Tag: bergen

Posted on

From Norway to Runway to our Doorway

With our Norwegian cruise and its excursions completed, we were returned to Bergen where we spent a last day and night. We were delighted to see the charming city once again and looked forward to just wandering around the town catching whatever we’d missed the first time. While doing so, we ran into this entrance to the funicular, which I think is so-named just to make it seem like you were really having fun when in fact you’re just riding a small train. It’s like telling your kid, “Don’t worry, we’re just going to the Funtist!”

This is the entrance to the funicular. According to their website, the Fløibanen funicular is one of Norway’s best-known and most visited attractions (and Bergen’s most popular), but is also the natural means of transport for people living on the mountainside and for the kindergartens on Fløyen. The journey up to Fløyen (320 m above sea level) takes about 5–8 minutes, and is definitely more fun than going to the funtist.

While it’s called a funicular, the fun really doesn’t start until you get to the top. While we intended just to ride up for a quick look-see and return back fairly quickly, we ended up spending most of the day up there, reveling in the snowy sights and landscapes. It was quite spectacularly beautiful, and we didn’t want to leave it.

I did notice this obviously homeless woman sleeping on the funicular. I put a ten euro note in her pocket just to make sure she’d at least have a meal later.

We were a little bemused at the Bergentonians response to the snow. We would’ve thought they were so used to it that it would be just one more day for them. But, it turns out that this much snow isn’t all that common in Bergen, so the Norwegians were out in force, taking their skis up the funicular like it was just any other ski lift.

Up and up we went, until the views of Bergen literally took our breath away. Of course, that could’ve been from walking up a few stairs. We often end up looking all over the place to see where they put our breath nowadays.

Our first order of business was to check out the signposts to see where we should head. We decided the North Pole was a little too far, so we just camped out at the top of Mount Fløyen as it were.

We also thought to check with tourist help desk, but they were closed, I think on account of the snow, which meant they could have a lot more fun outside than sitting behind a stupid counter. However, as you can see the instructions on the door were quite clear and extensive. Visiting a Troll forest has always been on my bucket list (duh- like anyone with a bucket), so I was excited to go see the trolls and maybe feed them some babies or something.

At the top of the fun ride we found something akin to a small ski resort, with a cafe and gift shop and a hotel or some such that was under reconstruction, as well as some famous goats who apparently live somewhere else when it snows so all we had were some signs indicating that there were famous goats. I was bummed that we missed out on some famous goat autographs. I was really looking forward to seeing a “baaaa” on a piece of paper. I guess I just have to settle for being an old goat.

Kids in Norway learn how to ski even before they’re given thousand-dollar iPhones (crazy, right?). They are cute as buttons as well as future Olympic cross country skiing champions.

Suddenly we found ourselves needing some insulin with the infusion of all this cuteness. This St. Bernard was on hand to deliver rum to stranded skiers so they’d die a little quicker from hypothermia. It’s a little known fact that Norwegians have nothing but disdain for people who get lost in the snow, so all they offer as assistance is a fluid to lower their body temperature. At least the stranded people get a cute dog to look at as they drift off to Valhalla.

Speaking of sweet, here’s a statue partially covered in snow, and I’ll give you three guesses as to what it even is. Look closer. Figure it out yet? Nope, it’s not that. I already gave you a hint. Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. It’s an ice cream cone. I guess this one is snow-flavored. The store itself was closed on account of the idea that no one wants to walk around in the snowy cold eating an ice cream cone. Except me. I definitely would eat an ice cream cone anywhere, even at the South Pole. That’s why they made hell a hot place, part of the torture is watching ice cream melt before you can eat it.

I expressed my disappointment at the whole ice cream thing by first trying to throw myself into the recycling bin (I didn’t fit… I guess it’s all that ice cream), and then hiding behind a tree, and finally throwing a tantrum on a snow-covered table.

Carolyn offered up no sympathy, so I eventually gave up on my pouting and sat on the snow. And they said buttal frostbite wouldn’t be fun…

Meanwhile Carolyn took advantage of the free attractions. I’m sure this costs a lot more in the summer, so we were very happy to be there in the winter when the high fives were free.

