We immediately found an independent coffee shop to grab coffee whilst we had a quick walking tour around the town centre to orient ourselves. It was a pretty quirky place and we were enjoying wandering around. The rain was intermittent at this point but rather refreshing considering California hasn't see any in a while!
Of course lots of the Alaskan towns in the Inside Passage are pretty cut off from mainland Alaska so its almost easier to use a seaplane, if you have one. Juneau had plenty of seaplanes around it so we spent quite a while just watching them. It was Andrew's birthday after all, so I allowed him to do it!
Around 9am we had a coach booked to take us to Mendenhall Glacier which was a little outside Juneau. Having seen a glacier the day before I was better prepared for what to expect but still excited to see it because they really are stunning.
As you can see the glacier was just an incredible blue colour again and there was just so much ice. Its still very mind boggling to me to think that its actually moving. I can't get over that. There was an amazing information centre at the glacier that gave us lots of useful explanations about how it moved. But it also told us that the glacier has been receding for years due to global warming. There were pictures from back in the early 1900s showing it further out across the lake. Such a shame.
Once we'd finished up there we were driven back into downtown Juneau and we had dinner at the famous Red Dog Saloon. It was a crazy place with a saw dust floor, lots of taxidermy everywhere and waitresses dressed in crazy cowboy era costumes. But the food was good and there was a musician playing comedic music which really set the tone!
For the afternoon we went up into the hills of Juneau for a mini hike. The rain had really set in by then so we knew we wouldn't get far but we couldn't resist heading up into the trees towards the waterfalls. It was just so beautiful and we miss seeing the colour green so much that it had to be done.
Once we were about as wet as we could handle it was time to head back to the ship. Amazingly just as we were getting back to the ship we saw yet another sea plane and this time it was coming in to land right by the ship. Obviously this meant another stop so that we could look at it and be amazed!
Juneau was such a cool spot and we were amazed to see it. We didn't take as many photos there as we wanted due to the rain which was threatening to break our camera the longer we left it out of the bag. But it was a cool place just nestled into the hills with the water so accessible and useful to them. We would definitely recommend you visit it!
Now onto day 5....
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