KRISTIANSUND, NORWAY

Today we arrived at our first port-of-call, Kristiansund

We’ve been setting the alarm for 7.30am for the last two mornings, so it was nice to be able to have a bit of a lie-in and a leisurely breakfast. It was about 10.30am when we finally headed ashore.

We liked the town immediately. It has a quiet, calm atmosphere about it, and even though it was a Saturday, it was relaxed and not bustling with either traffic or people.

We wandered the streets happily, heading towards an old theatre and their new, rather bland-looking, modern cathedral at first, which turned out to be quite interesting inside despite its outer-looks, and then into a wooded area with several ponds where a gull was being systematically dive-bombed by another gull.

We’d spotted a tower (see a tower, climb it, being our motto), which we were sort of heading towards, but soon became distracted by interesting-looking paths that led us in the opposite direction, out towards a point of land featuring some great views.

In fact, when we reached the furthermost point, we decided that it would be a good place to sit and each lunch… lunch being a banana we’d brought out with us from the ship, and a bottle of water. Simple things n’ all that. We could easily have sat there all day, enjoying the fresh air and slight breeze, and watching the world go by, but all-aboard time was 4.30pm, and we still had a tower to climb.

Our route back to the port took us through an impressively large, and well-tended, cemetery, where we saw a deer happily meandering through the trees. Varden Tower, when we finally reached it, was a worthy climb despite it being closed-in at the top by windows, making it quite airless.

After a brief pause for photos and a glug of water, we continued on our way through suburbia (which is very different to our suburbia) to a cafe where we bought ice creams and a can of lemonade to cool down before following the waterside path back to the ship.

On our way, we passed through a boatyard that was – we discovered – a museum of sorts, featuring lots of very old, rusty boatyard paraphernalia that made for some brilliant photos.

As we left Kristiansund, we were able to reflect upon our visit with some satisfaction and contentment. The photo above, looking down upon the harbour from our balcony on the ship, illustrates how colourful it is, with multicoloured buildings in all directions. The ship had to do what amounts to a tight three-point turn in order to leave and continue on our way, and once free of the harbour, our route took us past the little point of land upon which we’d enjoyed our frugal lunch. On reflection, we had to concede; we like Kristiansund, and… that was a good day that was…