Bergen, the first stop on the Scandinavian leg of our journey. We had a delicious meal at a restaurant in Bergen called Pygmalion. This is where we got a taste for how expensive Norway (and the rest of Scandinavia will be). We had a slice of lasagna each and two glasses of apple juice plus a toasted cheese/tomato bread slice, all of which cost 515NOK (90AUD). This was to be our first and last dinner out in Norway. Whilst the food was delicious, we would quickly be broke if we kept expending money at such a rate, therefore dinner for the following nights were premade sandwiches, drinks and desert from Deli Da Luca (it’s like Pret in London/Gloria Jeans in Aus) costing a grand total of about $30AUD.
The weather in Bergen wasn’t great, it was raining when we landed and continued to be overcast/drizzly for the rest of the day and the rest of our time in Bergen. Nevertheless, we still managed to get a bit of a look around Bergen. We’d didn’t have any activities planned for Bergen as it was intended as a stopover point before our cruise up the fjord on our way to Oslo.
We went up the Fløibanen Funicular to the top of Fløyen mountain where we had a good view over the city of Bergen –
At the top of the mountain there is also a large network of hiking/cycling trails with some leading back down the mountain to the city. As it was cold, windy and raining, we took a quick walk to a little lake which was still semi-frozen, before getting the railway back down the mountain where we caught a sightseeing bus around Bergen and learnt that Norway only has 5 million people, Bergen in particular has an issue with fire and buildings burning down (Norway as a whole seems to have this issue as well), Bergen has houses known as Chimney Stacks due to their construction which is wooden on the inside encased by an external concrete wall, thus when the house caught on fire, the concrete wall acted as a chimney for the fire. After our short bus trip, we stopped off for supplies at Deli Da Luca, spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep, repacking our suitcases, surfing the Internet etc as it was still raining outside and cold. Hoping for some clear weather for our cruise up the fjord tomorrow, as well as train trip down to Oslo.
Farvel
P.S. Yes, that is a sheet of Ice I’m holding in my hands in the picture below. This was taken from the semi-frozen lake pictured. As I was walking around the lake you could hear the ice cracking and grinding against itself. Very eerie…
