lazy day at sea.  I went to a lecture by Michael Scott this morning on our next two ports, Liverpool and Belfast.  The weather is not warm enough to spend any time on the pool deck, so we just lounged around the cabin or Coffee Connection.  During breakfast down in Compass Rose we saw some dolphins jumping along in the ship's bow wake.  That's the first time we've seen anything other than sea birds. No sea life to be seen After lunch I went to see the movie "The Ballad of Wallis Island," which was filmed in northern Scotland.  It was sweet, but not a barn burner.  We decided to use up most of our shipboard credits and bought another of the Le Monde globes like we have, although this time in blue.  And Michael got a leather carry-on bag that turned out to be on sale, which left more money for me to buy some overpriced hair products at the salon.  Might as well since they aren't refundable. Trivia was another banner day with 14/15 ...
Read more

August 5 - Ringaskiddy (Cork), Republic of Ireland

Image
 Ringaskiddy is just across the water (the River Lee) from Cobh (pronounced "Cove") where we've been before.  Cobh is famous for being the last place from which the Titanic sailed before heading off for that iceberg. Cork is about a 30-minute drive from its port of Ringaskiddy, where we docked.  Our tour this morning consisted of a bit of a scenic drive around Cork first.  There are lots of pharmaceutical companies in this area, including Pfizer and Lilly, as well as the big tech companies like Apple and Google. We always see these cars in the Irish crime TV shows we watch on BritBox and Acorn. And here's the Garda (Police) station. The River Lee runs through Cork There are some lovely homes in this area. Next we drove up to Middleton to visit the distillery that makes Jameson Irish Whiskey, among others. This is a terrible picture taken from a moving bus.  Back in 1847, during the Irish potato famine, the Choctaw tribe in the US heard about the difficulties the...
Read more

August 2 - Liverpool, England

Image
 Our tour wasn't until this afternoon, so we had a leisurely morning on board.  We've been here a couple of times before and have seen the things that are closest to the port already.   The port area is modern in many respects The building in the forefront with the two towers is the Royal Liver Building (pronounced Lie-ver) which was built by the Royal Liver Assurance Group in 1911.  To the right are two more Edwardian buildings: the Cunard Headquarters and the Port of Liverpool Building. Together they are known as the "Three Graces."  These are the Unity buildings.  The one on the left is a residential and the right is commercial.  I think the left one is just weird with the box plopped on top. Not sure what this is, but there were children playing inside on a swing. We drove a little through Liverpool on our way to our final destination. This looks like it was built to represent the bow of a ship.  Shipping was a big part of the economy of ...
Read more