Bergen. The land of Sun?

Day: 21
Location: Bergen, Norway
Km ridden: 300
kg of Mussels in white wine sauce consumed: 2

So after waking up in the retirement town of Måløy to see the clouds still as thick as a tart's makeup, Vanessa and I decided that enough was enough.  Whilst we were both sure that Norway has a lovely scenery, the driving rain and heavy fog meant that we were going to see bugger all of it.  It was time for us to put on some serious mileage.

After layering up in the rain gear again we pointed the bikes in the vague direction of Bergen and rode off.  Whilst the sky was heavy with cloud, we actually managed to escape the rain and we finally saw something of the countryside.

The further we rode, the better the weather actually became and we slowly started to change our minds about just getting out of the country.  During a fuel stop, we took a short smoke break and decided that we should head to Bergen for the night, and try and get in contact with a friend of Vanessa's.  We had planned to stay with them on the Monday, but due to the crap weather, we found ourselves somewhat ahead of schedule.

As a side note, also during this break I saw this:

It really quite rare to see a BMW Z1 these days, so this little gathering was quite interesting.  We also got a masterclass in Norwegian parking at the same time.......

To get to Bergen was only about 300 km, but it took us almost 8 hours to do it.  Thats because the shape of the coastline up here means that you have to take a ferry quite often.  We ended up having to take about 3 to get here from Måløy, and in total since getting into Norway I think we're approaching double figures.  It's actually quite a nice way to travel unless it's chucking it down.

We continued motoring on until we got into town at about 6pm.  Bergen is the second largest city in Norway and whilst it's small by UK standards, we certainly began to appreciate having more things to do whilst we were here.  Sadly we didn't get in touch with Hilde in time so we went to the trusty Tourist information office to get ourselves a hotel.  It turns out that it's high season here at the moment (even the Queen Elizabeth was in port), and most of the hotel rooms were booked.  Vanessa seems to have got quite a good grasp of sarcasm now, but sadly her comment of "oh, are they all here for the sun?", didn't quite get the desired reaction from the person behind the counter.  Still we managed to get a room and set off to unpack and get out of the 37 different layers of clothing.


I know I've said it before, but Norway is sodding expensive.  Whilst the scenery is nice, from a financial point of view, I'm very glad we spent most of our time in Sweden............

After a quick call with Hilde to arrange what we were going to do the next day, we headed on out into town to enjoy being once again in the company of people who are dry, under 80 and not related to each other in ways that are only legal in some southern U.S. states.

I have to say it, Bergen really is nice.   It has a vibe that was certainly lacking in Trondheim.  We spent about an hour wondering around before heading towards the fish market where most of the Restaurants seemed to be based.  It didn't take long for us to decided that we were going to be spending a few days here.

I will be writing more about he city tomorrow, including the Fishmarket and a great bar we found.  I'll also be talking about the great hospitality we've had from Hilde and her family, but it's getting late now, and I'm dead tired from walking around the city all day.  So I'm off to get some much needed beauty sleep.