A beautiful sail into Geiranger, Norway

Geirangerfjord is Norway's most spectacular and perhaps best-known fjord.  With waterfalls cascading down from 2,000 ft. high mountain cliffs, the fjord is included on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites.  We were told that often the fjord adjacent to a mountain is as deep as the mountain is high.

We were up on deck during the cruise through the fjord.  There were waterfalls on our right and waterfalls on our left.  It was spectacular!

It was another sunny day, and we were shooting photos into the sun....

So, I grabbed this photo from the internet to show the beauty of this fjord.

Internet photo

That's the Seven Sisters waterfalls on the left, 800 feet high.  And on the right the waterfall is called The Suitor as it seems to be trying to impress the seven maidens across the way.  The Suitor is bottle-shaped and according to myth is unhappy and turns to drink while he awaits the answer to his proposal to the Seven Sisters...all 7 of them??

Soon we arrive at the small town of Geiranger.  The population there is about 250, but about 180 cruise ships, carrying about 300K passengers, stop at the town during the short cruising season.  There was one other ship already at the dock when we arrived, so our cruise ship had to tender passengers ashore.

Here's a great photo from the internet that shows the town at the end of the fjord.

Internet photo

We knew of another hike to a waterfall that we could take (and we love to hike to waterfalls), so that was our excursion for this day.  Since the tour operator for this hike is contracted with the ship when it is in port, we had to book this through the ship.

We took a coach bus up a series of hairpin bends to the Hole camping site.  From here we started our hike to the Storsaeterfossen Waterfall.

It's about a one-hour hike up to the waterfall, sometimes pretty steep.  Occasional rest stops were much appreciated on this very warm, sunny day.  Most of the trail was on these flat rocks.  To build the trail, the rocks were brought up the mountain by helicopter and then sherpas were hired to lay them in position.

We passed some goats...

Time to take in the beautiful scenery.

And finally caught our first glimpse of the waterfall.

We are almost there now. 

We arrive at the top of the falls.

As Storseterfossen falls nearly 100 feet in a wide curve away from the mountainside, we were able to climb down and stand underneath the actual fall.

The cooling mist from the falls felt really good after that uphill hike.

Soon it was time to head back down the trail.

We stopped by the Westeras Farm...we could see the waterfall far up the mountain.

...at the farm we saw some llamas...

..and were given a treat of  Norwegian waffles and jam and sour cream before hiking back down to the bus for the ride back to the town.

Back on the ship, our day in Geiranger has ended.

 Time to sail away towards our next port, Trondheim...and RAIN is predicted!

June 27 at Geiranger:  Sunrise, 3:41 am; Sunset, 11:56 pm

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