When we woke up this morning and headed up to the Lido Deck for breakfast we had already arrived in Ulvik. Ulvik lies deep in the Hardangerfjord, and what a surprise we got when we saw that we were surrounded by snow capped mountains. Being higher up in Norway it was much colder here.
There is not a lot in Ulvik, and it really only serves as a gateway to travel out to other places to see the sights... We chose to stay close so it took no time at all the see the highlight, which is basically the Church and graveyard.
To reach the town you have to tender. The tenders drop off right in front of what looks like Ulviks Brakanes hotel ... It boasts a lovely lounge area with views out to the bay and one of the two souvenir shops in the town. Luckily we ventured out as early as we did, as the weather just got worse and worse as the day went on. We followed a map that took us up along the Fruit and cider walk. It was a long walk and all up hill. The first farm we came to, Ulvik Frukt & Cideri, didn’t want to know us... wouldn’t even be interested unless there were 10 of us... Even at the steep fee of $30 each, the six of us couldn’t even tempt him. We walked further up to another farm called Syse Gard and the lady there was lovely. She took us into the shop and offered us free samplings of cider, well apple juice really.
As we trudged back down the hill the rain got heavier and heavier, and even though we had umbrellas, the wetter we got the colder we got. We stopped at the old wooden church with its very nautical theme (complete with ship hanging from the ceiling) just to make the most of the warmth inside.
No McDonalds in Ulvik so we had our $10 Coffee early at a small bakery & cafe called Dros... and yes they had wifi...
We tried to stretch out this visit as long as possible but the weather was against us, so it was not too long after 1pm that we made our way back to the ship, had lunch and finally sat down and caught up on all these blogs.
At around 5pm the Captain Gru... oops I mean Timmers... pulled up anchor and we slowly sailed back out of the Fjord. As it was now a decent hour the ship gave a commentary for this scenic part of the sail out.
It all reminded me of sailing within the sounds of New Zealand, snow capped mountains and waterfalls cascading from the top right down to the waters edge. It is just such a shame that the cloud cover just kept getting lower and lower.
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