Alesund, Norway's Art Nouveau town

In Sept 2016 I had a few days in Alesund, Norway. Alesund is situated on the west coast surrounded by fjords and mountains. The municipality of Ålesund occupies several islands. The airport is located on Vigra island. The road to Alesund town goes through tunnels. I was amazed at the number of tunnels in the area, quite a feat of work, especially considering the population of Norway is only about 6 million.

The old town of Alesund burnt down in 1904. It was decided to rebuild it as a 'showcase' town and several architects came in to design the new Art Nouveau town, which was completed by 1907. The Art Nouveau style is full of towers and turrets and ornamentation on the buildings.
This is the location that you see in all articles about Alesund -

This is the old pharmacy, now the Art Nouveau visitor centre -

Art Nouveau furniture -

The main street is cobbled and pedestrianised -

The narrowest building -

Keyhole windows on the theatre -

More flower decorations -

Typical Viking faces -

Old buildings that survived the fire -

From the city park, you can climb Mount Aksla, which is part of the Sunnmore Alps. There are 418 steps up the hill to get great views over the town and surroundings -

Ambulance to serve the islands -

The town is so small it is easy to walk round. One thing of note is the heated seats. Even though I was there in September and it was quite warm, 15C or more, the heated seats were already working. The worst thing about Norway is it is sooooooooo expensive. Alesund is a shipping and fishing town. It is known for klipfish, salted and dried cod. I had cod twice for dinner, and an average price for a cod dish is £26!

© Liz Price

Woodpecker eating grapes

Green woodpecker eating grapes in London.

This grape vine is growing up a fir tree and when the grapes turned purple at the end of August, I noticed this green woodpecker having a feast. According to the RSPB www, the green woodpeckers eat ants.

This one is male, with a red moustache (from Garden Birds)

Video of the woodpecker eating grapes -

Wood pigeon eating ash leaves

In late evenings in June I noticed wood pigeons arriving in nearby ash trees and eating the leaves. I guessed they were having a late night snack before going to bed. They usually appeared around 9pm, and sunset was just over an hour later. These trees seemed to be a popular roost for late evening until the birds flew off to bed.

I posted the video on youtube and someone replied saying he had seen a similar thing but at 5 am.

5 pm in July

8.45 pm in June

Finland, midnight sun and huskies

July 2016 I went to Finland, my first time to see the midnight sun. From Wikipedia, "The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in summer months in places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle, when the sun remains visible at the local midnight. Around the summer solstice (approximately 21 June in the north and 22 December in the south) the sun is visible for the full 24 hours, given fair weather. ".

I was in the Syote national park, which is northeast of Oulu in northern Finland, at  65° north. This is just south of the arctic circle which is approx  66°.

At this latitude the sun did actually sink below the horizon but only for about 3 hours and it never got dark. In fact it was still light enough to take photos all night. The view at 11.20, then the setting sun at 11.30 and then the view from my room at midnight -

This area is considered to be part of Lapland which of course means reindeers! We saw a few but they were a bit 'motheaten' as they were shedding their coats. When we went quad biking they would run in front of the bikes for quite a distance

Quad biking was good fun -

Stuck in the mud (not me!) -

We went canoeing on a lake -

then had sausages and coffee

Huskyhiking - Walking with huskies was a first for me. They are lovely friendly dogs, very vocal and very strong. We had a wear a harness and were literally pulled along by the dogs -

There are 93 dogs at this husky farm -

This is the alpha dog, Elmeri

After the walk we all posed for a photo by Elmeri,

We saw wild blueberries and cloudberries and lots of flowers