Too Beautiful to be Cute

We made it into Bergen on the Hurtigruten coastel ship yesterday afternoon. I took a minute or two to try to come up with a catchy title for this post, but the truth of the matter is that the journey from Trondheim to Bergen was just too beautiful to be coy about. At a cruising speed of 15 knots, or thereabouts, we passed some of the most gorgeous scenery I've ever encountered. First, the coastline started to rise in lush, green, grassy hills with more majestic snowcapped peaks behind in the distance. We made our way down a small inlet to stop at a small town with those same snowcapped peaks now towering above us, almost close enough to touch (or so we thought). After a brief, but lovely, dinner, we made it back out in time to snap some more photos on the way back out of the inlet. Just as midnight approached, we watched the bright sun start to sink behind the many tiny islands that lie just off the Norwegian coast which caused a beautiful corona effect around the small, shadowy land masses. And as we pulled into Ålesund at midnight there was a beautiful pink twilight sky that never truly faded to darkness.

We called it a night around 12:30 and snagged about 4 hours of sleep in our cabin before waking up just as we pulled out from a different port at 5:45. I had the entire aft deck to myself as we sailed through a beautiful, pristine, and entirely peaceful fjord in the early morning hours. Small waterfalls cascaded down rocky cliffs and I had it all to myself. I think it might be my favorite moment of the trip thus far. Photos, as usual, are forthcoming.

The only downside was that I was probably the only person on the boat between the ages of 18 and 60, which was just a little strange. Even more strange was that the ship had hired a wannabe Kenny G style saxophonist to get on the aft deck and play horrific solo new wave jazz each time we pulled into port and then pulled away again. I think we must have heard him play at least 8 or 10 times. For any Glee Clubbers out there reading this, an image popped into my mind of what Jim's face would look like in reacting to the music and I nearly lost it. Hilarious.

Well, I need to vacate my computer at the moment, but needless to say, much more to come...