Alesund, Norway-MOVIE,HIKE,BURN- 1 of 3

Alesund is on Norway's Northwest Coast and surrounded by the Sunnmore Alps. The city was destroyed by fire in 1904 but rebuilt with a very Art Nouveau style (600 pastel-colored buildings with fun turrets). Alesund has 45,000 people and is the largest city (since 1848) in Sunnmore which has 140,000 people.

We began the day with a serendipitous visit to the culture center in town where we saw there was a 20 minute short movie, "The Year in Alesund - A Cinematic Journey", taking us through life and architecture in Alesund from all four seasons taking over 2 years to make by filmmaker Dag Lausund. It was a great movie and we were ready to takeon the the rest of the City and the famous hike up the Aksla Mountain. We were 2 of 6 people in the theater and just as we were the last to leave, who did we encounter, Dag Lausund. We had a great conversation about the town and the World of travel and of course since he was wearing a NY Yankees cap, New York. I gave him our card and later when we passed the theater at again, the person on the street recognized us and told us how excited Dag was and he told everyone we gave him our contact info.

We then proceeded to climb 620+ foot high Aksla Mountain, from Aksund City Park, which is the main site on the skyline at the eastern edge of the Ålesund city center. The beautiful city park was established in 1885 and has many interesting monuments and works of art of famous people from the area and region. Its design was inspired by English landscape gardens with small hills with curved paths and two small ponds.

We climbed the 418 stairs (plus long ramps that are very inclined, making the equivalent another 400+ steps) zigzag to the top. We stopped on he stairs a few times to take some great photos (including Byrampen, a glass balcony). The stairs to Aksla, which have existed since 1880 but were renovated from 2014-2015, after Storm Dagmar and falling trees had caused damage to the path. The panoramic views were great.Read more