Eidfjord, Norway

Saturday, 21 May 2022

A return to typical Norwegian weather today: low cloud and very light rain. There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. We’d come prepared!

We docked in Eidfjord around 7am. It’s a pretty little hamlet at the end of Hardangerfjord. There are just over 500 passengers and 400 crew aboard the Jupiter. Its population doubled!

We’d booked an excursion to the Norwegian Nature Centre. However, having listened to a lacklustre, unenthusiastic description of it at yesterday’s port-talk, I looked it up online. The port-talk seemed to be accurate! We skipped the excursion and did a self-guided tour of Eidfjord instead.

For such a small place it has a surprising number of facilities: a cinema, a medical centre, several cafés & restaurants and a few convenience stores. There seemed to be a number of campsites around, so perhaps in either (or both) summer or winter hikers use it as a base to explore the countryside.

The housing looked very good and so, if one fancied a quiet, away from the world lifestyle, it could be a good place to live.

We dropped in on the one touristy shop and spent quite a while chatting to the lady owner. It’s really great to be able to meet local people - you feel like you’ve actually visited the place!

Some unusual things we noticed:

  • There were blocks of mail boxes along most streets. We assume that door-to-door mail delivery doesn’t happen. Instead delivery is to a “group” location and you collect mail from there.
  • Several bicycles were left, unchained outside houses. The crime rate here must be close to zero.
  • Fresh air - we thought we knew what that was until a small diesel van drove past us. You could actually smell the exhaust fumes. The air here must be incredibly pollution free.

We were back at the ship by lunchtime. When we returned to our room, we discovered an unintended consequence of bookings being pushed forward during COVID. The original booking for this trip was to coincide with a wedding anniversary. The dates had changed, but not Viking’s booking notes. Wine, cake and towel sculpture swans were waiting for us with a “Happy Anniversary” card. We’re going to keep quiet about it and eat the cake anyway!

We spent the afternoon relaxing, reading and digesting!

This evening we’re having dinner in “The Restaurant”and then it’s “The Abba Songbook” (when will they change their shows? We’ve seen this one several times before!)