Bergen or Bust!

After two bumpy flights, we arrived in Norway. I lost count of the security checks we had to go through and am so happy I don’t have to fly again until November! I used to enjoy flying before September 11, 2001. The only thing that makes me feel better is that I know it’s for our safety. We arrived in Bergen just before 4pm.

Bergen is a picturesque settlement with houses built on every hillside. We have a beautiful view from our backpacker’s kitchen of which I didn’t get a photo as I was too tired to walk back to my room to get the camera.  It’s lovely to have a kitchen with a fridge (to keep the champagne cold), a microwave (to warm up my heat pack- thanks Doris), and a jug (to make a cuppa first thing in the morning). Pure delight! Not so fond of not having a bathroom in our room though, but hey, you can’t have everything!

Today was our Norway in a Nutshell tour- one of three tours we had booked. Our driver pronounced it Norway in a Nootshell which brought a smile to our faces. We trained it out of Bergen to Voss, bussed it to Gutvangen, then sailed down the fiord and up another arm to Flam, where we found bargain t-shirts for 33 krone each. I think this is about 4 euro each. Since we paid upwards of 9 euro in Paris, we thought this was a bargain too good to miss so Keeley and I bought 2 each, 1 for Elizabeth and 1 for Stacey, 2 for Carl and 1 for Jamie.

I loved the snow-topped peaks surrounding the fiord and the many waterfalls  emptying into it, but they were nothing compared to the scenery on the way up to Myrdal on the train known as the Flam Railway, the steepest railway track in the world. On to another train for a smooth restful journey back to Bergen where we met in the kitchen and played bananagrams and drank our champagne that I had carted all the way from Paris in my suitcase. It tasted all the better for the effort though. Well. Mostly Keeley’s effort actually. She was the one who dragged my suitcase up the hill to the Marken Guesthouse.