May 16th - Ålesund

 Well the weather forecast for today was ‘revolting’ and that’s how it turned out!  With predictions of ‘feel-like’ temperatures of 2°C, rain, and strong winds, we gave on the idea of a boat trip to a local bird island. However, we did manage to get in a bit of hike up to the local viewpoint overlooking the city before the crap weather set in.  The views were all very nice and I bet they’ll be even nicer in the summer sun. 

We found out today why the architecture of the town is different from most other coastal properties. In 1904 there was a major fire which destroyed about 80% of the homes in town.  With the financial help of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, who had been a regular visitor here, designers and architects took up the challenge to rebuild the town, inspired by the art nouveau style popular in Germany at the time.  The result being the lovely town that’s here today (with the addition of a small number of 1950’s & 60’s town planning disasters that we’ve all got! 🤮)

Our ‘local’ pub this evening was showing the footballing local derby, between Ålesund and Molde.  Not normally my thing, however, as we found out that the local team’s supporter club are called ’The Storm’ (Stormen), we couldn’t resist watching it.  Obviously we were supporting Ålesund but it turns out they’re really not that good. We got told by the girl behind the bar that they’re bottom of their division and in the last 9 games they’ve only scored 1 goal and got 1 point out of a possible 27!  Still, within an hour they were 3-0 up and we were celebrating as much as the rest of the pub!  It ended well too with Molde only scoring once. It was a good evening. 




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