A Town called Alesund

• By admin
• June 14, 2016
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Actually the town is pronounced ‘Olsen’ not ‘alice-sund’ but too good a title to miss. After several days in the large city of Bergen, Alesund provided the welcome break that a smaller town can offer. Big enough for shops, cafes and lots of interesting things to see but small enough to walk around and get to know without getting lost. The buildings around the harbour and wharf were typical of the wooden structures prevalent in Norway all painted in differing beautiful colours. Much of the town had been burnt down in a great fire in 1904 (an event that seemed to be widespread in a country with predominantly wooden houses) and rebuilt in Art Nouveau architecture funded by the Kaiser, this town being a favourite watering hole. The rebuild had taken an amazingly short three years to complete and result is fascinating – Charles Rennie Macintosh meets the Adams Family. We parked the van on the sea front with great views of the islands off the coast and the sun setting. Each evening people would come and fish in the sea in front of the van, and, with the late sunset and early dawn that keeps the sky almost as daylight, the fishing continued well past midnight. Fishing in the sea is not prohibited and certainly worthwhile as the catches were, seemingly, of a good size.