Wednesday, June 22, 2016

6/22–Molde in the afternoon

…Molde town is a nice looking, compact place with shops and banks and cafes.  We are of course not hungry in the least, but we want to stretch our legs, so we wander down the main street, looking in stores, scamming wifi at the bank building.  Maggi finds a Norwegian flag to buy, then we just wander around the town, stumbling upon a fantastic building covered in ivy – I love it – and a beautiful fountain with a woman holding a basket of roses – Molde is considered the rose capital of Norway with more rose gardens then anywhere else in the countr .

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We continue our exploration, heading upstairs, following signs for the rose garden.  The stairs deposit us onto the steps of the Cathedral, a double-nave Gothic style church built in the late 1950s. An interesting feature is that the bell tower is free standing – something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

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Inside, the church is huge.  It seats 1,000 and is close to cavernous. The stained glass is beautiful though, as is the mosaic above the entry doors.

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Outside, atop the town hall, is the rose garden.  Close to being in bloom, we can just imagine how beautiful this will look when all the buds are in full bloom, red, pink, yellow and white against the backdrop of the harbor and the “alps” across the water.

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Heading back to the ship, Maggi and Richard split off to catch up on emails, and we hit the cabin.  We spend the next few hours at dock, on our balcony taking way too many pictures of the gorgeous scenery off our aft.

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Sailaway is equally beautiful, with again, far too many photos of our wake and the waning midnight sun.

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Then it is off to another evening full of good food, good drinks and even better companionship.

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