I cannot start this post without mentioning what happened 15 years ago today and utter a silent prayer for all those who were lost that day, and for those who's lives were forever changed, which is all of us to one degree or another.
We were given clearance to leave the ship in the city of Kristansand. We had booked a tour, mostly because of the archipelago boat ride that came with it, and we're glad that the extremely rainy and windy night had turned into a partly sunny morning. After a countryside tour (lakes, treed hills, lotsa rocks) we found ourselves in Lillesand. Which was was pretty much closed up for the day as it was Sunday and everything is closed in Norway on Sunday. But it did make for some pretty photos without worrying about people being in them.
We then got on a boat with quite an experienced captain (who lives in the area) for an excursion through the rocky archipelago surrounding Kristiansand. The extreme southern coastal location makes this area the big summer getaway for Norwegians. Most of the islands (hundreds of them) are summer home locations, each with boat docks as that is the only way to travel between the islands and the mainland. Some of the homes are year round due to what they call mild winter weather. Their heat wave hit today, when it got up to 65 or so and they announced 'after a rainy and windy summer, we finally got summer weather today in the fall'. I didn't have the courage to ask what they meant by mild winters. But while we were bundled up on deck with long pita, jackets, hats and lap robes, we passed about five homes where we saw people sunning themselves as if they were on a Southern California beach in July.
I previously mentioned the local captain, who drove our rather large boat (100 passenger) through some very narrow passages, barely wider than the boat itself plus performed a nifty little chicane turn through two overlapping boat docks.
Here are pictures of the boat and some of the homes on the tour along with a few from Lillesand.
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