Bergen, Norway - Day 14
Last night after dinner I sat up on the top deck at the front of the ship to watch as we exited the fjord. I knew it would be my last time to see such majestic beauty (for awhile anyway). I have been infinitely impressed with Norway’s fjords. I stayed up past midnight just watching it go by. As we exited the fjord, the mountains became little islands, many with homes on them that were lit up...apparently those inside were awake as well. Then the little islands became little dots of rock sticking out of the water. Then there were none.
This morning we woke up as the ship was docking in Bergen. At first glance I see a big city with a huge port, lots of ships, tall buildings and moderate charm. We had a 9am excursion for a scenic bus ride around the city. It was one of the included excursions, and we had previously cancelled our hike up/funicular down excursion as we just thought we could do that one on our own. So since we were just booked to do the “free” excursion we decided to see if we could reschedule it for later in the day, and indeed we could. Guy had read online that the queue to the funicular became insane by mid-morning, and since we were on our own and not with a tour, that mean we, too, would have to be standing in that queue. So after breakfast he headed out for the town.
It is a lovely morning with the prediction of rain by 2pm. So we got to the funicular by foot from the ship, which was maybe just a mile. The queue to the train up was short and we made the right decision, because when we came back down the line was wrapped around the building and heading down the nearby street. At the top of the funicular we had a birdseye view of the city and the sun was popping in and out of the clouds, so the photos should be lovely. The city is very big and it required a panoramic photo to take it all in. From there we took a beautiful 5 minute hike through the moss-covered trees to the lake and watched the ducks who were scooting across the water and having lovely conversations with each other. It was very tranquil place...until the school children arrived, so we headed back to the top to catch the path that headed back down to the city center.
Speaking of children, we laughed so much today because there appeared to be a daycare on the walk down and the kids were running around big rocks, twisty tree trunks, drop offs, weeds by a fence that they were hanging on, two boys were fighting and one girl was chewing on a stick. Truly the offspring of Vikings. Then later two men had a group of maybe ten 4-6 year olds. The were letting them sit on a handrail over a small bridge! But later in the day we learned that Norway lets their school kids play outside during the day more than anywhere else. Encouraging their love for nature and the outdoors. They start them young, that’s for sure.
We only bought a one-way ticket on the funicular, because it was a beautiful day and there was a hiking path going down. They said it would take about 45 minutes to walk down, and that was about right. The walk was lovely but steep and by the end my hip was cranky and Guy’s knee was barking at him. Now, trust me when I say that I was being an overachiever when I told Guy to book the hike up/ride down excursion. We are exhausted from the fairly steep walk down, I can’t imagine how tired I would be if we had walked that sucker up. Wow. With that said, if you are planning to come here, I recommend the walk down if it is a nice day. It was lovely. But be ready to be a bit tired at the end and new places on your body might hurt a bit. :)
After we worked our way down through a combination of paths, stairs and roads, we finally made it all the way back to the funicular check-in point where we got a good view of the sizable crowd waiting to get in. We got there at 9am without much wait. It’s 11am now and the queue is quite large. So early is better. From there we walked all through the fish market which was fun to see as it has been there since the 16th century. We of course saw the famous row of very colorful old buildings all lined up and touching each other. For support hopefully...as they are leaning on each other and a bit crooked. These were the stores and homes of the German merchants who worked here in the 14th and 15th centuries. Today they are souvenir shops, so we perused and bought a few treasures. It’s another lovely day and the rain clouds are still holding off at this point. The high today is going to be 63. Again we are lucky, but especially since Bergen is the rainiest town in Europe (another thing we learned today). It rains 260 days a year.
