Ah Bergen! We’ve been here plenty, so today is sort of a sea day for us. We had originally booked a car here, but then decided there wasn’t anything we really wanted to do outside of town – especially when Bergen itself is so wonderful and it is Maggi and Richard’s first time here. So – we decide to just do our own thing, exploring the town on foot, on our own.
The day starts out overcast, but not too threatening. I’m taking no chances though, and have my back pack full of rain jackets and umbrellas as Ed and I have decided we are just going to walk around and get our morning exercise outside instead in the gym. We have a leisurely breakfast, then head off around 10ish. We noticed from the balcony some sort of festival set up across the harbor, and then when we leave the ship, there is a sign for Bergenfest load-in at the back gate of the Bergenhus fortress. Might be something to do, we’ll see what we can find out.
We amble down the broad promenade on the water side of Bryggen, marveling at all the people. Holy cow – there are tons of people milling about. It’s crazy, but we manage to snap a few decent pictures of Bryggen as we make our way around the harbor to the fish market.
The fish market is, as the rest of town, seething with people. We meet a candle maker on the corner who is just setting up, his candles beautifully done. He explains that he used to work a full time job, but decided it was too stressful and didn’t want to work that hard anymore, so he “retired” and started the candle making business. Sounds like our kind of guy!
We dive into the masses, passing by multiple stands of sausage and cheese sellers. They all have these great reindeer sausages we are dying to buy and bring home (there is also whale sausage – we try some and it is really good – but it probably won’t go over really big with our US customs agents should it be found). But, we are sailing NCL, with their incredibly strict policy of no food allowed back onboard – we’ve already been busted with sausages on another trip where I asked them to keep them for us until we disembarked and was emphatically told no – throw them away now. So – no 18 Euro sausage for us – because we’re not in the mood to lose it again. Oh well –the tasting was good.
The seafood vendors are up next with their brilliant array of shellfish, fresh and salt water catches and this huge King Crab specimen just waiting for someone to buy, boil and eat on the tables inside the vendor’s tent.
We’ve had our crab, so it is easy to pass on by, after the photos are taken. We venture into the TI to see if we can find any Bergenfest information – which we cannot. It is packed to the gills in there too – everyone on the wifi. Honestly! We are looking for wifi too so I can download a book on my kindle, but this is not even remotely worth it – I can wait until Saturday at the hotel in Copenhagen, thank you.
The only benefit of going up to the TI was the restaurant we saw across the street while walking down the stairs….
…how wild is that? We are relatively certain the food wouldn’t be as cheap as actually being in Chiangmai though. LOL. We’re not eating off the ship, so we have no desire to visit, but thought it was funny.
Back out on the street, we wade through the humanity to make it back to Bryggen and run into Maggi and Richard. They are exploring the old town and just wandering around themselves. We chat for a bit then head our own way – us back to the ship – M&R off to the market and around the harbor.
We walk up to the Bergenhus, looking for the festival. But it looks like they are breaking down (as it turns out, we find out later that we missed the music festival by 5 days. Darn – or not – it was probably more of a zoo than it is today). As we are looking around for Bergenfest info, it starts to rain. Ed and I make the executive decision to go back to the ship. We’ve been to Bergenhus before, we’ve got nothing to do or see and we aren’t in the mood to wander in the rain.
Back aboard, we hang out in the relative dryness of our balcony, reading, organizing and generally just relaxing. Last sea day tomorrow – can’t believe how this trip has gone by so lightening fast.
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