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!

And now, having mentioned our Blue Lagoon visit to several ‘locals’ since Wednesday, we have learnt – beyond any doubt – that we have already experienced the most puffiny “Puffin Shop” experience in the whole of Iceland!!  Apparently, the only time locals are lured to the Blue Lagoon is when 1/2 price vouchers are buried deep in local newspapers, where tourists will never find them.  And by far the most common reason for Icelanders to visit The Blue Lagoon is because – of all the hot springs in the Reykjavik area – it opens the earliest, providing a unique (and apparently very effective) hangover cure to up-all-night revellers.