The scenery was just so beautiful, and it was so calm and quiet and serene. We were content to simply wander about taking pictures and reveling in the splendor. We took so many pictures that while working up this blog entry it took me a long time just to whittle these scenic views above to a sweet 16. Good thing I’m retired!

I didn’t have as much luck whittling down my “city views,” I was only able to get it down to 21. You gotta admit, they’re all sure purrrty though. Bergen looks quite expansive from up there. It is the second-largest city in Norway after Oslo, with just under 300,000 people.

We ended up spending most of the day simply enjoying the quiet and scenery until we realized the sun had begun setting, even though it was only three in the afternoon. So we decided to stay for the sunset and take a few more pictures. We eventually discovered that a setting sun in Norway takes about as long to complete as it takes Donald Trump to set his hair every morning. As a result, we captured hundreds of more pictures: perhaps every possible variation and placement of the sun in the sky over Bergen. The above are the top twelve, picked mostly by using a combination of my sunny disposition and random finger pointing.

A visit to any decent ski resort always deserves a little hot chocolate and whipped cream (some of which I saved for later). I gotta tell ya, even though that day was spent doing almost nothing but enjoying the scenery, it was one of our most memorable and enjoyable days on the trip, or maybe any trip. Just magical!

So I have to finish up our Norwegian adventure with some assorted signs I got a kick out of:

I love the way Europeans often spare no details when it comes to bodily functions, especially compared to Americans. Americans enjoy plenty of potty humor, but not a lot of humor in the potty, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I’m pretty sure most bathroom cleaning personnel in the world would really like it if this image was above every toilet. I must say it looks like that guy is peeing after a long night of drinking and debauchery, or maybe the artist was some teen-aged boy’s mother. Either way gentlemen, we really should aim to please!

This is the name of a clothing store. I don’t think livid means what they think it means. Out of curiosity, I translated “livid” from Norwegian to English. The answer? “Livid.” Well, I guess livid sounds cool if you don’t know what it means, although the potential advertising line of “I only shop Livid” is a little awkward.

It’s nice when they offer up pre-programmed responses to common questions, such as, “Did you see where my wife went?”

Smidesang specializes in strategic communications, like lying.

Their honesty in advertising also extends to making sure their customers know their bathrobes are bad. It’s nice to know that ahead of time. And that’s no kjøkken.

Kvik, find me another kjoke!

You might be wondering why I took a picture of a guy standing on an escalator (ignore the woman, she’s collateral photo damage). It’s actually a pretty funny story. So while we were waiting for our plane I wandered around the airport and noticed this escalator that wasn’t working. I began thinking of ways to have some fun with it (you know, for the blog) when this guy walks up and solves my problem. WIth his face buried in his phone, he steps onto the unmoving escalator. He takes a step or two up slowly, still engrossed in his phone, and then stops. He has no idea the escalator isn’t moving. So I watched him for a while and took this shot. He just stood and stood thinking he was moving toward the next floor. Finally I thought, “okay, I’ve got to get this on video.” So of course just as I get the video capture pulled up he finally realizes he’s been standing on an unmoving escalator and starts to walk up. So, no video, you’ll just have to take my word for it. The whole thing is funny, but it’s also a little sad, eh?

On a more serious note, on the hotel airport bus we noticed that they had a built-in child’s safety seat. Genius! In our travels, I must say we saw a lot of little things that demonstrate the importance the Scandinavian cultures place on the safety and education of their children. Just one of the many reasons Scandinavia is leading the way in the advancement of human culture. God knows we could use more of that nowadays!

Our plane got delayed a bit because of… snow. Something I wouldn’t have thought you’d ever say in a country like Norway!

Ok, after all those samplings of views from the ship that I began putting at the end of all my Norway blog entries, I still had, literally, 284 more to go. Oy vey! I whittled them down to thirty, whereby I finally gave up and thought what the hell, I can put all thirty up since it doesn’t cost me any more to show more photos. It’s just hard to say no to beauty, even if you’ve already seen similar, y’know?

