Bergen, Norway
6/18
When we were looking for a hotel for our final nights in Norway, we decided to splurge and picked the Raddison Blu Hotel in the Bryggen area of Bergen, turns out it's part of the historic row of houses seen in every postcard of Bergen. On the front it looks just like the historic row of Bergen houses, on the side a little more updated, and inside, very modern.
We decided to wander around a bit to get to know the layout of the area, and needing some distilled water, we went to the only drug store open on a Sunday night, then planned to go back to our hotel.
Bergen was founded around 1070, Bryggen (the dock), is a series of historic commercial buildings lining the eastern side of the Vågen harbour in Bergen. Bryggen has been on the UNESCO list for World Cultural Heritage sites since 1979. Some of the unique elements of the old part of Bergen are the carved figures depicting the purpose or name of those particular businesses.
Some signs make sense, some don't
The Seamen's Monument (Sjømannsmonumentet) was placed in honor of Norwegian sailors from Viking times to the 20th century. Each side of this monument depicted a different part of the Bergen sailors history. We noticed an interesting reference to Canada as there is a large carved Totem pole in one of the scenes, you can see it on the left side of the left picture below.
Our little circle tour brought us right back to the main harbour area near our hotel, and the world famous Fisketorget. The Fish Market sells seafood, fruit and vegetables and has been a meeting place since the 12th century for merchants and fishermen.
Since we were already in the Fisktiorget, we ordered a "couldn't be fresher if we tried" seafood platter and had dinner under the cover of their community seating area. Great meal, and very interesting people watching.
Having had just about enough of the heavy rain, we wandered back past the Old town shops and to our hotel.
6/19
Looks like we can expect more rain to finish up our time in Norway, I was pretty sure we had had enough rain already.
Today we decided to start by taking the funicular up Fløyen mountain to a viewpoint over the city, Fløyfjellet is the name of the mountain top. Fløibanen was opened in 1918, and is an 850-meter-long electric cable funicular that pulls two wagons between Fløyen and the Bergen city centre. Since the opening Fløibanen has carried over 48 million people to and from Fløyfjellet, cementing its position as Bergen's most popular tourist attraction
While you wait in the super busy entrance, a South Park style animated instructional video is played showing you what to do, I was just waiting for the "They killed Kenny, those bastards" portion of the instructions.
The view from the top was amazing, looking over the city and the harbour.
We looked around the park at the top for a while, there is some nice forested trails, a couple small lakes and a few very busy shops. Apparently there is some wild goats that wander around the park here, but we only saw "evidence" that they were here. After exploring the hilltop, we took the funicular to the fjellveien station that was halfway down the mountain.
It's a very nice hike back down, starting with a winding trail through the forest, and ending up in the winding cobblestone streets of Bergen.
Back closer to sea level, we worked our way past the old shops, and towards the Bergenhus Fortress.
We took a slight detour and stopped at St Mary's Church which is the oldest building in Bergen. St Mary's was built between 1130 and 1170.
Bergenhus fortress is located in the entrance to the harbour in Bergen. It is one of the oldest and best preserved castles in Norway. The fortress contains buildings dating as far back as the 1240s, and as recently as World War II.
The Rosenkrantz Tower, known in the Middle Ages as the keep by the sea, was built around 1270.
As historical as it was, we had seen about enough and climbed about enough narrows steep stairs.
The Royal Hall, today known as Haakon's Hall, was built around 1260, is the largest medieval secular building in Norway.
Tired after hiking the tower, and wet from the rain, we decided to take a break and check out MadamFelle restaurant. It was a pretty good Cheeseburger, but it better be if it costs $30, to be fair, it did include roasted potatoes instead of fries.
Our stomachs full, and our wallets lighter, we wandered the shops and alleys of old town Bryggen.
Some stores were just like a Norwegian version of Roots, and others were just plain old fashioned Norway. We chose not to bring home Lamb, Elk, Reindeer or Bear skins, even if they were on sale.
Everywhere there was trolls, in every possible troll type you could imagine.
All that walking and shopping makes you hungry, and what better place to fill an appetite than having dinner at the Big Horn Steakhouse, luckily there was more than just big steaks for Norine to enjoy it too. It was great getting to know so much more about Norway from our waiter, he had all kinds of info on not just the food, but the lifestyle, the country, and taxes... he was from Australia.
Stomachs full, we pulled back the blackout curtains and had a great nights sleep.
6/20
We woke up to our last full day in Norway, and we would make it a full adventure day. The first thing we did was caught the local transit bus to the Old Bergen museum. Figuring out how to get tickets for the bus in advance from a street machine was fairly straight forward.
Old Bergen Museum is an open-air museum just outside of the main city. The museum was opened in 1949 and has buildings from the 1700's and 1800's that have been moved from different regions to this area. The building material consists mainly of single and two-story log houses all recreated to look like they did in the day, including local actors playing the role of their citizens.
