BERGEN TO OSLO - NORWAY

27th - 29th May 2012

I dernt nerr hooo. Knut Knutson maybe.

A day and a half to kill in Bergen, and a very pleasant little city it is. It is the second largest city in Norway and about the size of Nether Wallop. Table 16 arranged to meet up for drinks and dinner to bid farewell to each other. RV 6.30pm at Chris and Pamela's hotel suite to polish of the remaining 'smuggled' booze and then on to what will no doubt be an expensive restaurant for supper. Everything in Norge is expensive.

Left: The first notable thing I saw in the harbour was  this German submarine,  a U-boat, 'das boot', which was 'just visiting'. Didn't they say that in 1941? I noticed several crew members staggering on board carrying large boxes which may have contained either beer ( doubtful, considering the prices in Norway ) or dried fish ( equally unlikely in the close confines of a sub ). Maybe stuff for their enigma machinen. So I don't know.






We went on a tour of the city. Lots of pretty wooden buildings, as per pic, which were mainly reconstructions from the Hanseatic period in the 15th century. Bergen was an administrative town for the old Hansa trading nations. Bergen has suffered at least one major fire when most of the original wooden buildings burnt down and, more recently, on 20th April 1944, coincidentally Hitler's birthday, a vast explosion when a Dutch ship carrying 120 tons of explosives accidentally? blew-up in the harbour. Many buildings were destroyed and 150 people killed, 5000 injured.
As mentioned earlier, Bergen was in the middle of a rare few days of warm sunshine. There are a lot of very pretty blonde girls in Bergen as was evident by the number of them bikini clad and sunbathing in every available park and garden. They were making the most of this almost freak meteorological phenomenon. "Phwooor...What A Scorcher!" as the Current Bun might have said.


Left: I found this delightful little 'pension' to stay at for the couple of nights I was here. The Skansen Pensjonat is it's name. By Norwegian standards it is cheap ( medium price by our standards ) and excellent service by a charming lady owner. It has received good write-ups in the Daily Telegraph travel supplement amongst other rags. Only draw-back is it is 'only' 200yds behind the funicular station at the end of the quay/city centre but that 200yds is up a 45º hill with zig-zag roads, so towing big luggage is exhausting. Better to take the funicular up one stop and let the luggage pull you down, as I discovered.

Right: Relaxing under an elk at another wooden shop. There is a strict no-smoking law in place here as you might imagine from their previous experience with fire in the town. Having said that there are relatively few days when the place is not seriously wet.

Left: There is a 'goood viooowe' from the station at the top of the funicular, and on the way up/down. Only £18 for a return journey. Cheap at the price for a 5 minute ride. It takes 20 mins to walk down.

We duly met for drinks and dinner, and the Californian Vikings came along too. A jolly evening was had by all.
Another day to be spent here and then on to Oslo by the stupendously panoramic and scenic "Norway in a Nutshell' route.
I will stop this blog here, and just leave a few photos of some of the journey to Oslo by train, bus and boat.
I will fill in the gaps when I have time and continue the next edition from Oslo. The reason for this hiatus is that I have just been called away on an urgent 'Top Secret and Dangerous Mission' ( TSDM ) which will interrupt my planned travels for about a week. You may hear from me after the 8th. Pip Pip.


OK. Back unscathed from TSDM and raring to go. Writing this in retrospect.
Self, Chris and Pamela decided to do the 'Norway in a Nutshell' trip from Bergen. This involves a rail journey from Bergen east across some fairly mountainous terrain and through many tunnels to Voss.  Then on by bus to Gudvangen followed by ship up a fiord to Flam. Then by a private train up the Flam Valley to Myrdal where I would take the train on to Oslo and Pamela and Chris would return to Bergen. Right: Our start point; the pleasant Bergen railway station. The train left at 0840hrs.




