We head out to the old town of Stavanger which happens to be right next to our ship. It was a lot of houses from the late 1700s and early 1800s that made up the town. Outside a lot of tourists and a few cats (which we assume weren’t tourists) there wasn’t much to see. We wandered around the rest of the downtown district waiting for our cruise of Lysefjord.

While the forecast was a 60% chance of showers, what we encountered was a very blustery partly cloudy. It was so windy we thought that maybe our ship wouldn’t set sail for the tour, but it did. That made the sea rather rough out to the fjord, but once we got into the fjord everything was much more calm and we had quite nice spots of sunshine, I think the most sunshine we had since leaving Southampton. It was still on the cool side of about 14º max.

We saw Pulpit Rock, which is an abnormal rock formation that is flat and juts 25 feet out over the cliff edge. We had originally tried to get a hike up to there, but with our time in port we couldn’t make it fit, so I guess seeing it from below was a close proximity. We also saw some more waterfalls and other formations that made the day interesting.

We hit the buffet early (since we didn’t have a lunch) and then decided we were call it an early evening. We went back to our cabin, watched the documentary called Art and Craft (which was really quite interesting) and then were in asleep just after 21:00.

However it is pronounced, Stavanger is Norway’s fourth-largest city, and is the first place – since Reykjavik – which looked anything like we might expect a city to look.

The hot topic of conversation over breakfast was the weather. Not because this was the first morning we’d seen any real sun since our departure from Southampton, but on account of the wind. There was a real gale blowing, hardly ideal when you consider that the main activity we had planned for the day was a three-hour visit to the Lysefjord… by small passenger boat!!

We’d already paid – maybe we’d have found another way to spend the day if we hadn’t. But as it turns out, I’m glad that we stuck to the original plan, because for some reason, the high winds caused turbulence for just the first few hundreds yards of our tour. Once we were away from the dockside and on our way down the coast, it was more-or-less smooth sailing, and – with the sun continuing to shine – meant we had a very pleasant three hours out on the water.

Lysefjord is considered once of the most scenic fjords in Norway, so our’s was by no means the only boat ferrying tourists down its 40 kilometre length.

In fact, we didn’t go anything like the full length of the fjord because it took us almost an hour to reach the mouth, with plenty of stops (not to disembark… but opportunities to take photos while the engines were cut) en route.

The ultimate goal of our trip was a large waterfall. On reaching the falls, our boat was manoeuvred close enough to the water’s edge for the captain to fill a bucket from the spray, with passengers invited to take a drink. And pretty good it tasted too!

However, perhaps the most interesting sight en route was the so-called Pulpit Rock: an almost perfectly rectangular rock formation high up on the cliffs which leans out the water and presents some particularly spectacular view for anyone who makes the two-hour ascent to the top (and has a head for heights!).

Back in Stavanger, we strolled ‘the long way’ back to the Eclipse, taking in Stavanger’s Old Town. It’s certainly a pretty place to live… but – as it is located right alongside the quay – I do wonder how frustrating it must be to have hundreds of cruise passengers sticking their noses through your front window all summer long!!

Oscar picked us up at the port and drove us about 15 minutes to the family farm. It had been in his family for about 200 years, with his Uncle being the last in line and having no children, so his older brother quit his job and decided to try to make a go of working the farm. Oscar works and lives in Olden during the summers and then spends the winters in Oslo working for a publishing house. They run these tours to help supplement the farm income.

The farm, some 150 hectares, rises up the side of the fjord from the water, the main farm houses are at the end of a road (which didn’t arrive until the 1970s) and then we had about a 45 minute hike (would have been 25 minutes if we knew what we were doing) to the Summer Farm, where there is another small farmhouse along side a rather impressive falls. There is no electricity on the summer farm, just a small kitchen, a small living/dining room and a loft that can sleep six. No indoor plumbing (all the water comes from the waterfall). Oscar’s mom had hiked up the day before to prepare for our arrival and she often spends a couple weeks up there by herself during the peak of berry season, where lots of wild blueberries and “thorn berries” grow, which she picks and then makes jam out of.

We were joined by another couple from Miami, who had not realised that there would be extensive hiking involved. It was good, because I think they would have avoided it if they had realised it was such a challenging hike, but the both grinned and bared it and I think (hope) they were glad they came along.

Oscar’s mom was a wonderful host and we had “first lunch” and “second lunch” at the cabin (which had a wonderful wood fire, which was totally welcome because it had rained lightly most of the way up the hill). First lunch was bread and vegetable soup. Second lunch was “hot dogs” which were wrapped in a flat wrap that was very much like a tortilla and made with spelt.

