Bigger maps,more brochures & more helpful staff. Clean restrooms are across the street for 10…read morekroner. Surprise that there's a box in here for you dirty needles.

Spectacular view over the entire city and surrounding waterways! Well worth either the hike or…read moredrive up to the top. The hike is much more satisfying since you can see great views all the way up. At 418 steps, it is rather a climb, but there is also a restaurant at the top to refresh you!

Amazing hotel in the center of the "Venice of Norway". Beautiful rooms with modern amenities…read more Awesome views, connected to, and in walking distance of restaurants, pubs, and all the town offers. Bathtubs and sauna available outside, and then cool off with a plunge into the water! Exhilarating! The honey moon suite is in a light house a short walk away!

The service alone wipes out the aesthetics of this chic hotel. The staff is invasive, rude and they…read moredo not know how to delivery proper customer services. Definitely would not recommend them. I would rate them 0/5 stars if possible.

Very easy to purchase tickets using a credit card, and board the mini train. We started at the…read moreport with a history of the city & information about the devastating fire of 1904. The tour was informative we saw all of the cities highlights & even stopped for :15 at the viewpoint. I enjoyed the Norwegian music too. The only drawback was that we went around only once, the second circle tour was fully booked, this wasn't hop on & off. We had to take the train back to where we boarded.

Look it's a charming town but truthfully there's not a whole lot to see or do if you are a day…read moretripper. It happens to be a very hilly town with a decent port that must be cheap enough for NCL to tie-up in before entering the Norwegian fjords. Everything about this place (and most of the bits of Norway we experienced) is out of proportion to the money demanded. It's literally all cost with no real benefit. So instead of going up a very steep hill for a view, to risk going to a hill top cafe that may or may not be open, with a code on the door to use a toilet only provided you've given trade to the cafe, we decided on balance to walk around for a few hours and grab a coffee. I mean they are called public conveniences for a reason with convenience taken to mean no inconvenience. I had pictured a closed cafe ergo no access to a locked toilet and thought nope not my idea of a day out. We got up a few hills and got a darn good view without parting with £44 for the pleasure. I'm sure there's public transportation to go here if you've the inclination and time. Or you can walk up 418 steps to get there and the same back down. We saw many walking it. The dock side selling highlight for this red bus service tour (and the separate local road train tour competitor business) is to go up this very steep hill to the cliff top observation lounge to look back over the expanse of town/seascape/mountains and all for a mere £22 a head with the competition also offering a similar trek at this price. The observation place has no separate fee. The art nouveau town centre rebuilt after a 1904 fire is beautifully manicured and we visited twice about 6 days apart and it appears we were lucky to visit on two dry days as it apparently rains very often here.

Really a nice place to crash. The hotel still has it's art déco flair and is pretty nice…read morethroughout. Rooms are comfortable and limited to the purpose of sleeping (which is the last thing you would want to do in this area). And, try the breakfast, in particular the fish. If you are starving for good, fresh bread (hard to come by in the U.S.), this is your place.

A pretty small airport that has only self service checkin and bag check - at least for SAS airline…read more There are decent food options for such a small place both on the lower level and the upper level, which is for international flights. Plenty of seating, though lacking in plugs for charging your phones. Otherwise not a bad experience for a small airport. You do need to walk outside. There are no jetways.

Nice little airport in which it is easy to find ones way around. The rental car area is clearly…read moremarked although walking to where the cars are parked can be a bit dangerous as part of the walk is along the main road out of the airport. The cafè in the departure hall closes its grill at 6 pm which is a bit early, especially for business folk who have been in meetings all day and are hungry.

