British Isles Explorer: Bergen, Norway (4/7/2022)

Thursday, April 7, 2022

A new day, a new country, a new currency, a new language! Since Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland is only about 251 miles from Bergen, Norway, that is where we ended the British Isles Explorer cruise. Lerwick is 751 miles from London by sea, and 349 miles from Edinburgh/Leith.

View from our stateroom, which was on the port side

They are hooking up all kinds of hoses to the Viking Venus

View along Vågen, the bay cutting into
the city of Bergen in the north

Yes, there is a submarine down there

We visited Bergen in 2018 when we took the Viking Homelands cruise. For that reason, we skipped the included shore excursion (another motorcoach tour), and went to see a couple things we had missed in the earlier trip.

Håkonshallen/Haakon's Hall (mid 1200s, in Gothic style)
was the royal residence and banquet hall

Rosenkrantztårnet/Rosenkrantz Tower
(1560s) was covered with scaffolding in 2018;
this time we could see the three slits
through which cannon could be fired; it is
interesting to note that the cannons do not face
the sea, rather they point toward the once
German-owned warehouses on the Bryggen wharf

A sleek black yacht, Shinkai (2021, designed by Vitruvius),
is a superyacht that has its own three-man submarine,
plus two tenders, and a Toyota Land Cruiser

The Shinkai (meaning 'Deep Sea' in Japanese) is registered in Jaluit, an atoll in the Marshall Islands. "It was believed to be owned by Russian millionaire Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a former KGB agent." The Shinkai was docked in Leith, Scotland from about January 16 to March 9, and has been moored here in Bergen since March 10.

A repurposed telephone booth:
"Take a book, give a book"

It's a little free library!

Sjømannsmonumentet/Seamen's Monument
(1950, by Dyre Vaa) honors Norwegian
sailors from the time of the Vikings
to the 20th century (KSS)

Bronze reliefs of different eras:
here is 19C whaling and shipbuilding (KSS)

The city was filling planters with pansies

A COVID-19 test station in Festplassen

In Festplassen we caught bus #6, and fortunately we could purchase tickets with cash (a total of 40 Norwegian Kroner/$4.80 for two 90-minute tickets)! We disembarked at the Ulriksdal bus stop, crossed the street and headed uphill. It was a 10-minute walk, but we felt like we walked halfway up Mount Ulriken!

There was snow on the ground

We reached the Ulriksbanen/now Ulriken643 lower station,
and purchased round-trip tickets from a vending machine
(a total of 690 NOK/$79.21) 

Going up on the same gondola was a small group from our Viking Venus. I do not know how much they paid for this shore excursion, but I do not remember any optional excursion being less than $80 per person.

The cable car system was apparently totally
replaced, and in 2021 the Ulriken643
opened using the largest gondolas in Norway

We entered the 'Bruse' gondola, and prepared to be
raised to 643 m/2,110' above sea level

Everything already looks tiny as we begin the trip

Well, you can see the spread of the city of Bergen

We are above the tree line, and below are steps
for those who walk up the mountain!

Kent with a column containing a line from the
Song of Bergen (1790, by Johan Nordahl Brun)

The line is: "Sorgen forgik mig paa ulrikens top/
The sorrow left me at the top of the
Ulriken" (Mt Ulriken is the highest of the
seven mountains surrounding Bergen)

Communications tower atop Mt Ulriken

Panoramic view from Mt Ulriken

The other gondola is named 'Bella'

The "thing" to do at the top of Mt Ulriken is to have tea
and a cinnamon bun; it appeared the Viking group
had to pay for their own refreshments as well!

We settled for hot chocolate and a 7Fyell IPA beer
with our cinnamon bun (total of 235 NOK/$25.94)

A small group of preschoolers arrived to have
their snack outdoors!

Time to head back down the mountain, passing those
steps again; our gondola also had two local women
who had just walked up Mt Ulriken, something
they do a few times per week!

This tower remains unidentified

Who in the United Staes would allow a group
of young kids to walk on an uneven wall?

We noticed that some of the transport
were trolley buses (by Solaris/Škoda Electric)

As of December 2021, Bergen has a 100% fossil-fuel free bus network.

Articulated MAN biogas-powered bus (biogas is
produced from biodegradable materials (biological waste,
 sewage sludge and landfill gas) including purification
to get a gaseous fuel (bio-methane); apparently one of the
biggest problems is that demand will outgrow supply:
so everybody needs to poop more!

Having taken the bus back to Festplassen, we decided not to walk all the way back to the ship, then all the way back to Festplassen to take the light rail train to Fantoft. We went to a 7-Eleven to purchase light rail tickets, this time for 80 NOK/$9.60 round trip. And went straight to the light rail train.

Light rail car ceiling of children's art

In Fantoft I asked a gentleman, "Fantoft Kirk?" and he asked me to speak English! He directed us uphill to the Fantoft Stave Church. Guess who we saw at the church? The same group from Viking Venus who were up on Mt Ulriken! They did not recognize us from Mt Ulriken, and wondered how we got there from the ship (walked?!). It's about 5 miles!

Fantoft Stave Church is a 1992-1997 reconstruction of
an 1879 church that was moved to this location to
save it from demolition, then burned by arson; the stone
cross is from southern Norway

A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church
building, named for its post and lintel construction

A section of the 1879 church

The Viking Venus group took off in their little mini-bus, and we walked back to the light rail station.

Bybanen/Light rail (2008-2010) uses Stadler Variobahn trams

Back in Bergen, a fish market

Norwegian fisherman statue
at Jack's Country Saloon

Former Kjottbasaren/Meat Market (1872)

The row of reconstructed brick warehouses

An ancient hoist crane?

The wooden warehouses

Lifesaving equipment station?

This is what we were able to complete of the
1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle

Tomorrow morning we will disembark the Viking Venus and be transferred to the Bergen Airport. Our flights will take us to Amsterdam, then Boston, before we arrive home in Philadelphia.