She was very proud of her new furnace and running water.
The creepy old doll displays... I was watching for Annabelle.
Throughout the day we would be treated to little skits to make it feel like a real town of that era. This one was about the local busy-bodies gossiping about the woman that ran the local newspaper and how she needed a husband instead of starting her own business.
If you look hard enough, you can find a car show anywhere.
Having had enough of looking at old things, and finding out their restaurant wasn't open, we headed back to catch the bus into town. Turns out those bus ticket dispensing machines aren't everywhere, so we had to pay a little more for our ride back as the drivers can't give change, oh well.
Osterfjorden boat cruise
It was our last afternoon in Norway, and we could wander the shops and the local streets some more, but the real reason we came to see Norway was the Fjords. So after figuring out what options we had, we jumped on the touristy Osterfjorden boat cruise. If nothing else, we would have great views of Bergen from the water.
The weather started getting rough, our tiny ship was tossed, if not for the courage of our fearless crew, everyone would get very wet... and most everyone else went inside, so we had the whole top deck to ourselves.
As we get further down the Fjord, it gets less and less populated, this is your official warning... more Waterfall pictures coming.
The first little town we came up to was Vikanes.
Next up was the cute little town of Mo. This tiny village at the farthest end of the fjord was inaccessible by car with the rest of Norway until 1976 when the Modalen Tunnel was built. It was also our 'turn around and head back' point.
At one point the boat pulled right up to a waterfall and the crew held out a big tin bucket to fill with fresh water for everyone to taste their freshest of Norwegian mountain waters. I'm sure if we didn't live in British Columbia it would have been very impressive, but it was still a nice refreshing glass of water.
Remember what I said about waterfalls, take your time and enjoy these pictures of waterfalls, they are the last ones of our trip!
Back past the bridges outside Bergen and into the main Bergen harbour.
Such a unique waterfront in Bergen, I can't tell you how many pictures I have of the Bryggen area. So glad we decided to do this boat cruise to finish off our time here, even if we got a little wet through part of the trip.
For our last dinner in Norway, we chose to go to Bryggeloftet & Stuene. The history of Bryggeloftet & Stuene dates back to 1910, when the restaurant was built at Bryggen 11 as part of a hospice on Bryggen Harbor. Since 1910 the restaurant has been run by the same family.
As much as a taco would have been a nice change, the last meal in Norway was spectacular, very expensive, but spectacular!
On our last night we decided to stay in the Hotel right at the airport. It gave us the full day to spend in Bergen, and meant we just had to wake up and walk over to our checkin instead of having to catch a taxi at 5am in the morning.
So a funny and a sad story about trying to upgrade our seats for the flight home, since we were celebrating our 30th Anniversary, we decided, why not splurge and see about Business Class seats on the way home, it would be much more comfortable, and it would give us access to the KLM lounge in Amsterdam where we had a 5 hour layover.
I reached out via facebook to KLM, and after some questions and back and forth, I got the "we can't do just one part of the flight as an upgrade". Finally they had an offer for me... £3000 each for the upgrade. I sent them a polite response telling them that their upgrade pricing on top of the money we had already paid was ridiculous, and there was no way in hell we would pay that.
So while we are settling in to our hotel, I get the email from KLM letting us know that we can do Online Check-In for our flight that leaves the next morning. I proceed through the online steps, and where it shows the seats, there is a little box that says "Change Seats". I clicked on it, and Lo & Behold, there is 2 seats in Business class for the flight from Amsterdam to Vancouver... upgrade cost $500!
6/21
In the morning, with a little extra hop in our steps we walked over to the airport for our short flight to Amsterdam.
We were very happy to get that much cheaper upgrade to Business class, so our final flight home with a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam could be spent in the KLM Crown lounge. Comfy Seats, nice fully featured bathrooms, charging plugs, food and drinks. Which is great, except for the drunk couple taking advantage of the free booze, she is on the verge of puking before passing out, and he just passes out snoring very loudly in the comfy chairs across from us. Obviously not regular airport lounge patrons, just because there is Baileys, scotch, wine and beer available at 9am, doesn't mean you have to drink it all at once. We moved to the other side of the lounge for peace and quiet, and projectile safety.
A much more comfortable ride for our 9 hour flight home when you can fully recline and you get great food, drinks, service, a 'free' travel bag and a porcelain Amsterdam house to go home with. It's great to travel and see other places, but it's always nice to arrive back home in Vancouver. Especially when our carry on bag is full of unique souvenirs for our Christmas Travel Tree
Russia and Norway were two very different countries, one with so much history in architecture and the arts, the other with its own unique history and a very rich landscape of mountains and fjords. Seeing them both for the first time gave a new perspective on both countries that were so much more than all of the news media and Hollywood led us to believe. We saw amazing things, made some great new friends, and left both countries with a lighter wallet but a richer soul.