ByeBergen — Jim Winslett

Today was mostly a lazy day. We’ve been in Bergen a couple days already, so we’ve already done the tour and had a walkabout. Besides, it was raining all morning, so blah.

After brekkie, we headed down to the spa to soak in the hot tub a bit. We mostly had it to ourselves, save for a Canadian from Kitchener.

Once we’d had our soaks, a quick lunch led to Rob making a haircut appointment and me heading off for a walk in town. The rain had stopped and I figured it would be more interesting to walk around town than to walk around the ship. Besides, there were some nice trees I could see from the ship that I hadn’t noticed from the previous walks. These are them:

Reminder that you can click any image to see it complete on your screen without scrolling

From there, I headed away from the touristy area and into the residential area. Bergen is quite dense with narrow streets and houses perched on the hillside.

Since the purpose of today’s walk was exercise rather than scenery, I didn’t take the ‘good’ camera with me, so all the pics are from the phone.

The residential areas near the harbour are really nice.

Then, as you climb up the hillside, the buildings become a bit more plain.

Notice the cobblestone street there - it’s pretty steep, even if it’s hard to tell in the photo. I like how the edges of the street are smooth for tires to roll on, but the centre strip is almost stairstep-like, with protruding edges to give pedestrians better footing when the road is wet or icy.

The hillside is quite steep and it doesn’t take long before you can get a nice view between the trees.

A bit further up the hill, I found a playground with a killer tube slide!

say ‘killer’ because it’s not very big around and I’m 100% sure that I’d have friction burns on both my elbows if I’d had slid down it. Plus, it was obviously not made for someone 6 feet tall and I pictured myself getting wedged in that “S” turn in the middle. Not fun! I continued up the hill.

Much of the pathways were well-paved and tree-lined, so it would be a really nice walk if it weren’t so steep. This is one of the few sections that was flat enough to stop and take a picture.

Norway as a “right to wander” law - basically, you’re free to roam anyplace you like as long as there are no posted signs saying otherwise (such as around railroad tracks or other dangerous areas). This leads to free exploration of back alleys, footpaths, stairs, and any other place you might want to go… like this steep path that ended in stairs and a gate.

It was someone’s back yard, complete with dog house and a garden. I didn’t take photos of their private spaces, though, but it was pretty.

After about 2.5km of walking (mostly uphill), I crossed a bridge and saw this:

That’s the funicular I rode a couple days ago - and if this pathway goes up that mountain, I could ride the train back down rather than walk - a prospect that my legs were deliriously happy about. But I’m only about 1/3 of the way up. Oof.

After what seemed like an eternity of climbing (but probably only about a half hour) I see that I’ve reached the halfway point, which is where the two funicular cars pass each other.

Climb, climb, climb. Sometimes, you could shortcut out a switchback short via some stone outcroppings or exposed tree roots. Shorter, yes, but steeper and harder to climb. Not sure which was the better option. Eventually, I caught sight of the funicular again and could even see (I thought) the upper station.

But then things got a bit cruel. Rather than switchback up the hill some more, there was a long walk through a neighbourhood, then the path went around the back of the mountain for awhile with some isolated sections where you weren’t even sure if the path would end up at the train. I almost decided to head back, but then it started to rain very lightly and I could see clouds moving in. I figured that my choices were to press on and get to the train for a ride down, or walk back down the long way and (probably) get soaked before I got back to the ship. Onward and upward!

Another half hour and I could smell goats. I knew it was close!

And then there was the observation platform. Yay!

I’m still really glad I came up here for the sunset the other night. Much less crowded and the light on the water was beautiful.

Got my ticket for the trip down and walked back to the ship. Total for the day: just over 9km walked and the equivalent of 93 flights of stairs climbed. Whew!

We had martinis before dinner and then ate way too much. In our defence, they had some of the best onion soup we’ve ever had (the waiter said it’s a Viking specialty - and I had it on the first half of the cruise as well and knew it was delicious)

Now we’re just kicking back and thinking about finding a movie on the TV. That’s all for today, other than this nice sunset pic