The train passes some picturesque lakes and fiords on the way to Voss, and normally you run into a tunnel just as you see a scene worth snapping. It is then by bus up steep terrain via the stunningly located Hotel Stalheim where, back at the beginning of the 20th century, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany always used to spend his holidays and other wealthy people still do. It really does have magnificent viooowes. We didn't stop at the hotel. This area is a classy skiing venue during the winter.





The drive down the other side negotiates a spectacular series of 30 zig-zag bends. One is left hoping that the driver has checked his brakes beforehand. It is only one-way; not possible to drive up the hill. Horses used to pull small carts up here and the passengers were asked to dismount to save the poor beasts too much effort.








Left: There are lots of vertical cliffs with waterfalls as per this one. There are even more vertiginous and sheer cliffs which are used by intrepid 'base jumping' parachutists in the summer. Eventually you get to the village of Gudvangen on the shore of a fiord ( which connects to the sea somewhere ) and board a smallish ship.












Right: Pamela trying on a bit of local millinery before boarding the ship.

Left: A view up the fiord at Gudvangen. It was all very scenic and many views like this. We were lucky with the weather.












Right: A sister ship of ours going t'other way. Good bar and restaurant on board ( restricted eating and drinking due to Norwegian prices ).












It was about a two hour cruise up the fiord passing a few villages and other boats en-route. Left: Approaching Flam where a large liner was docked.











Right: The liner turned out to be this one; the Costa Fortuna, which it undoubtedly did to travel in it ( silly name to give a cruise liner if you ask me ). Interestingly, this Italian vessel is a sister ship of the Costa Concordia. You know, the one which did a sail-past a bit too close to the shore somewhere off the Italian coast, hit rocks and sank. Maybe it is in hiding up here, but I saw passengers getting onto it. I bet they have double checked their life-boat stations.




There is a railway museum and some smart bars and refreshment facilities at Flam. The Flam to Myrdal railway took twenty years of back-breaking work to construct. It was finally completed in 1920 and is one of those switch-back railway systems negotiating steep gradients up the spectacular Flam valley. It is operated now by a private and very tourist orientated company. Left: The train. One of two because we passed the other coming in the opposite direction. The museum tells the story of the line's construction.




Right: An example of one of the seriously steep zig-zag roads leading up a part of the valley. The railway did a bit of zig-zagging too, as well as going through lots of long tunnels. It must have been a right bugger of a track to lay. I think the train journey took about an hour and a half ( at slow speed ), and the railway took twenty years to build.

The 'commentator' was banging on about some beautiful sirens or nymphs who allegedly haunt the valley and seduce travellers. At some point we stopped and were encouraged to get out for a smoke break. Left: Lots of Oriental tourists on board who leapt out with their cameras....

.......to photograph this stonking great waterfall. There was some supposedly haunting music playing and eventually I noticed a woman prancing about on the top of the ruined building to the lower right of the photo. ( enlarge to see ). I assumed it was one of the more lunatic tourists who had decided to fling herself into the foaming brine a la 'darling Clementine'. I was later informed that this was an attempt to enact the behaviour of aforementioned mythical 'sirens' of the valley. Hey Ho!
The train then continued on uphill to Myrdal. It was indeed a remarkably impressive and comfortable journey. Recommended.
The train on to Oslo took five and a half hours and that too went on further up into the mountains, well up above the snow line. It was another impressive journey with majestic scenery before descending towards Oslo. As with all these Scandinavian trains ( that I have experienced ), they are more comfortable than the UK models. Many less irritating announcements, a smooth ride, good buffet and/or dining car and noticeably much more space in the seats and greater leg room. Very relaxing.
I got into Oslo Central at 2230hrs. More to come from there.

