The journey to an uncertain Bergen begins

Made it as far as Bergen after the first couple of legs of our Northern Lands trip.
We are ultimately heading for Svalbard via a number Norwegian fjords and towns. Svalbard lies halfway between Norway and the North Pole and is some 1600 miles north of Edinburgh.
The journey so far has been pretty uneventful apart from a very jam-packed 16 bus in Edinburgh and a rather busy train too. But at least we had our reserved seats. We were also very lucky to have alighted on a day in-between a series of train workers strikes. Last night we stayed over in an airport hotel at Heathrow which was pleasant, clean and cheap.
Today we caught our flights for Bergen, via Amsterdam, which again have been pretty uneventful, other than a slight delay in departure of our Amsterdam flight.
We arrived in Bergen in the late afternoon, were reunited with our luggage and taken to the Clarion Hotel to settle in.
Bergen seems a little uncertain of its own name if the sign at the airport is any indication. It is a very pretty city surrounded by hills and focused on its harbour and old wooden-clad city centre houses. It would be nice to spend longer here which I hope we feel about all of our stops. We even came across our first polar bear and were serenaded by Peter Gabriel for most of our walk (he was gigging in Bergen tonight).
Tomorrow we embark on the MS Trollfjord and begin the cruise proper.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tromsø, polar pioneers and cross-dressing in the Arctic

Image
Today we had a good long stopover in Tromsø, the gateway to the Arctic. We also unexpectedly received certificates of Arctic Circle crossing signed personally by the ship's captain. Tromsø is the largest city in Northern Norway and amongst many things is home to the Tromsø Film Festival which all fellow wittitainment followers will know (hello to Jason). Our first destination was across the Tromsø Bridge to visit the very distinctive Arctic Cathedral. We then had a good long tour of the Polar Museum and learned much about Amundsen, Nansen, Wanny Woldstad and cross-dressing in the Arctic. Roald Amundsen of course is rightly famous but he also had a ferociously competive friendship with the equally adventurous Fritjhof Nansen over many years. Wanny Woldstad was a women from Tromsø who was the first female hunter to overwinter on Svalbard. She was also Tromsø's first female taxi driver. The museum also had a temporary  ex...
Read more

Back in the twiddly bits

Image
After our fairly choppy 49 hour crossing of the Norwegian sea our first full port of call is Finnsnes, gateway to Senja.  We only have a few hours here of an evening. We did stop earleir in Tromsø but only to let a few passengers off who went on a coach excursion to Senja. We chose to stay on board and wend our way down through the lovely steep and narrow fjords towards Finnsnes We had a nice wander around the town which was mostly unremarkable but with some cracking terns around the lake. And some old cars and unusually placed tractors. And...we finally got our shot of midnight sun... And sadly we also had a medical emergency on board the ship which delayed our departure from Finnsnes. I hope whoever is onboard is ok. Tomorrow we are back in Lofoten.
Read more

Svolvær, gateway to Lofoten

Image
Back in Lofoten today and another wee excursion. A splendid day in Svolvær with a trip to Henningsvær and Ørsnes fisherman's museum. Henningsvær is a beautiful wee village at the far end of a Lotofen peninsula. Its primary industry until recently has been fishing but that has recently been overtaken by tourism. A key fish species is migratory Atlantic cod which they catch in large numbers in the winter and air-dry until June and then export all over the world. Svolvær is the major gateway to Lofoten and offers all sorts of land and sea based activities from mountain hikes to sea safaries. It also has a little sculpture park demonstrating the height and fractured nature of Norwegians...   We continue to sail south and will recross the Arctic circle in the other direction later tonight on route to Brønnøysund. We have another excursion, this time by bike, booked there.
Read more