Geiranger, Norway cruise - May 2025
Participants: Tam, Kev and India
Our final fjord was Geiranger. Just as well they kept this one to last as it was the most spectacular. India was up before us and had already been up on deck before returning to the stateroom to wake us and make us get up to look outside. She was right to do so as we passed steep mountains and gushing waterfalls.
This is the Seven Sisters waterfall. So called because there are 7 seperate falls when there's enough water. We got closer views of this later.
Geiranger. We were told later that the permanent population is just 280.
We had booked a trip to one of the viewpoints. We really wanted to go to the higher viewpoint at Dalsnibba, but it wasn't being offered when we booked as the road is normally closed at this time of the year. When we went into the office in town to see where we had to go to pick up the coach I noticed that they were selling the joint trip to the 2 viewpoints. Our luck had held again as the road up to Dalsnibba had opened up 2 days before. We changed our ticket and headed to the coach pick up point.
This is the view from the first viewpoint. As you can see the weather was very kind to us again.
This is the road our coach drove up. The chap driving was the man that owned the company that runs all sorts of tours. He was very informative and also a pretty skillful driver!
He told us that the road was open as they'd had relatively little snow this year. 'Relatively' being the appropriate word. The snow at the sides of the road was as high as the roof of the coach as we drove up.
You can just about make out a teeny little ship way off in the distance.
Those big coats and wooly hats were needed. While we left a mild 12 degrees C Geiranger, it was -2 up at Dalsnibba. It even started snowing a little.
Back in Geiranger we walked down alongside the waterfall that runs down through the centre of the town.
We also booked a ride on a RIB that took us out to see some of the waterfalls close up from the water.
It was quite chilly as we zipped along, but good fun.
During the winter this zig zag road is the only way in and out of Geiranger.
Here's the Seven Sisters again. A photo doesn't really capture the scale and power.
This is quite a spooky rock formation.
Unfortunately
this is where the trip report ends, or at least it did for me.
The night after Geiranger I came down with norovirus. We knew
that it was on the ship as they kept giving out instructions for
people to wash their hands and you couldn't help yourself at the
buffet with staff serving the food onto your plate. Heaven knows
how I got it but Tam and India didn't. Without going into detail
the vomitting was the worst I've ever experienced. Luckily it
only lasted for a few hours, but I was in no state to go into
Bruges the next day. Tam and India went and enjoyed themselves
while I stayed onboard and snoozed most of the time.
India said she knew there was something up with me when I made my
last glass of wine for the evening last for ages and even then I
didn't finish it.
The
good thing is that I got it after all the Norwegian ports, which
was the main reason for taking the cruise. We all thoroughly
enjoyed ourselves (well, apart from the last bit for me) and I'd
highly recommend a visit to the fjords to everyone. I'd like to
do a few other ports in the future, possible later in the summer.
All the fjords were different and we managed to fit in a number
of varied activites, all of which we thoroughly enjoyed.