Hurtigruten: Day 1 & 2

Friday, 23 January 2015

Ahoy there! We are now about the Finnmarken, heading to the far far north.   Our first night onboard was un-eventful, except for the unusually clear skies which allowed us to see the Northern Lights at about 11pm.  We were all fast asleep in our cabin when they announced the sighting over the PA and the resulting scramble for warm clothes, cameras & wits was comical.  Tonight we'll attempt to be more prepared before we go to bed!  In any case we are still so far south they weren't that spectactacular - hopefully we'll get clear skies further north as well.  

Today was sunny and beautiful again - the scenery is indescribable - the camera doesn't do it justice.At lunch time we had a 3 hour stop at Ålesund - a town known for fishing and, surprisingly, (given it feels like we are miles from anywhere) for it's Art Nouveau architecture.

With the promise of allowing the kids to spend the afternoon back on the boat doing whatever they wanted to (which in their case was watching back to back episodes of American Picker in the cabin), we force marched them the couple of kms up the hill behind the town.   Like Bergen, it was cold, but free of snow in most places.  According to the locals, it's pretty incredible weather and we shouldn't take it for granted. 

 Everything else on the boat is going well.  As I mentioned the views out the window are great although don't come out The kids love the buffet breakfast and lunches although we've just suffered through them hating everything they were served (no buffet) for dinner. Our waiter assured us we could ask for something simpler for kids on future nights. To be honest though, they'd survive without dinner at all given how good the other meals are (and so could we!).

 Argh - just had a northern lights alert - have to run outside…later..