Bergen

Had to call SB to order last night just as we turned lights out as she had a window open that needed to be closed, at least more closed than open! I don’t think it then too very long for either of us to start pushing out the zzzzzz’s. I slept pretty well until about 3.30 in the a.m. and that was it for sleep for me. It was nice and cosy and warm in my bed so I was quite happy to just lay there and contemplate nothing in particular. About 6ish I turned on my bedside light and read my Kindle. I’m right into the Janet Evanovich novels at the moment and am currently on the 5th one in a series about a very unprofessional and unsuited to the job of being a female bounty hunter. Good story line and quirky characters so they are keeping me interested. Shiny Bright was back in the land of the living about 6.30, so after showers and layering on lots of clothing we headed to breakfast to join Captain D & Foggy. Breakfast was really good and the natural yoghurt was really thick and creamy. Yum!
As normal shops don’t open in Norway on Sundays, we were in no rush to go anywhere so agreed to meet at 10 when we then headed up towards the funicular. We have a fabulous view of Bryggen from our hotel.

My brochure said that it didn’t operate until 11 but we were there at about 10.30 and it was running then so we bought our tickets and went up to the top of Mt Floyen. It is about a six minute ride and provided fantastic views of Bergen as we got closer to the top.


At the top, it really did provide panoramic views which were breathtaking.

We had only been there a couple of minutes and a light rain started to fall. We made our way to the little store where D, G and SB bought clampon spikes to fit over the soles of their shoes as they were slipping and sliding around on the ice. Funny thing was that I was wearing leather ankle boots with a low heel and I was as steady as a rock so didn’t need them.
It was now light snow and as the locals were all out in force we figured we should be too so had a wander around or a while, taking lots of photos. But then we decided it was time for a hot chocolate and pastries in the little cafe.

We found the Troll forest and had fun pointing out the different characters dotted throughout it.

It’s up to you to work out which were the trolls and which were us!
Picture postcard scenery everywhere we looked. Being snowed on while wandering at the top of a mountain is a pretty special moment, I can assure you. The lake was frozen but no one was quite game to attempt walking on it. When we headed back from the frozen lake I kept saying that I didn’t recognise the path we were on. Finally when we had been walking for about 15 minutes I finally stopped dead in my tracks and insisted that I definitely didn’t remember passing an outbuilding so made my three amigos about turn and retrace our steps to a fork in the path that eventually took us back to the frozen lake! With that, Foggy tells me that this is why he has a GPS in his car! I think he was trying to explain how he isn’t necessarily always good with directions, but at that moment in time I failed to appreciate the value of a GPS in a car while I’m wandering around in circles on a mountain top in the snow with the three stooges!!! But once back at the frozen lake we are now all clear on the correct path to take and so we head back to civilisation at the mountain top buildings.

Eventually it was time to head back down the mountain in our little finicular.


We then wandered around Bryggen wharf front and decided it was time for a late lunch. We eventually found a really nice restaurant that looked like it served soup, which was what we all had agreed we wanted. However by the time we saw the extensive menu and lots of other choices, only Captn D had soup while Foggy and I had the Asian noodle bowl and Shiny Bright had a vegetable stir fry with fried Camembert. We all opted for coffees to finish our meal. We then wandered up into the main square which is a big, wide shopping mall which I think we are planning to revisit in the morning.

By the time we meandered back to our hotel it was about 4 o’clock so we had a lovely day out.
Time to put our feet up and update the blog, so that we are ready for tonight’ Get together with our tour guide for our Hurtigruten trip at 7.30pm. There are 22 in our group, and all Aussies which is a bit disappointing as I enjoy meeting fellow travellers from other countries but apparently the boat will be full and there are other tour groups plus locals on the boat so that should satisfy me. Our guide is Kelli who is from Estonia and she sounds like she knows what she is doing, having been a tour guide for 20 years and a school teacher prior to that. I’m really tired now and have no interest in eating dinner so am happy to head back to our room, hop in my jammies and get into bed. Our room heating isn’t working well and SB keeps a window open, so I’m planning on keeping right under the covers all night. It’s been a great day and I’m sure we have plenty more of them ahead.