It is a port town and has an interesting history. Nearly the entire town burned down in January 1904, leaving 10,000 people instantly homeless in the midst of winter. Help came to the city from all over, and people took shelter crammed together in remaining barns and homes. The city was rebuilt, largely with the help of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. He had vacationed there and loved the area and sent four warships full of supplies to rebuild. His influence is a major reason why this Northern Norwegian town his built nearly entirely in the Art Nouveau style.
As interesting as the history is, the city itself is just average. There is nothing bad about it at all, but it certainly pales in comparison with the other gems on our itinerary. This was also our only poor weather day; it was raining (lightly though) pretty much the entire time we were in Alesund.
Honestly, we were pretty tuckered out from 2 days of hiking and a bit glad for the chance to take it easy without feeling like we were missing much. We did go for a stroll through town, and took some photos, of course:
Oh, and as promised, below are some of the photos Joachim took of the waterfall you can hike to above Geiranger, as well as the snow that was still in those higher trail areas (obviously all are "photos by Joachim")
--Hadley
No comments:
Post a Comment