THE CRUISE - Bergen

Day Eleven - Tuesday, 28th June

There were some quite spectacular bridges coming up the fjord into Bergen, and one of them we "missed" by only a few metres. The Captain had said that it all depends on the tides of course, and the height of the vessel, and so we just scraped through.

Bergen is quite large compared to Alesund, and a one time was the capital of Norway. It is built on a peninsular on what was probably moraine from glaciers, with bridges connecting the various suburbs.

Some of it dates back to the medieval period, and the Cathedral to around the 12th C. It was one of the ports of the Hanseatic League in the 1500/1600's, and the lovely old buildings in the oldest part of the town are where the merchants were based. The buildings attract lots of tourists and are special, in that they are so old and represent days gone by. However some have been rebuilt exactly as they were, after disastrous fires. There are many small alleyways, remeniscent of Diagon Alley (Harry Potter), and most of the buildings are now shops.

We came into Bergen on the shuttle bus, which used some tunnels which seem to be for the sole use of buses, as we saw no other vehicles in them, and it gets you right into the heart of the city in quick time. The rain had set in and so we found some Norwegian style rain hats, (like fishermen's hats), and they were much better than the hoods on our rain jackets.

Found a shopping mall for coffee and they do good coffee in Norway. They don't seem to do Flat White and so we've been asking for Cappuccino's, but they don't do chocolate on the top, so it ends up more like what we want anyway!

Again the tourist shops are geared up for lots of tacky stuff, but Lee found some nice X-stitch with Norwegian themes, and we got a small souvenir of the old wooden buildings.

Gordon had developed what was becoming an abscessed tooth, and was on antibiotics, and painkillers, and so having had enough, we headed back to the ship for lunch.

Tonight is another "Straight jacket night" and the theme in the buffet is Best of British, and we've had more than enough of that in the weeks we've been away! So, we opted for dinner in our room, and had some very nice Spaghetti bolognese, which was a good choice from a limited menu.

We watched the scenery from our room as we sailed away, but the fog came down and there wasn't much to see until a lot later