And so we said goodbye to Norway. It was truly the trip of a lifetime, amidst a lifetime that is becoming full of trips of a lifetime. We are truly blessed. Our thanks go out to Tim and Susan Darcy, who invited us on this cruise and never made us regret a minute of it. If Tim and Susan come a-knockin’, say yes!

(Scroll down to see previous entries.)

Posted on

Which Way to the Front? The Norway of Course!

Ever since Vladimir Putin reminded the world that we should put his picture in the dictionary next to the word “asshole,” I’ve wanted to do my part to help the Ukrainian people, who have certainly had enough of his verbal flatulence. Drawing upon my history in the CIA, I realized I could infiltrate the Land Run By The Sphincter simply by sailing north of the Arctic Circle, landing in Norway, and then sneaking in through the lightly defended border between the two countries… with the rest of course being classified. Thus begins our saga.

Way back in 2017 when we moved to Portugal with the intention of seeing as much of Europe as we could, the coast of Norway was definitely not one of the items on our bucket list. Not because we didn’t want to, we just hadn’t really given it much thought. I mean there’s London! Paris! Rome! Vienna! Berlin! Amsterdam! Lisbon! Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch!*

All of which called our name much louder than some silly Norwegian fee-jeeords.

Of course, going to Scandinavia itself certainly was on our list, but we had already checked that off with a visit that included Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Oslo. Not that there was anything wrong with Oslo, but it was easily the least beautiful of the three, so we figured we were done with Norway. But oh nooo, our friends Tim and Susan Darcy spiked our drinks one evening and before we could even say Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu** we were registered to sail on a Havila Cruise up the coast of Norway, way past the Arctic Circle, and all the way over the top of the country to the Russian border. My CIA handler was very excited.

I only offer that long place name up (in case you missed it, it’s “Taumatawhakatangihangako-auauotamateaturipukakapikima-ungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu”) because Norway happens to be the proud owner of the shortest possible town name: A. Yup. That’s it. A. Actually, A is an old Norse word meaning “small river.” Seems to me what they were describing would be more like a trickle of melting ice, but hey, when you live that far north sometimes your saliva freezes up before you can get much else out. So “A” it is. But, as enticing as visiting a town called A was, we skipped that and went right to B, as in Bergen.

Obviously, as soon as I saw that our cruise ship departs from Bergen, I placed a call to my dear old friend Candice Bergen and asked if we could visit her in January. Of course she said yes enthusiastically (I mean, it was us), so I urged our travel agent to get us to Candy Bergen’s place, stat, and stop with all the questions. In light of the next photos, I wasn’t sure he got us to the right place.

One of the first things we saw as we walked out of the airport is this sign. I have to admit, it made us a little uncomfortable. I mean, what does a pilot think the first time he lands there? “Did I actually land in Bergen?” “Are you sure?” “Are they sure?” “Is anyone sure?” “Does anyone actually know where we are?”

Also, where was Candace?

Screenshot
Screenshot

The first thing we felt was um, a little bit of cold. Here’s our iPhone screen in both celsius and fahrenheit, which we’ve provided to ensure that none of our relatives has a heart attack thinking that we actually ventured into -9°F temperatures. Actually, 15°F is about all I could handle while wearing my standard cruise attire of Bermuda shorts and sandals with socks, so I was grateful that this was about as cold as it got during the entire trip.

That said, what many people don’t realize (including us, pre-cruise) is that the coast of Norway isn’t as cold as commonly thought. Because of the warmth of the Gulf stream (fueled of course by the flatulance from all that spicy Mexican food), Norway is one of the world’s largest exporters of palm trees. Okay, just kidding about at least one of those statements. Anyway, Bergen’s temperature only hovers around freezing for much of the winter. In fact, when we arrived in Bergen there was very little snow on the ground, despite the cold, which was colder than usual.

When we returned less than two weeks later, the town was covered in a thick layer of snow, one that we were told was a once-in-every-15-years kind of snowfall. The first picture above was from our initial visit, the second was when we returned after the cruise. The third was of my thumb so I deleted it.

