Ålesund

Art nouveau streets, the 418 steps up Aksla, and the walking time back to the ship from all 42 stops.

Ålesund burned to the ground in January 1904 and was rebuilt, almost entirely, inside three years. Because the whole town went up at once, it came back in one style — art nouveau, or Jugendstil — and the result is a centre of turrets, spires and stone ornament spread across three islands and a canal. There is no other town in Norway that looks like it, and it is small enough to read in an afternoon.

Going ashore

You step off into the town. Skansekaia and Storneskaia both sit on the edge of the centre, a few minutes from the Brosundet canal and the start of every route — no shuttle, no bus, nothing between the gangway and the first turret. It is the shortest walk from ship to sight of any port in the catalogue. If the 418 steps are not for you, the Bytoget road train runs from the cruise terminal to the viewpoint at the top on every day a ship is in: kr 360 adult, kr 180 for a child, with a fifteen-minute stop at the summit.

The walks

1. 01

   The town the fire built

   2.6 km · 2 hours · 20 m up

   A flat loop through the centre: the art nouveau streets put up in three years after the town burned in January 1904, the canal between them, and the lighthouse at its mouth. No hills, no tickets, and eight stops. Pavement, with uneven stone on the older quays.

2. 02

   Town, stairs, viewpoint

   5.2 km · 4 hours · 130 m up

   Everything in route A with the doors open — the pharmacy interior and KUBE — plus the 418 steps up Aksla to Fjellstua, the ridge to Kniven, and the 1909 church on the way back. One climb, one ticket, eleven stops, and the whole town from above. The standard 08:00 to 14:00 call, for anyone happy with one flight of stairs the size of a hill.

3. 03

   The full day ashore

   9.5 km · 6 hours · 130 m up

   Route B, then off the tourist grid: west out of the town along the shore to the aquarium on the headland at Tueneset, and back through the wooden houses of Molovegen. Sixteen stops and nine and a half kilometres of real walking, most of it beside open sea. Six clear hours and dry weather, and not a route to start late.

What's inside

Look inside

Pages 1–6 are in the free sample. 38 pages in the full guide.

What the guide covers

• Brosundet
• Molja fyr
• Apotekergata
• Kongens gate
• St Olavs plass
• Jugendstilsenteret og KUBE
• Fiskerimuseet
• Ålesund kirke
• Ålesund museum
• Byparken
• Fjellstua
• Kniven
• Aksla
• Molovegen
• Atlanterhavsparken
• Bytoget

3 routes · 42 numbered stops · 38 pages

When to go

The stairway is open all year and genuinely slippery in freezing rain, which is common here between November and March; in ice the guide says not to climb it at all, and the first 150 steps reach a lower terrace with most of the harbour view if the full stair is too much. Summer brings several ships a day, and the Fjellstua terrace is busy from 11:00 when the road train and the taxis arrive. The two museums are the seasonal catch: the Jugendstilsenteret runs 10:00–17:00 every day from May to September but only 11:00–16:00 and closed Mondays from October to April, and the Fisheries Museum opens on Saturdays alone. Atlanterhavsparken, the aquarium, is out on the headland at Tueneset — kr 275 adult, kr 135 for a child, no student rate — 35 minutes each way on the coast path from Molovegen, or the local bus from the stop above it when the times fit, so it is an afternoon rather than a stop.