Day 17 - Monday 8th May 2023

Today we'd be staying in Geiranger. The morning was cool and cloudy (zero Celsius). Once again, it was not raining.

The bus set out at 8:30am to head up the mountain via the eleven hairpin bends known as Eagles Road. Each hairpin bend is very tight. It's hard for the bus to navigate the turns. The driver needs to use both sides of the road. He swings wide and eventually ends up back on the right side of the road.

I think everyone was nervous about the climb up the mountain but I was probably the most nervous because I was sitting in the front seat. The front of the bus would swing over the edge of the road as he spun it around. Although people were joking and laughing, I think this was to hide their concern at the danger.

That was bad enough until we encountered vehicles including buses coming the other way. As we passed the other buses, it felt as though we were going to topple over the edge.

Despite the steep slope, there were a few houses and farms on the side of the mountain. This is genuine mountain goat territory. It's a very tall mountain.

Towards the top, we stopped at an observation platform for a photo opportunity. Just as we got out of the bus, two air force war planes flew past at high speed near us through the valley. I was like a ceremonial or welcome fly past and reminded me of the Top Gun movie.

The view up there was spectacular. It was amazing to be able to see the blue fjord way down below and the snow-capped mountains on each side. All the buildings down in Geiranger looked so small.

While we were there taking photos, a large cruise ship came into view on the fjord far below.

Soon after the bus set off again, we were travelling on a relatively level road at the top of the mountain range. After about ten minutes, we passed through a small valley that contained a frozen lake.

There was snow on the ground next to the road. Snow must be common here because there were snow poles marking the sides of the road.

When we reached the ferry wharf at 9:20, the ferry was already there waiting and so we could just drive straight on for the trip across the fjord which took about 15 minutes.

At about 9:40, we stopped for a morning break at a little town called Valldal. The sun was struggling to break through the clouds. When it succeeded, it felt quite warm but when it disappeared again, we needed to be well rugged up.

It's common in this part of the world for shops not to open until 10am. Nevertheless, Gennady managed to organise cinnamon rolls for us from the local bakery.

The road climbed up again taking us past strawberry fields and snow on the sides of the road.

At about 10:30, we stopped briefly for a photo opportunity at a waterfall. Here there was an elevated walkway that zigzagged over the water so we could get photos at different angles of different parts of the waterfall.

As we climbed higher and higher, the snow got deeper. In fact, although the road itself was cleared, the snow adjacent to the road was about 1m deep. We passed a sign saying that the road was closed further on because of the snow.

Eventually we stopped at a small parking area near a group of chalets on the side of the hill. Another photo opportunity. As we had seen before, many of the houses had grass on their roofs. This place went one better because some also had small trees growing on their roofs.

By the time that we were ready to leave, another tourist coach had arrived. Our driver tried to turn around but was unable to do so in the space surrounded by the deep snow around the road and the car park area. So both buses had to back down the hill for several km.

The plan was to catch the ferry at Sylte at 12 noon. We got there at exactly that time only to see that the ferry was full and was pulling away from the wharf. Fortunately the ferries are quite regular and we caught the next one at 12:20pm.

It was still cloudy as we headed back past the frozen lake towards the Eagles Road. At one stage, we passed a car that had slipped off the road and was lying at an angle in the ditch. There was a rescue team trying to sort it out.

When we reached the observation deck at the top of the mountain, it was quite crowded but we managed to find somewhere to park the bus. Down in the fjord near Geiranger, we could now see two huge cruise ships.

Laslo managed to manoeuvre the bus back down the hairpin bends back to fjord level. On the way down the mountain, we passed an ambulance and a tow truck. No doubt they were on their way to help with the car that had gone off the road and into the ditch.

Laslo dropped most of us near the wharf so we could explore the town and he took a few people back up to the hill to the hotel.

Geiranger is not a big town. It's very much focused on tourists. There are hotels, cafes and lots of souvenir shops and so it's a destination for cruise ships. The two cruise ships moored here were huge.

I'm not sure how many passengers they carry. It must be thousands and it seemed as though all of these thousands can come ashore - it was very crowded. Too crowded. It was unpleasant.

The first thing we did was to go to the supermarket to buy something for lunch and we ate it on a bench outside. The wind was cold.

It was a challenge to conquer the public WCs. You had to pay with your credit card and be sure to quickly push the turnstile to get through. We saw some people give up and crawl under the turnstile.

Then the girls went shopping. As I wandered around taking photos, I noticed people dressed in all-in-one yellow and black outfits heading towards the wharf. They were getting on small boats for a speed boat ride on the fjord.

Although the bus was due to take us back to the hotel at 3:30, by 2:30 we had had enough of the crowds and we decided to sit on the bus instead. Soon after 3pm, everyone else had had enough too and Laslo drove us back to the hotel.

While sitting on the bus, we'd noticed a very long queue of people waiting to get back on the cruise ship. We were glad to be on the Insight bus tour rather than on one of these gigantic cruise ships.

For dinner we had the buffet in the hotel restaurant again. It was just as great as last night.