Back to the ship we cleaned up, put some laundry in and went for lunch. I left my phone in the room so there is no photographic evidence of our food, but I had a little “boofay” sampling of lots of the food items created for us today. Fish, zucchini quiche, potato salad, cucumber salad, and some wonderful Asian-style beef with pea pods. That was the best and had I known, I would have had just that over rice. Guy went to the pool bar where they were making shrimp and crab linguine. That, along with some tasty bread, and he was set. We are docked right next to the Viking Sun (we are on the Viking Sky) and our cutie patootie server squealed with excitement as two of her guy friends from the sister ship had snuck over for a visit. They all hugged and you could tell they all loved each other very much. When they sign up for another contract, they don’t get to choose what ship or where. So they don’t always get to work with the same people. You could tell they missed each other.
After lunch I grabbed some rum raisin and chocolate brownie gelato and headed back to flip my laundry. I set the timer for the laundry on my watch and it had gone off in the ice cream line. Luckily I wasn’t holding anyone up and I was only 3 minutes late for the flip into the dryer. Guy is napping before we catch our 2pm scenic bus ride, while I type up the first part of today’s blog. I’m trying to keep on track today because tonight after dinner we SADLY have to pack our bags and have them ready outside our door by 10pm. (It kills me to type that...I’m not quite ready to get off the ship!) But the laundry facility on each floor has been wonderful. Soap is automatic with the machines, but I should have brought some Bounce (next time I’ll know). But the key to this trip, this time of the year, has been layers. We wore our vests almost every day and carried our “puffy” jackets (that smoosh down really small) in the pull-string backpacks we took with us each day. Just today on our hike down we laughed because as soon as we got hot and pushed our sleeves up, we got cold and pulled them down. To me, crisp air makes for perfect vacation weather. It’s been pretty perfect.
Our afternoon excursion was just a bus ride around the town and was included, so we thought we’d go ahead as see more of the town this way. The guide was a young girl from Italy, so she wasn’t local, but she was sufficient and told us what we were seeing. Of course we are used to seeing small gorgeous fishing villages and Bergen is the second largest city in Norway (270,000 people), so for these two spoiled brats, it was just O.K. And we had already walked 7.5 miles around the town today on our own (my iPhone kept track of our steps) so we were just a wee bit tired, too. Not sure we’d come back to Bergen unless a cruise ship came here, but if we did, there are a few small pockets of places we’d visit that we saw from the bus. But for the most part, we are satisfied with our explorations for the day. One interesting note was in 1944 a crippled ship pulled up for assistance. What was unique was it was transporting dynamite. Not sure how much, but there would be no story here if the boat didn’t explode. So indeed it did and tragically killed 150 people living near the port, blew up all their homes and the anchor of that ship was found one mountain over. So that area of the pier no longer has the beautiful centuries-old homes of the fisherman, but instead looks very modern.
Tonight was of course another great meal. I had shrimp cocktail, an amazing puff pastry wrapped piece of Brie with cherry sauce and minestrone soup. Dessert was my best so far, vanilla risotto. Amazing. The minestrone was just ok, but Sridhar had also brought me the haddock soup as well. I ate all of it. Guy had shrimp cocktail, haddock soup and meatballs (supposedly in a cheese sauce but we weren’t sure where the cheese was). But they were excellent. Guy also had a dessert that Sridhar recommended and just wasn’t completely sure what it was...but he left no traces of it on the plate. After dinner we said our goodbyes to our new friend and got a hug and a “hope to see you on another cruise”. That would be nice. We didn’t get to hug Aly Rose goodbye as she wasn’t nearby, but I can probably catch her up top in the morning. I hope so. She was a doll and always smiling. A bitter sweet dinner.
Back to the room Guy is packing up while I finish up the blog and in the morning we will be taking the 7.5 hour train ride to Oslo. The BIGGEST city in Norway. So we have zero expectations of quaint, but there are several sights we want to see and you’ll have to wait for those reports (no spoilers here!). But the train ride is supposed to be one of the most beautiful rides in Europe!
Wiping a tear as we leave the Viking Sky. We wish we could just stay on as it leaves here tomorrow and heads to Oslo and the Baltic Sea. But since we’ve done the Baltic I suppose we’ll not hide under the bed as stowaways. Yes, would do Viking again.