Oscar also entertained us with a couple typical Norwegian games, which included a matchstick game, where each person was given 99 matchsticks over 10 rounds to “bid” against the other players, the highest bid won the round but everyone had to discard the sticks the bid, meaning if you bid too high too early, you wouldn’t have further sticks to bid. We also played some horseshoes, which brought back memories of playing horseshoes with my family growing up. I can only guess the the nordic influence on Minnesota had infected my family, like some of the other traditions we have that have come from other parts of the world (like Cornish Pasties).

Simon and Oscar decided that they would hike further up the farm towards the top of the mountain where the waterfall originates. The Christina and Juan (the couple from Miami) and myself decided we would stay in the warm cabin with mom! We played cards and chatted at length about life and everything while Simon and Oscar hiked.

We started heading back down and time was getting a bit tight. It was a bit slower going than we had expected and we only ended up boarding the ship about 10 minutes before the “all aboard” and they would have taken away the gangway and we would have been left with the 12 hour drive to Stavanger to figure out! Luckily everything worked out fine and Oscar gave us some parting gifts, including a copy of a book he wrote, where we discovered he is the holder of two world records for memorisation. He obviously was a little bit “self-conscious” of his feats and while proud, didn’t want to spend the whole time talking about his memory abilities while we were on the trip.

And indeed it did.

This was a private tour, but we were invited to “bring a friend” to reduce the price per person. Kit posted on Cruise Critic and recruited a couple from Miami who we later learned had read no further than the words “farm experience” before signing up.

Our host for the day: a 34-year-old Nordik lad whose real name is Oddbjørn but who invited us to call him Oscar to save our blushes with awkward attempts at pronunciation. The farm we would be visiting is owned by Oscar’s brother, and Oscar lives in a neighbouring house during the summer, retreating to a second home in Oslo (with his wife and 3-month-old baby) at the end of the tourist season.

Oscar’s mother – who we would meet later in the day – lives two hours away – but often spends time in Olden, as well as making several trips each year to Wimbledon (the SW19 variety) where another of her offspring live. Over lunch, we learned that several members of the family live in Minnesota, and Oscar also has a sibling in Sydney, so “mum” has become quite an experienced international traveller in recent years.

The itinterary that we signed up for was not overly detailed: spend time on the farm, hike to a local waterfall, and eat a home-cooked lunch with our hosts. As it turned out, the “farm” component was quite short: we didn’t meet any of the livestock (they were out roaming the hillside and wouldn’t be brought down to the barn until September), and Oscar’s brother and his family mostly kept themselves to themselves.

So after a brief tour of one of the farm buildings, we were kitted up for our “hike” and began to walk.

It was at this point that our fellow guests’ failure to read the small print became apparent! To Juan and Christina – both of Cuban heritage, and with a lifetime subscription to the Miami beachfront way-of-life – the natural response to such a crazy suggestion as “shall we hike?” is “why? (can’t we take a helicopter?!)”.

But to Juan and Christina’s credit, they gave it a go. We made the 40-minute, often-steep ascent from the farm to a hillside pasture – where Oscar’s family built additional lodgings many decades ago – testing our axe-technique to fell a couple of trees en-route.

And it was when we arrived at the pasture that we met mum, who had hiked up the previous evening in order to prepare for our arrival. We were greeted by a very warm welcome (literally – since the tiny “house” had a large central fireplace), and were soon tucking into homemade soup.

Over lunch, we learned more about the family, the farm and the pasture. As well as being a rare “flat” space on which to build, the pasture is ideally located due to its proximity to the river – for bathing, and drinking water – and more blueberry bushes than the family could ever hope to harvest themselves. From this base, they could keep a closer eye on the sheep – who roam freely over the near-400 acre property – and, at one time (before the economics became unsustainable) tend to a small herd of cattle.

After lunch, an impromptu game of horseshoes out in the rain, and a short walk to the river to refill our water bottles, we were presented with three options: stick around at the pasture, hike a short distance further to see more of the river and perhaps some of the lowest-lying snow, or a more ambitious hike up to the so-called “big waterfall”.

Whilst they were more than happy to have been “dragged” as far as the pasture (and took many photos en-route to prove it – “the kids are never going to believe we’ve done this!”), Juan and Christina drew the line at hiking any further, and Kit offered to hang around with them so Oscar and I could motor and get further up the hillside in the time we had remaining.

