July 23 - Nordfjordeid, Norway

 This was another tender port as the big old Mein Schiff 2 got the only berthing spot.  (Not to be confused with the Mein Schiff 3 or 7 that we've run into in past ports.)  But, again, the fjords are so calm that it was easy breezy to tender in.  Our tour was a bus ride through beautiful country to the small town of Loen, which has a tram that takes you 1,000+ meters up to a lookout station.  It was all very well run and the tram ride only takes about 6 minutes and each of the two cars hold up to 35 people, so we didn't have to wait more than a few minutes.

From our anchorage we could see these big cutouts of the forest.  It looks like it was clearcut, but that seems rather out of character for Norway.

There is a nice restaurant at the top with amazing views.

It was another beautiful day and you could see forever.  I rather imagine it's a bit less stunning when it's overcast or rainy.

These sheep all had bells on and look very well fed.

It looked like they were building another viewing deck.

Such colorful machinery

There's some story that goes along with this having to do with a giant eight-footed horse that lost one of its shoes when it fell.  I didn't quite understand, but it's an interesting addition nonetheless. 

Everywhere we looked was just beautiful.

The Norwegians love their trolls (me, not so much which is why I didn't take any photos of them.  They remind me of clowns which I also don't like).  They say that these hay "bails" are toilet paper rolls for the giant trolls.

It was very warm again, even at the top of the tram mountain, so first thing when we got back was a hot shower.  Just as we were getting ready to leave at 4:30, we noticed that the ship was listing rather obviously.  I had to "climb" to get from the balcony of our cabin to the door.  As we were getting underway, Captain Gianluca apologized for it and explained that our anchor was set very deep and we had to do the listing maneuver in order to get the extra long chain up properly.  Haven't experienced that before.

Trivia was a good day with 14/15 for 2 points.  Then I went to a lecture by Michael Fopp on The Heroes of Telemark.  This was the story of the Norwegians and British preventing the Germans from getting heavy water from here back to Germany to aid in their attempts to develop the atom bomb.  It took 3 tries, but they finally got the job done.  Very interesting especially since tomorrow we will be about 60 miles from the plant where the heavy water was being produced.