Jacob's Altar

As we cruised along last night, we enjoyed the most brightly colored rainbow we’d ever seen. No pictures because cell phone camera's focus on objects beyond the rainbow and will not do it justice.

As we departed the fjord, we had a beautiful sunset.

We’d stayed overnight in Alesund, Norway arriving at 9:30 PM.

The morning greeted us with grey skies and a view of charming Norwegian houses across the fjord. 

 

Alesund is a large town whose origins and current economy center around fishing.  The town was destroyed by a fire in 1904 when 800 wood houses were burned in one night. The rebuild turned out to be done with interesting Art Nouveau architecture.

After breakfast we jumped on the bus for our first excursion. We traveled through town and into several under sea tunnels as well as over a unique bridge. Alesund is a municipality that covers several islands, and they are all connected by either a bridge or an under-sea tunnel (we went through 3). We came to Saga Island and its historic stone church. 

Services have been held there since 1150.  It was built of marble but at one time was covered with plaster to protect the marble from the salt air. Inside we enjoyed a talk by one of the church docents. She was very informative and gave us the story of how the wood pulpit and altar piece were carved by a man named Jacob (this is the English version of his Norwegian name) when he was 22 years old.  

Jabob's Altar - look for the Christian symbolizion.

The people of the church called him Altar Piece Jacob. He was very talented and did a great job. At one time the Puritans owned the church, and they painted over both the altar piece and the pulpit to keep things simple and less of a distraction for the congregation. Later, the Lutheran’s took over the church and they removed the white paint from both the pulpit and altar piece, and we very much enjoyed the result. 

 

When Jacob was in his 60’s he painted the pulpit. 

Carved gate in front of alter.

 Back on the bus, we moved on to Godoy Island and stopped at the Island’s lighthouse.

 

Godby Island lighthouse.

Before climbing to the top of the lighthouse, we all sat down at tables inside the lighthouse keeper’s house and enjoyed a dessert and coffee in the nicely restored house. 

Desert in lighthouse keepers house.

We were given the opportunity to climb the lighthouse and Bill went all the way up while Karen only went up 3 levels. 

Three flights up the lighthouse

 

Bill's view from top of lighthouse

We had a short tour through town before returning to our ship and having a quick lunch. Then we boarded a smaller bus for our trip out of town to the home of a Norwegian couple who invited us into their home and told us all about life in Norway - past and present.  They served us waffles, raspberry jam, and a type of brown cheese that is typical of Norway.  

 Living room view

 

Garden view

After enjoying their hospitality and beautiful yard, we returned to our home away from home. We felt it was not appropriate to pull out cell phones and take pictures while in the house and having tea.

Cheers from deck 2 at the shipboard restaurant!

 

PS. Tomorrow we will be in Flam, Norway and due to the location, we do not expect to have wi-fi and therefore, the blog will probably be a day or two late.