So while the American contingent settled in for an afternoon of chatting and playing poker (with “mum” in close attendance), Oscar and I continued up the hill – and up the river – in search of snow, sheep and… salt.

Why salt?, I asked Oscar, but he said that we would need to defer to his brother’s greater farming wisdom, and by the time we got back to the farm several hours later, we were in too much of a hurry to ask. Suffice to say that sheep need salt for something, and don’t get it in sufficient quantities in their natural diet. So Oscar and his brother regularly drag 3kg blocks of salt up the hillside in backpacks and attach these to spikes in the ground for the sheep to lick. They have to be quick though… the rain will eventually dissolve the salt, and wild deer often tuck in.

As our path soon crossed the tree-line, and on account of the unseasonably wet weather over recent days, the additional ascent was very boggy, and our feet were soon drenched! Our perseverance paid off though, because not only did we find snow and reach the quite spectacular “big falls”, but we also had a close encounter with a sea eagle who quite obviously knew we were there and was keen for us to know that this mountain was his domain.

Over lunch earlier that afternoon, Oscar had told us that it is typical for Norwegians to eat five or more meals a day. Having known my friend Kris – who was born and raised in rural Norway – for many years, this is not something I was aware of, and I wonder whether it’s more of a regional thing. Anyway, I was certainly not about to complain when – on returning to the pasture with Oscar – “mum” served us our second lunch of the day: locally-made sausages with potato salad, and thin bread which rather similar to Indian chapatis.

Wisely, Oscar equipped Juan and Christine with walking sticks for our descent back to the farm. I am not sure we’d have made it back down if he hadn’t… or at least, not in time to make the Eclipse’s “all aboard” time. As it was, we had just a few minutes for a hasty farewell during which Oscar presented us with a memento of our visit: a copy of a book he had recently published on the subject of memory. Despite spending a whole day with him – and having taken the opportunity to pick his brains on writing and publishing after learning that he works at a publishing house during the winter – Oscar never once mentioned that he holds the world record for memorising random number sequences!

So we set off in the morning making our way through part of Alesund towards the marine park. It was a pleasant walk with lots of little sights to see. While we had heard good things about the marine park online, we were very surprised by how entertaining it was and how good quality the exhibits were for a relatively isolated part of the world. We had found out later that it was the first week of the school holidays in Norway and so by mid-afternoon the museum was teeming with kids. They had an interactive pond, where kids could touch sea creatures and a tank full of crabs which you would use prawns at the end of the lines to tempt the crabs. Simon remarked how “brave” the kids were, just mucking in and quite fearlessly manhandling these sea creatures. Especially the young Norwegian boys, who seemed that it was almost an accomplishment to torment a crab into snapping on your fingers!

We walked back into town and then decided to go up to the top of the main hill in Alesund. On the way up, we took the “back” way, which was avoiding the 440 steps up to the top, but required a bit more of a concerted effort as the path became quite involved at points. We also wandered around to the summit (which was different than the lookout point). We finally made it to the lookout point which had a view over and across Alesund (and of course our ship docked in port). We then went down the 440 steps (which had only just re-opened after being heavily renovated over the past year) and found our way back to the ship.

We then went to Q-Sine for the second time that evening, a bit early too, having avoided having a lunch to ensure we were robustly hungry by the time we had dinner. We had the same waitress as we previously had, which made the dinner interesting as we started to have a nice rapport with her. We rounded out the food we had, trying a few dishes we never had and I think pretty much having had everything on the menu at least once.

While Geiranger exists almost entirely for the entertainment of tourists, Alesund is a real town with locals… and life, even in the winter. Population: 30,000-ish… not counting the fish.

I found several options when planning our itinerary, but they all started at more or less the same time of day, so we had a choice to make. In the end, we opted for a visit to the town’s aquarium, largely because’s it’s considered the “best in Northern Europe”, but also because it’s location – 45 mintutes’ walk from the port, on the outskirts of town – presented an opportunity to explore Alesund en route.

We took a bit of a risk perhaps, as that walk could easily have been through a less-than-salubrious part of town, but as it turned out, it really was a pretty stroll, and a very good way to see the half of Alesund that most of our fellow cruisers had no particular reason to visit.

The Aquarium is pretty big, focussing entirely on North Atlantic species (so no tanks with the inevitable (“Nemo”) clown fish). The highlight for all visitors under the age of 13 is the aquarium equivalent of a petting zoo – a shallow tank inhabited by various sea creatures that guests are invited to poke and prod to their heart’s content.

