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Our first call is in the small port of Ålesund.
Strong of 39 000 inhabitants, Ålesund makes a living mainly on sea.
A fire destroyed the city in 1904. It was rebuilt in Jugendstil or 'Art Nouveau'.
It is still early morning, and the town is quiet. We meet few people, except other Midnatsol passengers.
We do not wander too far away, because the ship is staying here for only 45 minutes.
During this trip, most stops are short, sometimes only 15 minutes.
We will need to check the schedule carefully to avoid missing departure!
It starts raining as we come back on the ship.
It is 09:30, the last hawser (= thick rope) is pulled back on board. MS Midnatsol can resume her journey.
We leave Ålesund, heading towards Geiranger Fjord.
Navigating through the 100km-long fjord should take us four hours.
The rainy weather adds surreal beauty to the sight, but makes us worry about the rest of the trip.
Geiranger Fjord is on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
The cliffs that surround it rise up to 1400m above sea level and extend 500m below.
Many waterfalls mark the steep walls.
Hailing one another is a tradition among sailors.
We pass the Friaren, the Seven Sisters and the Bridal Veil. These waterfalls are among the finest in the fjord.
We disembark in the port of Geiranger for our first true excursion.
Meanwhile, MS Midnatsol resumes her course.
She will go down the fjord, stop again in Ålesund, and head towards Molde where we will re-embark tonight.
We take the Road of Eagles, which offers a stunning view over the fjord and Geiranger.
It feels like the Alps, 400m above a mountain lake, except that it is at sea level!
After crossing the mountains, we arrive at Eidsdal and take the ferry to Linge.
Along with bridges and tunnels, ferries are another way of crossing the fjords.
We follow the Norddalsfjord that we just crossed, before returning to the inland.
The bus passes through strawberry fields, which surprise us in these mountains and in the 'country of salmon'.
We stop at the gorge of Gudbrandsjuvet, named after a man who crossed this pit in a single leap 500 years ago.
Beside this legend, this place is memorable to us because the cameraman slipped and nearly broke his knee.
We now enter the land of high mountains.
You would hardly believe that, only one hour ago, we were at sea level.
The highest stop of our excursion leads us near mountain lakes... real ones this time!
Here, the peaks reach altitudes over 1600m.
We are approaching Trollstigen, the road of Trolls. This is a major tourist attraction.
This impressive descent takes us down 11 hairpin turns and a 600m change in altitude.
We can admire the Stigfossen, a 320m high waterfall.
Everything is there to remind us that this is Troll country!
But it is now time to move on to Molde and catch the ship.
It is 9pm as the bus drops us at the harbour of Molde. An Hurtigruter is docked, the Narvik.
A familiar siren is now resounding. MS Midnatsol is porting, and salutes the elder ship.
Indeed, Narvik is the oldest ship in the fleet.
The doors begin to open before the ship has even docked.
The call is short and time is running out.
The day ends with a sun that seems reluctant to set.
Tonight, MS Midnatsol will call in Kristiansund before arriving tomorrow morning in Trondheim.