Although we were told it was coming, we didn't get any rain today. Instead it's sunny and mild. Eidfjord is probably the smallest city we've been to. It's built into a small branch off the main fjord and has homes built on the encircling mountain slopes.

In an earlier blog I said that scenery was enough - that having an interesting place to visit was not all that important. I misspoke. Or at least I want to qualify that statement.

We signed up for this tour, just like we always do, but here the local guides are somewhat hard pressed to find things to show tourists. There are lots of apple and cherry orchards but this crop of apples isn't yet ripe and we saw only one cherry tree up close.

There is nothing wrong with going to visit a church or place of worship. (In fact, this one was beautiful.) Every locality has a least one and it is not unusual to be taken to see them. I found it interesting that the entrance to the church was through a graveyard. More interesting was that every grave was planted with blooming flowers.

The next stop on our tour was a farmer's stand to buy cherries. One of our fellow passengers wanted to sample the local produce. Actually, the sun-ripened cherries that were shared with everyone on the bus were quite good. They tasted good even though we're a group from a cruise ship where eating and drinking are almost constant.

We then stopped for a 90-minute coffee break (yup, a scheduled 90 minutes). That was about three times the length of any other coffee/bio break on this trip. On the other hand, I must say that being served ice cream and whipped cream with apple cake for a mid-morning snack was a first. Then we discovered why this scheduled break was so lengthy. There is a tableware manufacturer in town and a local shop carried an extensive collection (or maybe the whole line) of this tableware along with other household goods. We stopped in for a visit, admired the designs, but didn't buy anything.

We then stopped to look at a suspension bridge that is supposed to be longer than the Golden Gate. After that it was back to the ship while the guide played a morning song by Edvard Grieg over the speaker system. On the way back we went thru one of the many tunnels that are found along the roads that run at the base of the fjord mountains. Norway has some master tunnel builders but the one we were in today takes the cake. The tunnel had a roundabout that permitted traffic to branch off into one of three directions - and this inside the mountain itself.

    

The scenery remained as dramatic as it has been for days. I talked earlier about the sod roofs. Because slate was mined in this area, there seem to be as many slate roofs as sod roofs along this fjord (left photo above).