A new adventure - now in Norway

It’s already 9.30 (8.30 in the UK) and I haven’t written anything yet...so will quickly recount our day. Woke in our very perfectly handy to the airport hotel in Edinburgh, and we about to get the tram the one stop to the airport when the checkout person said it was cheaper to get a taxi - £12 for the taxi, and £6 per person for the tram!! Good advice - there is airport surcharge, like Sydney, for the airport tram.....anyway, we got to the airport and caught our Loganair flight, in a small 40 passenger jet with a tartan tail, to Bergen. Arrived about 2.30 and got the light rail into the city after negotiating the ticket machine - Amr is always a whiz at that - and also he found which stop to get off at as his SIM works in Norway as well as UK and he could google it....and we alighted and immediately actually saw the hotel about 300 metres away...perfect when you arrive in a strange place and are illiterate in their language (though they aren’t in ours...).

Anyway, great hotel, very Scandinavian - clean and well designed, and central. We are here for 2 nights, then leave on our boat on Saturday. Our impression as we arrived was that everything looked new and clean - no immediately visible old historic type buildings that you associate with European towns. Very picturesque and of course Bergen is surrounded with high hills/mountains and the trees are very prettily changing colour. We all walked round the town a bit after depositing bags in rooms etc, and it is as attractive a town as it is reputed to be...

We walked to where the Hertigruten boats leave, and decided it was rather a long way to lug bags when we leave, but it was an easy walk, and then we walked more looking for places to eat dinner, and have a glass of wine. Rather surprisingly there aren’t all that many places - I mean lots of eateries, be except for Italian and Asian restaurants they appear ridiculously expensive.. we knew this, but the most extreme was a place that certainly wasn’t fine dining which had a menu outside which listed hamburgers at $AU 100!! - but it included French fries!! They weren’t all like that of course, but not may cheap and cheerful places that appealed. We ended up at a buzzing nice Italian place, but even that was a lot...I won’t go on and on about cost, this is life in Norway and we knew this, but I do find it so contrasting to other places - makes the UK seem so reasonable, and as for France and Spain....

So after we had quite an early dinner, as we found we were hungry having not had lunch as we were travelling then and sort of forgot, Carole and John wandered back to the hotel, and we walked round a bit more (which was when we did some checking of the eateries) - it was so beautiful in the setting sunlight . And everyone is extremely friendly and helpful and English-speaking.

So I think we are going to enjoy our Scandinavian sojourn!Read more