About three weeks ago Gordon and I flew out on FinnAir on our way to Bergen, Norway to catch our Viking cruise ship. The flight was uneventful. The plane was new so it was nice, and I dozed most of the way—there’re a lot of bad movies out, btw. We had an hour layover in Helsinki before catching the final plane to Bergen. I thought it would only be about an hour in the air but we flew on a turbo prop plane so the flight took about 2 ½ hours. I felt like I was in a WWII movie. But we were seated two across so the only person invading my space was Gordon and that’s fine with me. As a matter of fact, I invaded his space but he didn’t seem to mind. Our driver was waiting for us at Bergen, and our luggage came through without problem. We had a pleasant drive to our hotel in downtown Bergen where we met Billy and Dawn Williams who were on the same cruise. Billy and Gordon were in high school together. More importantly, they were bandmates in The Ride so they have a long history. Dawn and I got acquainted at one of the Ride reunions and she’s a hoot to travel with. We checked in and had a bowl of soup and a sandwich with them at the hotel before going to bed.
The room was serviceable but I loved the duvet on the bed. They were half-sized so we each had our own personal quilt. No fighting over the covers! And they were warm. Leave it to the Norwegians to invent comfortable bed covers. The bathroom had European fixtures, but I figured them out. I slept well.
After breakfast at the hotel (our driver claimed that the hotel was famous for its breakfasts; it was good) we went shopping. Gordon had forgotten to pack a jacket and it’s COLD even in fall. Fortunately, he found something suitable at one of the shops. He’d have frozen to death otherwise. Then we packed up and humped our luggage five blocks down to the pier to board the Viking Vela. We checked in and joined Billy and Dawn to take the funicular to the top of the hill for the view. We were told that Bergen only gets 100 clear days a year and this was one of them. It was a spectacular sea view. It reminded me of the view from the Livermore Museum overlooking Berkeley. One thing they had that Berkeley doesn’t is goats wandering around to delight the tourists. Which they did. Except they wouldn’t stand still to let me take a picture with them. I tried to get gruff with my three Billy goats, but they weren’t buying it. We went back to the ship for dinner and a welcome aboard show. Long but pleasant day.
We had one official Viking day in Bergen, so we spent it on an e-bike tour of the city. It was cold and raining heavily. I was glad we had the clear day before although given a choice I would have rather had the sun for the bike ride. I’d never been on an e-bike but it wasn’t all that tough. As a matter of fact, it made the hills positively effortless which was good. When I saw the switchback route up the mountain I almost despaired. But all I had to do was turn on the turbo and I sailed right up. What was tough was navigating the puddles and slippery cobblestones. I wore my Irish fishermen’s cap and a waterproof jacket so my top half stayed more or less warm, but my jeans got soaked. I didn’t worry about splashing in puddles after a while; I couldn’t get any wetter. What I worried about was the crazy Lefty woman in front of me. At every stop when the guide would explain something to us she’d chime in with a “Well, we on the Left agree with you.” The guide looked a little puzzled because he hadn’t said anything political, but Lefty chose to take everything that way. And she got even more vocal about her politics. I think she even annoyed the people who agreed with her. (Can’t we do anything without a nasty comment or a lecture? Apparently not.) She was so far Left she couldn’t even make a right turn. After she keeled over in front of me on a right turn I made a point of staying ahead of her. I think she did an anti-right flop in front of Gordon and almost took him down. So we skirted her not only to avoid her political commentary but for our own safety. I don’t remember if she even finished with us. But once we got away from her the ride was as pleasant as it could be in a deluge. I think Gordon was glad he’d bought the jacket when he had the chance. It was perfect for the situation. Anyway, we saw where Grieg went to school. We saw the house of Dr. Hanson who discovered the cause of leprosy and devised a cure. We bounced through the fish market and turned our bikes in. We sloshed through the puddles on our way back to the Vela. It felt good to take a warm shower and put on dry clothes. Bergen is a lovely town although bouncing over the cobblestones was hard on my tailbone. I’m still recovering from that.
We enjoyed dinner and the show was more entertaining than I expected—partially because the ship had set sail on the North Sea and it was rough. The singers and dancers slid and stumbled over the stage, Then we all looked drunk as we staggered back to our rooms after the show. I noticed little satchels of barf bags in strategic places around the elevators and other public areas. We had to cling to the handrails to stay upright as we stumbled down the halls. I always thought they were just decorative, but we really needed them to maneuver. We took Dramamine so we didn’t get seasick, but I had a few urpy moments as I rolled around on the bed. I was glad I didn’t end up on the floor. The North Sea is really rough! But we’d had a long day so I fell asleep quickly.
View from the funicular on the way to the top of the hill
We made it to the top!