Day 18 - Art Nouveau in Alesund

Yesterday evening our daughters sent WhatsApp messages to tell us the Queen had died. Seeing both Johnson and Truss in one day must have been too much for her. #2 Daughter said we should all remember what we were doing when we heard the news - it would be a JFK moment (I was in the bath when my mum told me that). #3 said Ella was in the loo doing a poo. I can imagine the coverage on all the UK news that will go on for weeks. I hope at some point there will be some history and introspection and not just tales of her love of horses and corgis. She was a dutiful person and it will be hard for the new order to live up to her.

We loved our really quiet freedom camp and woke to another sunny day with similar temperatures as yesterday. We headed for Alesund. Set out over a hook-shaped peninsula, the town is now the home base for Norway's largest cod-fishing fleet. However my reason for wanting to visit was that Alesund is rich with some of the
country's finest examples of Jugendstil (art
nouveau) architecture - a legacy of a huge
rebuilding project that took place after a
devastating fire in 1904. The city's unique architectural heritage is documented in a former pharmacy, the first listed Jugendstil monument in Alesund.. Our guide book said it opened at 11 this month but in fact it was 12, so, after the usual drama of trying to work where we were allowed to park and how to pay, we had time to wander round admiring the architecture along the waterfront and on the back streets too. I didn’t forget to look up - it was so pretty - but the museum was fantastic. Apart from the building's own exquisite and almost entirely original interior, including a sinuous wooden staircase and a florid dining room, displays include textiles, ceramics, glass, furniture and jewellery. I can’t begin to choose my blip.

We then drove along the fjords, through tunnels and up a pass Orskogfjellet, 2022 metres, where we had our picnic. There was a little walk to the old road, built in 1787 which had been the postal route between Bergen and Trondheim. The border between Norway and Sweden from 1658 and 1660 was commemorated by a stone. We continued down the other side, along a fjord, over another spectacular bridge and through more tunnels to Andalsnes. We are now sitting out in the sun at our freedom camp by a fjord on a side road below the 64. It’s quite noisy but usually the traffic calms down by bedtime.

Thank you for your kind comments about my blips and the stars and hearts. I’m not commenting much as though we’ve had 4G everywhere, I am conscious of my data allowance.