Trollstigen, the Land of the Trolls…read more When our original cruise ship tour to Trollstigen was cancelled due to the road being closed for the season due to six major rockslides, our party needed to find an alternative plan. Trond and his small, but mighty, ice cream loving Troll assistant to the rescue. Trond from Local Trips is really a fantastic guide. He was able to coordinate our group to be with him on the same van as per my special request. So happy to be his co-pilot for the day. So easy to meet Trond upon arrival in the Ålesund cruise terminal. Love how adapted the tour, so that we really had an amazing day exploring the region in a small group with seven stops in under seven hours. I have never been on a tour where we were given an itinerary with descriptions of each stop including where we were on the map, what time we would arrive and leave and whether or not there was a WC/water closet. Coupled with Trond's amazing storytelling, knowledge and love of the area and sense of humor, this was the best tour on our vacation to Norway. Just perfect. After going through the tunnel from the cruise terminal, Trond made a stop to view the old Skodje Bridges. Loved the reflections that the bridges made against the water and the walk through a short tunnel on the other side of the road to meet him back at the van. The Liabygda Ringsetskiftet Viewpoint by the sea was so beautiful. To the left, you can see a salmon fish farm and to the right you can see the town Stranda where the Grandiosa pizza-factory is located. Nice to see the Geiranger and Hellesylt Fjords along the way. Gudbrandsjuvet is a river gorge in the River Valldøla. The watery river flows between gorges and cracks in the mountain. It meets in unexpected angles, before it flows under the bridge and plunges further down the valley. The gully is partly formed by several large potholes. Love the rustic platforms and bridges have been built in a mixture of glass and rust-corroded iron rails. Look for a rainbow. Trond also bought local strawberries and raspberries for us to sample. So fresh and juicy. The old bridge by Krikebrua is Trond's favorite stop and I can see why. So peaceful and serene with the river and goats along the trail created by Mother Nature. The old bridge was built in 1891 only of rocks, no concrete or steel. The waterfall along the short hike is gorgeous. The Trollstigen Viewpoints was our main reason for choosing this tour. Wow. Truly stunning scenery. There are a couple of viewpoints as well as trails up to the top of the mountain. Look out for Trolls along the climb. Interesting to hear about how and why this road was built in the 1930s and how the King and Queen of Norway visited and honored a nonagenarian that had helped with the construction in her home for tea as she could not travel to the Royal Palace due to her advanced age. The next two stops were so scenic. Loved the lake and the old church at Valldal. Grab a waffle with brown cheese for the ride back to the cruise terminal. The Aksla Viewpoint was our last stop. So nice to get a bird's eye view of Ålesund. Don't think. Just go to Trollstigen, The Land of the Trolls with Trond from Local Trips. From the filming of Mission Impossible (with the glasshouses that were rented for the cast and crew) to the Norwegian systems for education, taxes and healthcare to how the fjords and glaciers were formed, you will learn so much, see so much and just come away feeling like you have experienced a magical day.

This was our very first cruise in Norway, and Jamie W. and I knew this would be a defining journey…read morefor us because this was all about the fjords and waterfalls. Man, it was long, nine hours. That's because Norway is a lot bigger than we thought especially all the snaking channels of fjords in this part of the country. This cruise went through three of them, the most notable being the Geirangerfjord which was apparently the inspiration for the movie "Frozen". That factoid didn't mean much to me since I've never seen it, so I let it go, let it go, let it go... It was a good thing the boat itself was quite comfortable, a catamaran that accommodated up to 147 passengers. There was scarcely forty people on our cruise, so space was not an issue. Honestly, that was rather irrelevant because we spent most of our time bouncing out of our seats to go outside and take photos. It was just way too cold and windy to stay out on the deck for extended periods of time. There were some remarkable waterfalls to record like The Seven Sisters (photo: https://bit.ly/3vHn38D) and The Suitor (photo: https://bit.ly/3bC2tiT), which face each other in some bucolic kind of aquatic courtship. After about 3-1/2 hours, we arrived in the tiny tourist hamlet of Geiranger where we were given two hours to explore. That was a bit of a stretch as there was only one worthwhile sight. That would be the thundering torrent coursing through the middle of town (photo: https://bit.ly/3d95eZJ). It certainly gave us enough time to have lunch. Yes indeed, it was 3-1/2 hours back to Alesund, but it seemed faster since we had already exhausted our Instagram moments. We did find out that Geiranger is under the constant threat of a mountain that is about to erode into the fjord. Gee, you couldn't tell from the residents who were working there, but gee, I would've left a bigger tip. Like everything else, the trip was a bit pricey at 1,650 NOK for a round trip or $170 in US dollars. But hey, the fjord cruise is a great introduction to what makes Norway so unique in this world. RELATED - Exploring Norway? Here's a collection of places I've visited and reviewed: https://bit.ly/3PEL4Fe