We are now at sea, aboard the M.S. Nordkapp, a Hurtigruten ship. We stopped at Alesund, Norway, and it just happened to be the 17th of May, or Constitution Day, also called National Day. The Constitution of Norway was signed at Eidsvoll on May 17, 1814. The constitution declared Norway to be an independent kingdom. It was Norway’s attempt to avoid being ceded to Sweden after the devastating defeat of Denmark-Norway in the Napoleonic Wars. But while their constitution was signed in 1814, Norway did not actually gain its independence until the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905. Still, the first step was signing their constitution and that remains their national day and a holiday.

Alesund is a far west coastal town with an important fishing harbor and a very modern fishing fleet. It’s also a major shipping center for this area of Norway. The town has around 50,000 people and is famous for its Art Nouveau style architecture. The city center burned down in 1904 but today has over 400 buildings in the Art Nouveau style. Alesund has a great combination of ocean, fjords, mountains, history, nature, and architecture. We enjoyed our few hours here.

People were celebrating Constitution Day or National Day the entire time that we were here. There were parades, music, and speeches, but we mostly just enjoyed walking around town and seeing all the people dressed in their national dress. We talked to quite a few people in town and everyone was friendly and in a party mood. You can see lots of people in their national dress in the first photo which was in the city center.

We walked all over town and wherever we went, people were going about their day but everyone seemed to be celebrating while they did. The second photo was just walking up a street, nothing special.

Our personal highlight from walking all around Alesund was a hike up to Mount Aksla. We had to hike up several streets to get to the bottom of the stairs and then it was 418 more steps to get to the top. We didn’t know about National Day until we woke up on the 17th of May. We didn’t have any of their national dress but we did our best to look celebratory for their holiday as you can see in the third photo. From the top of Mount Aksla, the view was spectacular. It was different in all directions but they were all good views. This view is towards the central part of Alesund.

We were hiking through a quiet neighborhood in the fourth photo. This was a family just celebrating National Day in their backyard. It sure looked like us celebrating July 4th.

Back towards the city center area in the last photo, the crowds were out and celebrating. The great weather just added to the celebration.