HURTIGRUTEN - NORWAY ( Part 4 )

26th - 27th May 2012

Bergen

Days 5 and 6 ( 26th/27th ) on the Hurdigurdi voyage took us from Trondheim to Bergen via several other places. The weather was beginning to get warmer and the sea remained calm. The ship stopped at Tronheim early morning. I stopped in bed...getting lazy.  I found someone had left my ‘certificate’ for re-crossing the Arctic Circle outside my door. A document to be treasured I’m sure. I gathered at breakfast from those that went ashore that Trondheim has a nice cathedral, and that the streets were covered in litter following some celebration or other the previous evening. There were probably racks of stinking cod drying there too.

Left: This little islet was somewhere of the coast south of Trondheim and had what once was a fort on it. It is now a popular place to get married. Lots of these sort of places to view and of course they all had names and histories attached, but I didn’t take enough notes and anyway I’m not in the business of writing a definitive guide book ( get one if you are that interested ). I merely wish to give you a flavour of the journey, and myself a reminder.

Right: Like this ex-lighthouse called Agdenes, built in 1804 and closed in 1984. So I must have been paying attention at this point. Before I forget, I wish to correct a statement from a previous Hurdigurdi blog. The toothless reindeer on parade at the North Cape was, someone told me, 14 years old not 40! 

Left: Our ‘Table 16 Gang’ at lunch. From left to right; Helen, from Stirling, married to Iain. She is a very jolly lady who at one point worked for that excellent publishing company in Dundee, DC Thompson. They are the outfit which produces, amongst other publications, the Beano and runs the Dennis the Menace Fan Club of which, many years ago, I was a staunch member. Bill, a retired Political Science lecturer and historian who writes books. He is now a ‘trustee’ of his home town Brockport in Noo Yawk State. A very erudite man and good company. Pamela and Chris, now living in Spain, who had been big in coffee and did rather well selling their company. Pamela had also been a nurse and Danair hostie. She was suffering from a bad cold and a broken wrist and later on a broken toe. Despite that they were most cheerful and amusing and, along with me, enthusiastic conveyors and consumers of illicit drink. They had purchased a couple of ‘ship’s coffee mugs’ which on one or two occasions even contained coffee. Iain, married to Helen, is a retired architect and kept us highly amused by his staunch Scots Nat enthusiasm and invective directed against the English and, for some reason, Terry Wogan.

Right. Kristiansund, into which we pulled in that afternoon. It has ‘Kristiansund’ emblazoned in big white letters on the left-side green hill. We went ashore there and wandered. Not really much to see. A pleasant enough place I suppose.

Left: A curious statue in Kristiansund. I don’t suppose there is much of the year when this sort of dress is appropriate.

One of the useful features of this ship is that it has a laundry room with free use of simple to operate washers and driers. I made full use of it with quite a backlog of dirty clothes. 

We also encountered a family, mother and two daughters, whom we christened the Californian Vikings. They somehow became loosely attached to the 'table 16' gang. The mother, Anastasia, had been a parachute rigger in the US Navy in Hawai and the Phillipines as well as a sportswear model and her two daughters, Alexandra and Karina, had recently completed university in Berkely near San Francisco. They have Norwegian relations and connections and were very tall and blonde; hence the Viking moniker. They were most entertaining company too.

It was our last night on board and nothing out of the ordinary except that the Eurovision Song Contest was being shown on wide-screen TV at one end of the Piano Bar, and the England v. Norway footy match at the other. Between them they attracted quite a few watchers. Our new American friends ( Bill and the Californian Vikings ) were fascinated by the Eurovision Song Contest in all it’s awfulness. I think, with a few drinks breaks, we saw it through to the bitter end with United Kingdom and Norway fighting it out for last place. The Norwegian commentator was rather a let down, not least because we couldn’t understand him. Iain does not approve of this contest because Scotland is not ‘individually’ represented, yet. It’s bad enough without bagpipes as far as I can see.

Right: Another large rock. It is surprising how many of these things there are around the area. The zig-zag route these ships take often through narrow channels demands skilfull navigation especially in the winter months when it is always dark. I suppose it is made easier nowadays with accurate GPNS systems, but imagine the difficulties in years gone by, in bad weather, in pitch dark and only a chart and compass to guide you. 

