World Cruise Day 141/152 Viking Homelands - Eidfjord, Norway - Norway beauty at its finest

Cruise day: 141/152

Ports days: 71
Sea days: 70
Countries: 23
Continents: 5
Ports: 52

From our tour guide yesterday in Bergen: "God loves Bergen so much, he washes it 240 days each year."  Well, God must love Eidfjord too as it rained here as well.  The temperatures were warmer than expected, hitting the mid-40s with low overcast skies and on and off rain.

This was the view from our balcony this morning. It doesn't suck.

Our tour this morning was just a transfer to the Norwegian Nature Center for self-exploration time.

Our time began with a rather lengthy, in my humble opinion, panoramic film of the area that was shown across five screens.  While the scenery was lovely, the film could have been about half as long and just as enjoyable.  After the film, we were free to tour the nature center.  There were displays about the volcanic beginnings of the area, the glaciers and their impact, local wildlife, and such.

Across the street, they have a gift shop and restaurant.  The building has a live roof that we thought looked pretty cool.

There is a sheep farm right next door.

We walked behind the nature center and through a tunnel under the road.  There was a nice large stream there but we couldn't get a good look at it because of a smaller stream that blocked our way.

Arlona, doing her obligatory water touching confirming that water in Norway is indeed wet

We enjoyed just taking in the scenery.

The scenery on the short drive from/to the ship was terrific as well.

We took a short walk (in the rain) from the ship to take in the sights.

This was a little eerie- no matter where I went, it was looking at me

It is a little hard to tell, but it is concave - carved into the rock - it is a neat visual effect

This was the exact opposite - the face is raised from the rock

Norwegians love their trolls

Our Viking Star, looking particularly lovely and natural in the fjord

We thought we'd play a little beach volleyball - you'd think the tall Scandanavians would have a higher net

Weeee!  Brrrrr!  No, we didn't do this...

As we were considering heading up for lunch, the phone rang.

Oh crap, Dr. Deborah Roth.  Is that the ship's doctor or someone on the medical staff?  Is this the dreaded, You have COVID, go directly to COVID jail, do not pass the World Cafe, do not collect Explorers' Bar drinks call?  What could this mean???????? I mean, it is Friday the 13th, so something terrible like this should be expected, right? 

I answered as calmly as I could with a tentative, but friendly, Hello?.

"Hey, how are you doing?  Do you guys have anything planned for the afternoon?"

"Rob?"

"Oh, yeah, it's Rob.  Deb & I are going to take a taxi to see one of the waterfalls this afternoon - want to tag along?

You see, all of the rooms with married male/female couples have the woman's name listed first, so that's what shows up in the caller ID - see Arlona's name at the top.  And Deb, next door (yeah, I missed the "5092" in my Do I have COVID panic) is a physicist with her Ph.D.  Furthermore, the display is limited, so there simply isn't enough room to display, "Dr. Deborah Rothley".  So no, we don't have COVID but we do have an invitation to go to a waterfall this afternoon.  *whew*

After lunch, we met up with Rob & Deb and hired a driver at the tourist office next to the ship.  The whole trip would be 1:15 with about 30 minutes to explore the waterfall.  Sounds great, let's go!  We met our driver, Kjell, and off we went to Vøringfossen, a massive waterfall with both a 984-foot and 597-foot fall.  The drive was beautiful with overcast, but clear air and only slight rain.  Until...we arrived at Vøringfossen.

That white around the sign?  That's fog. A lot of fog.

As we pulled into the parking lot for the waterfall, we entered the fog, and I mean pea soup fog.  The entire top of the hill with the waterfall was totally socked in with fog.  OK - we'll still make the short trek to the viewing platform.  Here's what we saw.

Well, it sure *sounds* like a beautiful waterfall

We walked to a farther viewing platform and had the same view.  We could have achieved the same thing by putting a white sheet of paper in front of our faces while pouring a cup of water into the toilet. And, we would have saved the cab fare!

There were a couple of really small flows of water and slight falls, but let's just say the wow factor was not, wow - that's beautiful! It was more like, wow, I can't believe I just wasted an hour and a few bucks.

An impressive six feet of water flowing

Ooooooo...

Ahhhhh...

OK, that was a little better, but still, nothing to write home about, and yes, it is still foggy

I had enough and walked back to the main building where there were restrooms.  Rob hung back, really hoping something would happen to save the day.  Arlona was a little behind me, coming back to the parking lot.  I used the restroom and stepped back outside - literally a minute or two later.  Kjell was standing there yelling, "Hurry, hurry!"  I turned around and like magic, the fog had blown away! We hustled back to the first viewing platform and saw this.

This is the right-hand falls - if you look in the upper right, you can see a feeder set of falls

These are the feeder falls

This is the left-hand fall - 597-feet, you can see a feeder right above it

Here is the feeder for the left falls

The entire 987-foot right fall

The entire 597-foot left fall

It releases an incredible amount of energy

Here are both falls

For the record, I didn't use any dehazing software - the fog left on its own and then started to return

In the end, we got incredibly lucky.  It appears that to clear the fog, someone just needs to flush the toilet.  I wish we had known earlier.

So, what started out as a photo bust turned into a great afternoon.  It was great already as the drive was beautiful and spending time with friends is just an awesome way to spend an afternoon.  I wish the photos did the falls more justice as they really were spectacular.

Arlona decided that a little hot tub time was in order after we got back to the ship to loosen up her back and take away the chill from the trip.  I took advantage of the surprisingly working internet to get photos into this blog.  We didn't expect it all day due to the high terrain.  Afterward, we also took hot showers that felt great.

It was time for the port talk on Stavanger, Norway - tomorrow's port.  Unfortunately, for the past three days, the onboard video system is not working with the audio cutting in and out - mostly out.  This means we can't watch any live events in our room nor can we watch Cruise Director Kate's daily video.  Supposedly, the IT team says it is related to terrain.  After a 35-year career in information technology, I say they're blowing smoke as the video is being shot on the ship and broadcast on the ship.  No internet is needed.  Honestly, the IT systems on Viking need a serious overhaul.  It is one of the worst things about Viking ocean cruises.  The accounting system, the internet, the online reservation system - there's really no other way to say it - they all suck.  It tarnishes the luster of an otherwise great customer experience.

Speaking of lack of luster, we lost our assistant cabin steward, Nestor, yesterday. He is headed home for a well-deserved vacation.  We haven't seen our lead cabin steward, Christopher, in a few days.  We asked and found out he was one of the two crew that had contracted COVID.  Now that Nestor is gone, and Christopher is still quarantined for another day or two, we have no idea who is servicing our cabin.  Normally, the stewards are terrific about introducing themselves.  So far, not a word.  We have our fingers crossed that Christopher is released soon and we get back to having an awesome cabin steward again.  As soon as I wrote this (and before it was published, a new cabin steward, Juli, introduced himself.  So we'll see what happens.

After dinner, we went up to the Explorers' Bar for the scenic sail away.  Unfortunately, the same cloudy, rainy weather that we've had continued to follow us, making for a mediocre sail away through the fjords.  Viking can't control the weather, so it was what it was.

We found it interesting that once you finish traveling the bridge, you go right into a tunnel - this is true on both sides of the bridge

It was yet another good day aboard the Viking Star.  We are en route to Stavanger, Norway tomorrow. It is a short port day arriving at 7am and sailing around 1:30pm.  We're taking an excursion to sail by Pulpit Rock tomorrow.  Fingers crossed for good (no rain) weather.