Bergen fish market
We left Edmonton last night almost half an hour late, since our plane was about that late arriving from Iceland. As there are six time zones difference to Iceland, but it only a 6 hour flight we arrived at just about 7:00. We were very surprised to find that we had to go through security to get off the plane. It was a long, slow line and we were very worried that we might not make our next connection — though not nearly as worried as the man from Glasgow in front of us (not quite sure what his being disgusted about it was going to do to help him get on his connecting flight).
We did get through security in time to make our plane, in fact we had to stand in the gate lineup for almost 20 minutes — and we couldn’t find a washroom in sight anywhere! It is just about a two hour flight from Iceland to Bergen, and fortunately both Enid and I were able to get about an hour’s sleep on this leg, so we probably had three hours sleep overnight total.
We got to Bergen, got some Norwegian money, and bought two sandwiches which we split between us. I couldn’t seem to get the free wi-fi to work at the Bergen airport, and so I couldn’t get on to Google maps to find where our hotel was. We walked out the front of the airport, and saw a downtown shuttle bus. The lady helping load luggage told us to get off at the first stop downtown, which was the bus station. We had no idea when we reached downtown, but a young woman behind us told us she thought we should get off soon. We did realize as we reached it that we were at the bus terminal, so we got off the bus.
However, we had only a very vague idea where our hotel was located, and the street it is on was not on the map we had. A lady on the street saw that we looked lost, and asked if she could help. She didn’t know where our hotel was exactly, but thought it was “up the hill” so we walked in that direction for about a kilometer. We still couldn’t find the street. We walked up one cross street, and finally saw a man (there weren’t a lot of people on the street). We asked him, but he had no idea, though he thought one of the buildings on the corner was a hotel, so we shold as there. It was a hotel, but not ours, and the door wasn’t open (you had to buzz in). Fortunately the next young man we met did know that there was hotel up one more block from where we are, and thought it was “Steen’s Hotel”. We climbed up a set of about ten steps and sure enough, there was our hotel to the right.
After we’d checked in we had a cup of coffee, and then walked back into old Bergen, stopping first at the Fish Market. There are many open-air stalls selling fish, and other produce. We tried some dry Reindeer Salami, and liked it so bought enough to have for sandwiches for lunch for the next couple of days. There were some interesting looking fish plates and we decided we’d come back for our supper meal there.
We spent the next few hours walking around the waterfront in Old Bergen. There are a number of old wooden shops there, most with tourist stores. Some of the shops selling woolen knitted goods had some very nice mitts, and hats (too bad I bought a toque in El Calafate as these were nicer and about the same price). We also passed the very old Rosencrantz Tower which is a 13th century fort, complete with tower and moat. They were setting up outside it for a musical event (Bergen Fest) over the next week (I saw banners advertising Neil Young, and Tom Jones for two of the performers) so we weren’t able to get into all parts of the grounds, but saw much of it.
Finally we started back towards the market. It had started to rain a bit, but we had one umbrella. We had a plate of fish and vegetables, with potatoe salad and a bun that we shared, at a total cost of 260 Norwegian Kroner, about $45 Canadian.
It will be an early night for us. I am practically falling asleep while writing this!