After a restful day at sea we enter the middle section of our adventure, visiting Bergen. Our shore excursion started bright and early at 7 AM; it was a walking tour of Bergen’s city center, followed by a trip up a mountain via funicular.
These visits keep reminding us how young our hometowns are and old cities in Europe are. Bergen served as a major trade point during the Middle Ages and some its streets are now as they were then. Visually Bergen is best known for a row of wooden buildings that originally served as trading points…except that the originals burnt down about 300 years ago and were nearly immediately rebuilt. So, old buildings that replaced even older buildings are older than any structures in the Pacific NW.
Our guide told us that Bergen receives about 260 days of rain per year (making us feel right at home!); we are feeling blessed in that the weather this week has been unseasonably wonderful…celar skies and fine temperatures. The flowers planted downtown were very pretty, and the views from the top of the mountain were splendid.
It’s at places like this that make Greg start shopping for books; he realizes that he knows not nearly enough about the Middle Ages or about the Hanseatic League. Sadly the books here are written in Norwegian; that will have to wait for home.
The view from the top of the funicular was well worth the ride. There were also some nice hiking trails up there, one that led to a pretty lake and another that led to more than a few carved trolls. Trolls are everywhere, including all the gift shops.
One sad note from our perspective: our guide took us by several large churches. He noted that a recent survey showed that while the vast majority of the population has been confirmed in the church, 67% consider themselves unchurched. Old churches now, as often as not, serve as concert venues or museums (at least according to him).
Closing notes: we were told that Norwegians eat more frozen pizzas per capita than anyone else. I’ll let you sort that out. Our guide had us marching along pretty briskly on the way back to the ship, preventing from trying the reindeer hotdogs a vendor was selling. At least we got in our 20,000 steps.
Tomorrow our ship sails up a fjord to the town of Geiranger, where we’ll get to sleep in a little and then take a bus ride up a mountain…more then.