I did feel sorry for the lobster – the obvious “star” of the attraction, who inevitably therefore spent more time out of the water than he did in it. Hopefully has has a litany of buddies behind the scenes so he has a few days to recover from an afternoon of lobster abuse.

The previous afternoon, we attended the port briefing for Alesund and were assured that the highlight of a visit to Alesund was a 400-step walk up to an outlook on the southern border of the city.

So, on returning from the Aquarium, we headed that way. I’d like to say that we found the back entrance thanks to our well-honed ability to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing, but on this occasion, we just followed a sign and ended up discovering that the (“Puffin shop”) outlook is in fact just a small dot on a very much more substantial lump of craggy parkland.

We did take the tourists’ route back to the ship, and the angles of the zig-zagging staircase presented some good photo opportunities. Pity we didn’t have a blue-sky backdrop, but, as we later learned that Oslo is the wettest capital city in the whole of Europe, perhaps we should just be thankful for staying dry!

Our first planned activity was to go kayaking. Our guide was a Spanish gal who obviously loved kayaking. This was her first season up in Geiranger. We were joined by a couple from Holland and a couple of young ladies from the US. The couple from Holland were on the same cruise as us and the gals were travelling about on their own. We were put in tandem kayaks which also had a rudder. I suspect because they are dealing with all sorts of skill levels (mostly beginner) at Active Geiranger, they choose these as it ultimately de-risks the ability of people to be successful. It was clear though that wile the couple from Holland were similar to us, expecting a very active trip, the gals underestimated the trials of kayaking for several hours.

Our plan was to make it out to the Seven Sisters waterfall in Geiranger, which is one of the major attractions. There were several ways to see it, but I have to admit kayaking seems to be a great way to do it as it was absolutely beautiful the whole way there and back. The only real drawback was that it was raining the whole time and while my coat was waterproof, Simon’s wasn’t, so he was getting pretty soaked through. We also had gaskets to seal us into the kayak and while they seemed to be reasonably effective, I still ended up with a wet bum. Even with these minor annoyances, it was totally wonderful experience. What a great way to see things!

By the time we got back to the ship, it was time to dry off, change and have a nice lunch. Afterwards we headed back out again, because we wanted to walk around the town and there were a couple hikes up into what was a lookout. The first hike was marked as “level 2” which meant that it was reasonable but might be a bit challenging. Level 3 meant that there was a lot of clambering up things and Level 4 was you needed specialist hiking equipment. Once we got to the first destination, it was a restaurant with a second Level 1 walk through some fields with sheep and goats grazing in them. We walked that path for a bit before turning back and hiking back down. Again, another great way to spend an afternoon, exploring. The only problem again is it was raining for at least half the journey and so by the time we got back, we now had been through two sets of clothes each! I clearly didn’t pack enough hiking clothes for this trip.

Geiranger is considered by many to be the prettiest spot in the whole of Norway. In fact, it exists only because it is such an idylic spot – the town itself has a population of only 200 permanent residents, a number which swells to well over a thousand in the summer months to cater for the influx of tourists.

It’s a deep fjord, and the big cruise lines make good use of that fact. On the same day as our visit to Geiranger, we were joined by two Costa ships. It’s no Barcelona or Southampton though, and while we were able to smugly walk ashore using the recently-installed “Sea Walk” (an extendable floating walkway), the Costas dropped anchor half a mile away and tendered their passengers to and from the quay-side.

Kit and I spent the morning kayaking on the fjord with a charming young Dutch couple from the Eclipse, two American girls who were staying in a local hotel, and our Spanish guide.

And despite the rain, it was a blast! We got totally soaked, but while we were moving, we didn’t really feel the cold, and it was only after we returned to dry land that we realised quite how wet through the rain and splash off the fjord had left us.

Kit and I paddled together in a tandem kayak, and – a first for me – it was equipped with a rudder which meant I was able to steer with my feet. It had been a couple of years since we’d done anything similar, and perhaps only my third ever experience of kayaking, but we took to it right away and were even complemented for our fitness at the end of the paddle. Apparently, most parties don’t make it as far as the Seven Sisters – the biggest waterfall in the area and very photogenic from below.

After returning to the ship to dry off and refuel, we headed out to explore Geiranger on foot. It’s easy to see why it’s such a popular destination – the views would obviously be spectacular when not obscured by low cloud. But obscured by low cloud they were as we hiked up through the town and into the hills… so I guess this is one destination for our “requiring of a return visit” list.