Last time I ended my blog on my last evening in Oslo during my Easter holidays. Friday Friday morning at 7.30 my ‘bus instead of train' was leaving northwards. After 2 changes I was on a for me new train track. I would travel to Åndalsnes on one of Norway's most beautiful train tracks, according to Lonely Planet. And I agree, for 1.5 hour I was riding through the the Raumavalley, with scenery of a meandering river, huge rock wals and everywhere a lot of snow and a clear sky.

In Åndalsnes again a change to a bus, though the changing time was more than 4 hours. So I had to entertain myself in this village at the end of a fjord. On this Lang Fredag (Good Friday) I actually did visit a chapel, though it was in a train wagon, probably they only train chapel in the world. Even the cross in this chapel was made by train rails. After that I made a big round around the village. Almost the whole walk I experienced a cold snow shower and I could not really enjoy the views, when I returned at the train station after 2 hours the snow suddenly stoppend and the sun was shining directly. Still I did enjoy this sun by sitting in the glas extension of the station building and enjoying the view on the fjord.

Then it was time for the last bus trip on this long travel day, this bus would bring me to my final destination Ålesund. After all the place names with an ‘Å' a short lesson in Norwegian, this letter is definitely not an ‘A', actually ‘Å' is the final letter of the Norwegian alphabet, it is pronounces like the ‘o' in more. Anyhow, this bustrip to Ålesund was maybe the highlight of the day, driving along fjords in which the snow covered mountains are mirrored.

When arriving in Ålesund I went on fast to the hostel, prepared some food and met two other (out of the very few) guests in this hostel. At the end of the evening we took a short look outside for polar lights, though we knew the northern lights forecast was not promising at all, so we only saw a nice starry sky.

The next day I explored Ålesund, first to the Jugendstilmuseum. This fisherman's town is famous for its beautiful Jugendstil architecture throughout the whole city. The wooden city was devastated by a major fire in 1904, in only 3 years the city was rebuilt in stone. And in these days they liked to build in the decorative Jugendstil style. After this museum I walked 3 kilometers to the Atlantic aquarium at the west side of the island group on which the city is built. Here I saw several huge aquaria with fishes from the Norwegian coast and a lot of families on this Easter Saturday. Thanks to this educational trip I found out which fresh caught fish a group of Swedes in the hostel was eating yesterday: plaice.

After the aquarium visit I walked back to the city centre via a more adventurous route, with some hills and ruins of German WWII bunkers. Around suntset I ascended 412 stairs on a mountain nearby the city centre. Unfortunately some clouds in front of the setting sun, but still I had an awesome view on Ålesund.

Easter Sunday I started with a bit more luxurious breakfast and mounted those 412 stairs again, now for a longer hike on the ‘city mountain'. On all the paths still snow everywhere and falling one time is part of the fun. Back in the city some time to shoot some pictures of the Jugendstill facades and the Hurtigruten, the ‘mail ship' that takes a week to go along the whole Norwegian coast from south to north and takes both goods and tourists.

In the afternoon my direct bus to Trondheim left. You can call it directy, still it takes 7.5 hours to cover a distance of only 250 kilomters, including two ferry crossings. Though with an enjoyable view, thick book and a laptop (and a socket next to me) time passed by quickly. Next to that after an hour driving my floorball traininer from Trondheim entered the bus, so I also had some conversations on the way. He was travelling just like many students in this bus back to Trondheim after spending the Easter holidays with family. The bus got more and more full and during the trip two extra busses were added, the bus company has a place guarantee!

Around 9.30 PM I was back in Trondheim where the snow cover was still as thick as when I left 6 days earlier. Monday a more relaxed free day and yesterday and today time to work again in the lab. The sun has been shining a lot these days and snow is melting, is spring really coming?