Bergen, Norway

Bergen is a great little town--bustling port, lovely cathedral with charming back streets, and a World Heritage site which is a wooden town within the town.   A wonderful walking town.

But first, I must introduce you to Ana, our sweet "stewardess" from Croatia who took care of our stateroom.  Always smiling and cheerful and nothing is too much trouble.

The main street of Bergen.

The view from the nice little second story restaurant where we had an okay lunch.  We had already tried a couple of places and they were too crowded and we were hungry...

...only to finish lunch and find a bustling fish market selling every conceivable fish and shellfish which you could choose cooked or uncooked.  It lay less than a block from where we had already had a ho-hum lunch.  There is no justice in this world!

"You choose, we cook."  Can you see the man behind the counter holding the tray?  He is holding several king crab claws, some giant prawns and two whole lobsters which the people standing next to us had just chosen for him to prepare.  Later we talked to some friends on the ship who had eaten at one of these places.  They had ordered crab claws which were already cooked, but the fish man threw them into some boiling oil for a minute or two at which time our friend thought it was probably going to be terrible, but she said they were the best she'd ever had.  We were desolate at having missed it.

Huge prawns and crab claws

Scallops in the shell and oysters.  I had never seen scallop shells before.  They are held together with clothes pin type clamps.  I guess they would pop open otherwise.

A pretty side street in Bergen.  Note the obligatory McDonald's on the right.

The next three pictures are pictures of a restored and preserved wooden town as it was two to three hundred years ago.   Because everything in the town was made of wood, they were deathly afraid of fire which was not allowed.  That meant no stoves or chimneys!  Can you imagine how cold it was in the winter?

It didn't photograph very well, but it was quite charming.

Ditto

The Geiranger Fjord near Olden, Norway

Today we took an eight-hour tour of the Geiranger Fjord, one of the most well known and beautiful of the Norwegian Fjords.  We left the ship and boarded a bus and drove through several villages and more spectacular countrysides until we got to the base of the mountain and started to ascend.  More hairpin curves and the snow got heavier and heavier, not falling snow but what is still left on the ground of the winter snowfall.  When we got to the top, above the tree line, some of the snowdrifts were twenty or thirty feet--and this is after treatment had been applied to hurry up the thaw.  The road cannot be opened at all until it is possible to actually remove the snow from the road.  As we drove up the road, the packed snow on the side of the road had to be thirty feet high.

Sadly for us, it was foggy on the top and we couldn't see the fjord below, but the stark mountains seen through the fog was an eerie and beautiful sight itself.

Beautiful farms and villages on the way from the ship to the Geiranger Fjord

This was a swiftly flowing river where we stopped.  There was a bridge from which we could take pictures of the lovely scenery both up and downstream.  The guide emphasized that it was important to stay on the bridge and not wander down to the river because of the danger of the bank giving way and thus being washed down the river.

There is always someone who ignores the rules.  This the guide in the red jacket chewing out (we think) this couple who decided to go down anyway to take pictures.  They were the same couple that were always a few minutes late getting back on the bus when we had a timed stop.  Don't think people don't notice.

Starting to ascend the mountain.  The snow is fairly minimal at this lower altitude.

Yes, there is civilization up there but not much.  How would you like to live here?

At the top of the mountain there was a small gift shop/cafe with its resident troll.  From this vantage point, on clear days which we understand are few and far between, you can see the spectacular Geiranger Fjord below.

So we left there and descended to a lower altitude with this view of the Geiranger Fjord.  This is the wide part of the Fjord.  There are several cruise ships in this picture, not ours though.

This is a close-up of the people in the previous picture who were attempting to walk to the very edge of the mountain--not sure why since the view would be the same.  Had any of our group gone there, it would have given our guide a heart attack

A huge waterfall that we were able to  get very close to.

And two troll couples at the edge of the deepest lake in Europe (1,700 feet) on the grounds of the hotel where we had lunch.

More about Trolls

We went to an onboard lecture about trolls.  You wouldn't believe how often the subject of trolls comes up, in the written materials and on guided tours.  They are treated as if they actually exist!  I believe the lady who gave the lecture is a professor, not of trollology, but of archeology.  She had given a previous lecture on the wildlife of Norway and trolls seemed to fit into that category.  Some of her stories were quite amusing.

The first known troll goes back many hundreds of years

The speaker always emphasizes that they are not only huge, lumpy and ugly but also stupid.  A tough combination.

It's a little hard to see, but in the foreground is a beautiful princess who has been captured by the troll family in front of her. The mother (the smallest one) is telling the princess that she must pick one of her sons to marry.  And isn't she lucky because they are all so intelligent and handsome.  Only a mother...

More trolls

Tromso and Honningsvad, Norway

The main street of Tromso

A beautiful little candy store 

This is one of the lifesized displays in the Arctic Museum in Tromso.  This shows how the trappers caught polar bears.  There was a bait in one end of this long wooden box.  The long end held a rifle.  When the bear put his head in the box to get the bait, the rifle was triggered to shoot him in the head. 