Bergen itself is more of a sprawling city than we imagined, and the downtown area is absolutely charming and delightful. Hills surround Bergen down to the sea, where it sits between two of the biggest fjords in Norway, resulting in Bergen being called “the capital of the fjords.”

Since the city is surrounded by mountains, it’s also called the “city of seven mountains.” The city was founded more or less in 1070 by King Olav Kyrre and was named Bjørgvin, which means “the green meadow among the mountains.” The city center and northern neighbourhoods are on Byfjorden, “the city fjord,” which probably means Bergen is also called “The City on the City Fjord.” I’ll just stick to calling it Bergen the rest of the way, Norwegians obviously give too many names to things.

Bergen has a lot of rain all year, sometimes even featuring more than two months of consecutive rainy days. As a result, it’s known as the rainiest city in Europe especially by those who think of it as the rainiest city in Europe (ironically). While we were treated to a nice snowfall upon our return, the snow usually melts rather quickly. Who knew snow would be such a rare commodity in a Norwegian city!

Bergen has a mild winter climate, albeit with a lot of precipitation: it rains about 200 days out of the year, and that’s in metric! During the height of winter, Bergen can actually end up 20°C (60°F) warmer than Oslo, even though both cities are at about the same latitude. Bergen is ranked as the third warmest city in Norway, but based on some of our pictures, that may be like saying the Mojave desert is the third coolest place in hell.

It may very well be that one of the reasons Bergen is such a charming city is because it didn’t suffer the same brutal fate as many of the Norwegian towns up and down the coastline did during World War II. In fact, on the very first day of the German invasion of Norway in 1940 the Germans occupied Bergen after only a brief skirmish with some Norwegian artillery. Allied bombing raids against naval installations did most of the damage later, resulting in about 100 civilian casualties overall.

Bergen is known for its street art; the city even covered one piece with protective glass. We didn’t see much of that where we wandered, however, except for the big green troll. Going clockwise from there, we saw plenty of Christmas lights as it was still early January, and a neon sign advertising a big Schlong (I think that’s how you pronounce it). And then, Holy Cow! It’s a 7-11! Anyway, with street names like Ovre Korskirkeallmenningen, I’m not sure there’s any room left for graffiti anyway. Also based on that street name, I’m surprised 7-11 isn’t called 9,832,409-253,130,939,480.

Bergen also happens to be a sister city with Seattle, Washington in the USA. Seattle is the next big city north of Portland, Oregon, where Carolyn and I are from. Both of those cities can feature some beautiful scenery, but it’s hard to beat the charm and beauty of Bergen. Plus, as you can see by the third picture above, Bergen has better Tex-Mex than either Portland or Seattle.

If you look closely at that door, you can see that everything is rather crooked (I promise you it’s not Carolyn who’s cattywampus). This is in an old part of Bergen near the water, so things obviously shift over time. Apparently the Norwegians just roll with the flow. Speaking of which, every single interaction we had with a Norwegian on this entire trip was pleasant and delightful. They are truly a nice people.

Honestly, it took me hours just to whittle the hundreds of photos we took down to what you see here. I still have a folder chock full of other photos. Bergen is simply a very charming city, easily making it onto our mutual top ten best small cities in Europe list. It didn’t quite push Edinborough, Scotland off the top of the list, but it came awfully close!

After spending hours wandering Bergen’s city streets, chilling out in a gigantic chair and being caught sneaking food out of the free buffet were just what the Travel Doctor ordered. Man… an entire trip up and down Norway and Bergen gets one complete entry all on its own. I may need to rename this blog The BaldNorwaySquatch!

Anyway, I believe our visit to Bergen established our “clueless tourists cover” sufficiently enough to allow my covert entry into Russia. More to come as we approach that big event!

*Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrob-wllllantysiliogogogoch! is in Wales, and has the world’s longest town name.

**Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is in New Zealand, and has the world’s longest place name.

***Ajohsadfiukhjnsdfuclvndasdwerksksdnmfslkdoapqwemxeuvsdfkjsdfdfnasadqqoouedfndfdsmcsaskdsbeedsdsagfealasdl is in my head, and is this blog’s longest word.

****I can’t pronounce any of ’em.

Candace gets me.