The next day, Sunday, the weather was getting warm and sunny. There is a salt water swimming pool ( left ) on the back end of the ship. I didn’t see it being used much. There are also two outdoor jacusis ( one to the left of this swimming pool ) which were surprisingly well used even in the earlier Arctic conditions often by half naked and substantially built women who wandered shamelessly around the deck before plunging in and virtually emptying the thing.

It became sunny and quite warm ( I kept a light sweater on ), but to the Norwegians it must have seemed like a heat wave. Right: Some cod drying in the sun.

Left: On approach to Bergen harbour, the final destination of our Hurdigurdi cruise. Still no mention, let alone sighting, of the famous Norwegian Blue parrot. I received a comment that it does not exist! The commentator said that there are puffins in Norway which are sometimes called 'sea-parrots'. Nonsense! You could not do a dead 'puffin' sketch. They would laugh at you.

Recalling M Python again, I suppose someone will now tell me there's no such thing as 'Norwegian beaver cheese' either.

Right: The remarkably warm weather had brought out the Bergen citizenry en-masse to sunbathe. This sunny weather is indeed unusual for this place where they boast of getting 250 days of rain a year. This view is of of some club or restaurant by the harbour. They were scantily dressed and hard at it.

Before we approached Bergen we had been given lots of instructions of how to disembark without causing crowds and with maximum efficiency by our irrepressible ‘Tour Manager’ ( don't call me a courier, so we did ) Peter. How we shall miss his jokes.

Our luggage was taken ashore for us and it all worked seamlessly.

So that was the end of the 6 day north to south Hurtigruten cruise. I think it was a worthwhile experience; comfortable, enjoyable and even a bit educational. It would be even better if they reduced the price of their drinks, but I think that is a penalty you pay wherever you are in Norway.

HURTIGRUTEN - NORWAY ( Part 3 )

24th - 25th May 2012

Lots more fjords and other remarkably narrow bits of water were passed through on Day 3 when we went from Finnsnes to Stamsund via another five harbours. I'm not absolutely sure how to spell 'fjord', it may be 'fiord', perhaps it could be either. The weather was a bit murky but the sea remained dead calm.
Got off the ship for a wander at a couple of the stops with unpronounceable names, but nowt much of interest to see or do.

There is a Hurtigruten museum at the town of Stokmarknes which I popped into. Quite interesting. There is a mock-up of a ship's galley over which was slumped an unconscious looking chef! Not sure what that was meant to represent, but not a good advert for the culinary standards. There was also a ship, coincidently called MS Finnmarken, propped up on blocks outside ( right ). Looks as if she has seen better days.

In the afternoon I was booked onto what was termed a 'sea-eagle safari'. Actually it turned out to be a rather jolly excursion and the weather improved for the occasion.


We were transferred mid-fjord via a gangplank from the car deck to a small boat ( left ). Nobody fell in. This boat then sped away from the mother ship. There was hot coffee and biscuits on board which were welcome later on. It was still quite chilly.











Up another increasingly narrow fjord ( right ) we went and were joined by a flock of seagulls. The two girl crew on deck were there to attract them, but more importantly the eagles, by dispensing bread for the seagulls and fish for the eagles. One of the girls could make strange whistling noises which might have helped.








The seagulls, being greedy, took the bread from the girls' hands. I presume they get this feast every day at the same time. There was a constant formation of them flying alongside.











The sea-eagles ( white-tailed eagles, not condors; I asked ) were not slow to appear either.  They are accustomed to their regular tea meal as well.  They circled the boat and waited for a fish to be thrown.










They were pretty quick at diving down to get it. It is not easy to photograph this. Most of my shots were 'aeroplanes out of sight', so to speak.
I suppose we attracted about ten of these eagles over a period of an hour and a half. I snapped a few of them so you can view the rather poor results. I don't think I would make a good wild-life photographer.