We had a delicious lunch of reindeer and a salad and a beer in a very nice restaurant in Tromso.   Reindeer is a little like venison but not as gamey believe it or not.  It was tender and delicious.  

After visiting Tromso, another little port along the coast of Norway--Honningsvad

I wish I knew how many of these little port towns there are in Norway.

A Sami woman making warm hats out of Reindeer fur.  

Honningsvad is not one of the prettiest ports we visited, but this picture illustrates that even the most dilapidated ports are colorful and charming.

A tiny War Museum in a tiny town in Norway

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we came across a tiny museum in Solvavaer, quite by accident.  I would have hated to have missed it.  The sign outside of it said  Lofoten Krigsminnemuseum under which it said War Museum 1940-1945.  It turned out to be a small (five rooms), cluttered, but utterly brilliant collection that the owner, who was there, has been collecting since he was 15 years old.  The lady who welcomed us in (who may have been his wife), pointed him out and said he would be happy to answer any questions we might have, and he was.  But first we just wandered from room to room.  Every room was filled to the brim with all sorts of memorabilia from World War II including lots of life-sized mannequins in every conceivable uniform.  There was a tiny, but accurate, replica of a Gestapo Commandant's office complete with old typewriter and a picture of the Fuhrer on the wall.  

The owner had some years before had the opportunity to buy an authentic painting by Hitler (who was an accomplished artist) for a mere 400 euros, a very good price at the time, and when he got it home and removed the dilapidated old frame, he found hidden behind it four sketches of Disney characters.  Apparently, Hitler was obsessed with Snow White!  He is positive that they are authentic.  There was also a silver evening bag engraved with the word Eva, that had belonged to Eva Braun, and an metal cyanide capsule which held the cyanide pills that Hitler and Eva and the top officials of the Third Reich always carried with them in case of capture.  He had a number of cases filled with every imaginable medal and insignia.  It would take days and days to see it all.  I'll try to add some more pictures later, but for now, I think the computer is about to go into overload!

Gestapo Commandant's Office

Little silver bag carried by Eva Braun

Countless manniquins in full uniform

Original landscape by Adolf Hitler...

with sketches of Pinocchio and three of the Seven Dwarves hidden inside its frame.

Reindeer were used as pack animals in Norway during the war.

And a display of actual surgical tools with bottle of Chloroform used by medics.

Trollfjord

The day that we were in Solvavaer, the Captain announced that at 6:30 we would enter Trollfjord, which is a two-kilometer long Fjord inside the Arctic Circle, with some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. These pictures don't begin to do it justice.  The fjord itself is quite narrow and as the ship moved slowly through it, the granite cliffs on either side were so majestic that I was reduced to tears.  The boats you see are Zodiac rubber rafts carrying some of our shipmates.  Tom and I had decided to skip the rafting experience but when a few of our mates described being on a small boat in the midst of all that grandeur, I for one wished we had done it as well.  I hope you can get a sense of the scale in the first picture which shows a couple of smallish boats against the cliff on one side.

A couple of the Zodiacs from our ship

This is from the upper deck watching the ship move through the fjord.

It almost felt as if you could reach out and touch it.

Svolvaer, the Lofoten Islands

We decided to relax this day instead of taking a tour so we waited until after lunch and then walked into the little port of Svolvaer, a bite-sized village comprised of a few homes, businesses, cafes and what seemed to be vacation rental villas and condos along the water. 

We had to take a tender from the ship and the picture below shows cod drying racks which were all along the shoreline. You can barely see it, but except for the open spaces, there were thousands of fish split and gutted and draped over the racks which were much more extensive than it looks here.  

We walked around in a leisurely fashion and were about to head back when I noticed that we hadn't explored the other side of the village from where we started.  And after walking for a block or so in that direction, we came upon a War Museum of all things.  We stepped inside and found the most unbelievable little gem of a museum I think I have ever encountered.  That will be the subject of the next post. 

These are drying racks for cod.  Fishing is the major industry in this area followed by tourism because of the gorgeous scenery.

When we got off the tender we walked through a small square where this man was just opening up his stall selling dried reindeer, moose (elg), and whale.  His samples weren't ready yet, but later on our way back to the tender, he sliced some pieces of each for us to taste.  It was so delicious we bought some of the whale and the moose.  I just hope it doesn't get confiscated on the airplane although it's wrapped in plastic so we should be okay.  It's kind of like salami, but with a much different flavor.  The key is to slice it thin.

Talk about a peaceful village...

Alesund, Norway

Alesund is a beautiful little town.  There is a lookout point high up on the hill which can be reached by walking up 416 steps.  Sadly, we didn't do it.  

Alesund, Norway

Two trolls enjoying a small joke

This adorable little girl was in a beauty shop waiting for her mother and played Peek-a-Boo with me for a minute or two.  I hope you can see the beauty of this child.  Hopefully, I didn't scare her by taking her picture.