What a difference a day makes… 🎶🎶

After breakfast we strolled down to the village of Vrådal. It’s a small place with a supermarket, tourist information and a couple of souvenir shops. What it also has… incredible views across Lake Vårvatten. (Our hotel is at the intersection of two lakes: Vårvatten and Nisser.) We stopped into the supermarket, bought some cold drinks (Margaret slipped in a few pastries) and sat down to enjoy the view.

The plan had been to take the boat cruise run by the hotel. I’d researched that it didn’t operate on a Monday; Richard was sure the hotel had promised it would run. However, the other coaches had left, so the hotel decided that there wouldn’t be enough customers, so, no, it wasn’t running.

St Richard confirmed his new moniker by chatting to the hotel manager and (to avoid the group’s disappointment) offered a free excursion to Fyresdal on Lake Fyresvatn. Here there was a tree-top trail to view the lake and countryside from high on the hillside. It’s his day-off!!!

We set off at 13:00 along a road that clung to “our” lake - spectacular scenery overdose - and headed up a narrow country road passing through villages and small towns that gave a real insight into Norwegian country living.

On arrival we pulled into a car park alongside a nursery/infant school and the children were outside. This large coach with an enormous dragon painted on the side created quite a stir!

Checking with a teacher, it was established this wasn’t the best place to start (or was she simply trying to calm her flock) so we relocated to a lakeside car park.

Most of our group set off to hike to the viewing platform. We set off but it proved a bit too much; those who were fitter, younger, or dafter said it was a brilliant experience. 

We were there for around 90 minutes enjoying incredible views and crystal clean mountain air.

On the return, St Richard stopped at the Vrådal supermarket so those who wanted could pick-up anything they needed and we were back at the hotel for around 16:45.

They’re showing “The Heroes of Telemark” at 17:15 to highlight the history surrounding tomorrow’s excursion. We’re giving it a miss. Hollywood rewrites history for box-office ratings.

Tonight’s dinner is, again, the Straand buffet. Good food, shame about the crowds.