Ulvik

Once again we start with a commercial photo and a picture of mum and Claire at dinner.  Also the first 3 landscapes are from Stavanger off the boat.  The boat set off at around 4pm so we headed up to the crows nest for a pre-dinner drink and to watch the scenery.  I guess that this is the start of the proper fjords but we didn't see our journey in because it was early in the morning.

Tuesday night I was awoken by doors banging at 2am which went on until 3am.  Last night the same thing but it started at 12 midnight.  I realized that it wasn’t doors, banging but a door banging.  It was always the same one from the same direction and distance.  I very nearly got dressed to see which prat was doing it.  If it happens again tonight I will for sure.

Part of our departure from Stavanger was quite mountainous and rocky but somehow the photo’s never look as good as the real thing.  Its always a disappointment to look at the picture you just took and compare it with reality.  It really does look very pretty with little islands and lakes everywhere but through the camera it just looks like water and sky with a thin piece of land.  I took so many pictures but they all look crap, its a bit like the Grand Canyon where they all look the same.

Following dinner we all went for post dinner drinks at the Oceans bar where Neptune play from 7pm to 9pm.  the group with the big black guy on the cello, the English guy on the piano and the Philippino on drums and vocals that I told you about.  Tuesday they played Frank Sinatra songs and last night it was sounds of the 50’s.  We actually prefer the Mix bar with Gary the solo guitarist playing 70’s music but the service is crap there.

This morning we moored at Ulvik but its only a small place and they cant accommodate a cruise ship so we had to anchor and get tenders into port.  They had already rang mum and left a message to say that there were about 15 very steep steps down to the tender advising her not to get off.  Claire and I decided to get off early, go over and see if mum could make it safely and then I could bring her over later.

Straight away I didn't think it suitable and the tender was very old and smelly.  It dropped us off at a hotel and we had to walk through it to get to the streets.  i tried my phone to see if I could get on their wi-fi but the signal was too low.  Its a very pretty little village with a few shops and a couple of hotels.  We spotted a couple of Cafe’s and tried them for wifi with no luck but then we spotted the Ulvik hotel which did have wifi.  It was very slow but we had nothing else to do.

We had a nice long walk along the Fjord to the end and back taking far more pictures than I could put on this blog.  Some of the high mountains had snow on them even though its mid summer.  Its quite a pretty place but not really any different to many places in Germany, Austria, Holland areas.

We are heading out quite early tonight at about 4pm so Maybe I will get some more pictures from the ship.  We got back about 11.15am, told mum about it and went off for lunch.  Claire had spotted that they were having a curry lunch at the Lido today so we headed off to get a good table and some of their fresh lemonade.  I was the first to be served with the curry just as it started to rain, just as promised.  Claire followed me up but mum’s not a spice lover and had a very light lunch, saving herself for tonights formal night.

The girls didn't fancy going to the spa today so we thought we might give the cinema a try.  Todays film was called Mud and we all enjoyed it.  It wasn’t until on our way out that we spotted the bags of free popcorn by the entrance.  We took some for our next installment of the Sopranos tonight.

Thats about it now, we have just left our last destination and have set off on our two day journey home.  I will probably do one more blog to cover that.  Hope you all enjoyed our trip as much as we did.