With apologies to Bill Withers

It is Thursday.....2 more days of cruising. We are scheduled to arrive in Trondheim at 6:30 a.m and stay until 10:00. We set our alarm, have a quick bite to eat and then BUNDLE UP. Our plan is to walk the streets of this beautiful city and Mother Nature is unleashing plenty of tears as we disembark. We suck it up and carry on. We get slightly disoriented, correct our miscue and then proceed to find the "old town". We stroll past the Royal Palace (the Royals don't appear to be up as yet), a marvellous church ( not open yet) and various side streets that lead to the fabled coloured houses AND the only bicycle lift in the world. We snap a few pics on the iPad which I can show you....snap some on the camera which I can't as we have no more room to download them to the iPad. We trundle on and then Catherine hits the panic button. "C'mon Paul....I don't want to miss the boat (literally)." Despite walking around for over an hour we are NOT an hour away from the ship. It is not yet 9:00 so we have plenty of time but Cath got her bearings mixed up and panicked. This is absolutely not the worst place to get left behind were the ship to sail without us !!! If we were touring on our own, we agree that we could easily spend 2 days here. It is beautiful despite the rain. It is vibrant. It just has the buzz you look for in a new town. Oh well.....another time perhaps.

We are cold and damp.As soon as we return I head to the laundry room, strip off my outdoor wear and toss everything into the dryer. Thankfully it is FREE.....a rare price on board the ship !!! Others slept in while some visited "the bridge". When asked how our morning was, the obvious reply was to paraphrase Bill Withers...."ain't no sunshine when it rains..." Well, you get the idea !!!

A disembarkation meeting was followed by lunch and plenty of coffee to try and warm up. The afternoon was quiet. Plenty of folks disembarked at Trondheim....the ship is getting quieter each day. We stop at Kristiansund to let travellers off who have signed up for the Atlantic Ocean Highway excursion. They will meet us in Molde. We have an "average" dinner....looking like the kitchen is trying to empty the frig before we arrive in Bergen where we all disembark.

Before you know it, time to start packing. Luggage needs to be in the hall by 9:00 a.m....rooms are to be vacated by 10:00.....we are scheduled to arrive in Bergen by 2:30.

We are close to the finish line. We will make 3 brief stops during the night...one being Alesund which was featured in this season's "Amazing Race" (US version). Sorry Alesund....another time. We will have to add it to Trondheim, Tromso and Bergen as some spots we would like to return to on our own and spend some quality time visiting.

Pics....2 x sunny arrival at Kristiansund, 2 x bike lift, 2 x scenes of TrondheimRead more