Once or twice they even caught the fish mid-air.














One more boring eagle pic. I expect the people wielding cameras with mega-lenses on them got some excellent shots.












Right: The scenery up these little waterways with big vertical cliffs above is most attractive. There are even some small houses up there.













Left: ...and some waterfalls.
While taking these shots I turned around and, would you believe it......













Right: ......the goddamn mother-ship was following us down this narrow channel! It is a big ship and really didn't have much room to spare either side.











Left: It came into a narrow inlet which was a dead-end.













Right: Then had to do a three-point turn to get out. Quite skilful handling. We were sitting watching and waiting for it to get it's paintwork scratched.
It got away unscathed. I expect this is a well practised manoeuvre.










On our way to re-join the Finnmarken at the town of Svolvaer we came across a pod of orca whales. There were four of them. We all saw them but you try photographing them! When the shutter goes click they are back under water. Left: This is all I got; a snap of an orca dorsal fin. They were, believe me, an impressive sight.








Right:  A final shot of a sea-eagle perching on a marker pole. It didn't budge; probably too full up from the recent feast.















Left: On approaching the harbour at Svolvaer we passed some smart little houses behind which were extensive frames on which were strung drying cod for 'stock fish' or 'klippfisk', I think its called. These frames are in all the fishing ports and the production of this dried fish is an important money earner. By crikey it stank! Presumably the locals get used to it, but to a passing tourist it fair took the breath away. Essence de Poisson, by Givenchy.
Back on board I had supper alone because my table-mates had gone on a separate bus tour around some of the islands here; the Lofoten Islands. Apparently they are very beautiful and much used by artists for the quality of the light, or something. I could still smell those stinking cod.
Woke up a bit late the next morning, Day 4, and had missed the 9.00am ceremony on the top observation deck for passing back south through the Arctic Circle. I'd forgotten that this was due to happen. Apparently it involved taking photos of the globe type monument on the shore which marks the latitude, being presented with a spoon out of which you had to drink some cod-liver oil and also a certificate. I had a leisurely breakfast instead. Today we were travelling between Bodo and Rorvik.

A stop at Sandnessjoen where we were told over the PA by our ever attentive 'Tour Manager' ( he loves doing his PAs, in several languages too, and specialises in bad jokes ) that there is a statue of a famous 'turkey man' in the main street. It was a good opportunity to stretch the legs with the others and we wandered past a statue of a famous local 'clergyman' ( right ). Name escapes me.













Left: The table 16 gang posing around the statue of a gallant Norwegian admiral who, amongst other victories over German shipping, took part in the sinking of the Scharnhorst. From left to right: Chris and Pamela, Viseadmiral Skule V Storheill, Helen, Bill and Ian.









Right: At some point in the afternoon we passed this mountain with a hole in the middle. Quite well known, but I have forgotten it's name.












That evening it was the Captain's Farewell Dinner. We were not leaving for  another two days but many of the pax were getting off at Trondheim the next morning; so the Dinner was to include them. It involved a speech by Captain Anders ( "..anders juss like to say, hic, whataluvvly bunch of pashhenzers yooos been, you're the BESHT lossof passss, hic, engagers aysseverad...."etc. ). Plus a parade of the Mess Staff ( left ) and even some indoor fireworks before bringing on the pudding.

We adjourned to the Piano Bar afterwards where we ( or at least I ) got caught, much against ship's rules, pouring out our illicit smuggled drink. They go to considerable lengths to protect the sales of their grossly overpriced drinks. We were getting a bit blasé  I must admit. The stroppy barman gave me a bollocking and even threatened to confiscate our illicit alcohol if he saw any in future and maybe make us walk the plank afterwards. It will not deter us. Nobody can afford to drink much of their stuff at the prices they charge. It shouldn't be kept behind a bar, it should be put in a safe!
Two more days on board and it all seems to be going well so far.