This morning we woke up as the ship was docking in Bergen. At first glance I see a big city with a huge port, lots of ships, tall buildings and moderate charm. We had a 9am excursion for a scenic bus ride around the city. It was one of the included excursions, and we had previously cancelled our hike up/funicular down excursion as we just thought we could do that one on our own. So since we were just booked to do the “free” excursion we decided to see if we could reschedule it for later in the day, and indeed we could. Guy had read online that the queue to the funicular became insane by mid-morning, and since we were on our own and not with a tour, that mean we, too, would have to be standing in that queue. So after breakfast he headed out for the town.
It is a lovely morning with the prediction of rain by 2pm. So we got to the funicular by foot from the ship, which was maybe just a mile. The queue to the train up was short and we made the right decision, because when we came back down the line was wrapped around the building and heading down the nearby street. At the top of the funicular we had a birdseye view of the city and the sun was popping in and out of the clouds, so the photos should be lovely. The city is very big and it required a panoramic photo to take it all in. From there we took a beautiful 5 minute hike through the moss-covered trees to the lake and watched the ducks who were scooting across the water and having lovely conversations with each other. It was very tranquil place...until the school children arrived, so we headed back to the top to catch the path that headed back down to the city center.
Speaking of children, we laughed so much today because there appeared to be a daycare on the walk down and the kids were running around big rocks, twisty tree trunks, drop offs, weeds by a fence that they were hanging on, two boys were fighting and one girl was chewing on a stick. Truly the offspring of Vikings. Then later two men had a group of maybe ten 4-6 year olds. The were letting them sit on a handrail over a small bridge! But later in the day we learned that Norway lets their school kids play outside during the day more than anywhere else. Encouraging their love for nature and the outdoors. They start them young, that’s for sure.
We only bought a one-way ticket on the funicular, because it was a beautiful day and there was a hiking path going down. They said it would take about 45 minutes to walk down, and that was about right. The walk was lovely but steep and by the end my hip was cranky and Guy’s knee was barking at him. Now, trust me when I say that I was being an overachiever when I told Guy to book the hike up/ride down excursion. We are exhausted from the fairly steep walk down, I can’t imagine how tired I would be if we had walked that sucker up. Wow. With that said, if you are planning to come here, I recommend the walk down if it is a nice day. It was lovely. But be ready to be a bit tired at the end and new places on your body might hurt a bit. :)
After we worked our way down through a combination of paths, stairs and roads, we finally made it all the way back to the funicular check-in point where we got a good view of the sizable crowd waiting to get in. We got there at 9am without much wait. It’s 11am now and the queue is quite large. So early is better. From there we walked all through the fish market which was fun to see as it has been there since the 16th century. We of course saw the famous row of very colorful old buildings all lined up and touching each other. For support hopefully...as they are leaning on each other and a bit crooked. These were the stores and homes of the German merchants who worked here in the 14th and 15th centuries. Today they are souvenir shops, so we perused and bought a few treasures. It’s another lovely day and the rain clouds are still holding off at this point. The high today is going to be 63. Again we are lucky, but especially since Bergen is the rainiest town in Europe (another thing we learned today). It rains 260 days a year.
Back to the ship we cleaned up, put some laundry in and went for lunch. I left my phone in the room so there is no photographic evidence of our food, but I had a little “boofay” sampling of lots of the food items created for us today. Fish, zucchini quiche, potato salad, cucumber salad, and some wonderful Asian-style beef with pea pods. That was the best and had I known, I would have had just that over rice. Guy went to the pool bar where they were making shrimp and crab linguine. That, along with some tasty bread, and he was set. We are docked right next to the Viking Sun (we are on the Viking Sky) and our cutie patootie server squealed with excitement as two of her guy friends from the sister ship had snuck over for a visit. They all hugged and you could tell they all loved each other very much. When they sign up for another contract, they don’t get to choose what ship or where. So they don’t always get to work with the same people. You could tell they missed each other.
