Life begins at fjord-ty: Day 11 - Bergen

[wickesy]

Today’s Patter (click for full size)
Bergen Port Guide is in my Photobucket album - http://s158.photobucket.com/albums/t120/wickesy/Norwegian Cruise/Day 11/

Today was our last port and it was a short stop - arrive at 7:00 and leave at 2:00. We were up at 7:00 and went up for breakfast as usual. The ship had docked at the container port (we later found out that this was due to a cruise ship taking away half of the other pier when it left on 21st May) so we had to get a complimentary shuttle into the town centre.

It was raining when we arrived so, although the plan had been to go on the Floibanen funicular railway to the top of Mount Floien we instead opted to go for a wander around Bryggen, the oldest part of Bergen. It was still early and most of the shops were not open so we sat down under cover for a while hoping that the rain would ease off.

Once the shops opened at 9:00 we had a look round some more souvenir shops, had a wander through the fish market and went into the shopping mall by which time the rain had stopped. There was still a lot of low cloud but we decided to go on the Floibanen anyway just to say we had done it, and I was still hoping that the mist might clear.

We got to the top, had a look around the souvenir kiosk and still we couldn’t see the view of Bergen at all. As it looked like the cover wasn’t going to clear in the near future we decided to go back down again. We waited in the station for maybe 3 or 4 minutes and as soon as we boarded the next funicular and in accordance with Murphy’s Law, the cloud cover cleared and there were perfect views. We had been lucky enough to get right at the front of the train so I managed to get a few shots as we came down.

Continued in next post

 

[wickesy]

Once at the bottom we had another wander around Bryggen and bought a few souvenirs.

Then we wandered back through the fish market and back to the shuttle to the ship. We were back on board around noon and went up to deck 15 where we laid out for a while with a beer each and grabbed a bratwurst and chips from the Trident Grill. At 2:00 it was time for us to set sail bound for Southampton.

This is the top station of the Floibanen (that 61x zoom coming in handy again)

There was a sailaway party today to 'celebrate' our return to Southampton.

Continued in next post

 

[wickesy]

After sail away I had a wander around taking more pictures and doing my daily laps then went back down to the cabin at 3:00 to relax for a while.

This is the Explorers Lounge

Cocktails and dinner followed as usual and once again Dad and I had the same initial courses - quail and venison terrine followed by mushroom soup, followed by raspberry sorbet then cocoa spiced pork. For dessert Dad had amaretto ice cream and I had butter toffee ice cream then it was off to the International Café for brandies. We were in bed for 10:20 facing the prospect of our last full day on board tomorrow, which would be a sea day.

Day 12

 

[irongirlof12]

Very pretty houses and so clean everywhere

 

[Tammy Stringer]

Lovely pictures of Bergen David looks like another good trip - shame about the rain though

Tammy

 

[Chilly]

Bergan looks pretty

 

[mandymouse]

Bergan looks pretty

I agree, it's very picturesque

 

[loobzuk]

what a contrast between the first pictures of the day and the ones taken later on, hard to think it was the same day.

 

[wickesy]

what a contrast between the first pictures of the day and the ones taken later on, hard to think it was the same day.

I was a bit down at the start of the day because the weather was ruining all the plans for the day but it was nice wandering around once we came off the funicular.

 

[florida sun]

Such a pretty place, glad the weather turned out good in the end

 

[Terkina]

Looks like you had a nice stay in Bergen even if the weather wasn't the best. It's fun reading about your trip