After lunch I grabbed some rum raisin and chocolate brownie gelato and headed back to flip my laundry. I set the timer for the laundry on my watch and it had gone off in the ice cream line. Luckily I wasn’t holding anyone up and I was only 3 minutes late for the flip into the dryer. Guy is napping before we catch our 2pm scenic bus ride, while I type up the first part of today’s blog. I’m trying to keep on track today because tonight after dinner we SADLY have to pack our bags and have them ready outside our door by 10pm. (It kills me to type that...I’m not quite ready to get off the ship!) But the laundry facility on each floor has been wonderful. Soap is automatic with the machines, but I should have brought some Bounce (next time I’ll know). But the key to this trip, this time of the year, has been layers. We wore our vests almost every day and carried our “puffy” jackets (that smoosh down really small) in the pull-string backpacks we took with us each day. Just today on our hike down we laughed because as soon as we got hot and pushed our sleeves up, we got cold and pulled them down. To me, crisp air makes for perfect vacation weather. It’s been pretty perfect.
Our afternoon excursion was just a bus ride around the town and was included, so we thought we’d go ahead as see more of the town this way. The guide was a young girl from Italy, so she wasn’t local, but she was sufficient and told us what we were seeing. Of course we are used to seeing small gorgeous fishing villages and Bergen is the second largest city in Norway (270,000 people), so for these two spoiled brats, it was just O.K. And we had already walked 7.5 miles around the town today on our own (my iPhone kept track of our steps) so we were just a wee bit tired, too. Not sure we’d come back to Bergen unless a cruise ship came here, but if we did, there are a few small pockets of places we’d visit that we saw from the bus. But for the most part, we are satisfied with our explorations for the day. One interesting note was in 1944 a crippled ship pulled up for assistance. What was unique was it was transporting dynamite. Not sure how much, but there would be no story here if the boat didn’t explode. So indeed it did and tragically killed 150 people living near the port, blew up all their homes and the anchor of that ship was found one mountain over. So that area of the pier no longer has the beautiful centuries-old homes of the fisherman, but instead looks very modern.
Tonight was of course another great meal. I had shrimp cocktail, an amazing puff pastry wrapped piece of Brie with cherry sauce and minestrone soup. Dessert was my best so far, vanilla risotto. Amazing. The minestrone was just ok, but Sridhar had also brought me the haddock soup as well. I ate all of it. Guy had shrimp cocktail, haddock soup and meatballs (supposedly in a cheese sauce but we weren’t sure where the cheese was). But they were excellent. Guy also had a dessert that Sridhar recommended and just wasn’t completely sure what it was...but he left no traces of it on the plate. After dinner we said our goodbyes to our new friend and got a hug and a “hope to see you on another cruise”. That would be nice. We didn’t get to hug Aly Rose goodbye as she wasn’t nearby, but I can probably catch her up top in the morning. I hope so. She was a doll and always smiling. A bitter sweet dinner.
Back to the room Guy is packing up while I finish up the blog and in the morning we will be taking the 7.5 hour train ride to Oslo. The BIGGEST city in Norway. So we have zero expectations of quaint, but there are several sights we want to see and you’ll have to wait for those reports (no spoilers here!). But the train ride is supposed to be one of the most beautiful rides in Europe!
Wiping a tear as we leave the Viking Sky. We wish we could just stay on as it leaves here tomorrow and heads to Oslo and the Baltic Sea. But since we’ve done the Baltic I suppose we’ll not hide under the bed as stowaways. Yes, would do Viking again.
Do you think they tell all the tourists "It rains here 400 days of the year, but for YOU, we rolled out our SUNSHINE!!"?? Seems like you got the best weathers of them all on this trip!! Those panorama scenes were for sure worth the funicular line! The adventurous Viking children stories make me want to watch that Vikings show on Netflix. Or HBO maybe. I suspect the food has gotten better than it was in ye olde Viking days, given those yummy pics....
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