Bergen

Reporting on two days, 15 and 16 April
Saturday 15/4 – a scheduled at sea day and definitely relaxing, the sea wasn’t so bumpy. We could see several oil rigs on the horizon, a few boats through the day but otherwise nothing to see but the sea. I had a haircut, having also indulged in two pedicures over the fortnight, spoiling myself. We watched a movie, Pete did the washing (he loves self-service laundries and the odd people that frequent them, marvelling that people actually get anything clean because half of them don’t read the instructions then have a hissy because the machine won’t work), I went to a talk supposedly the presenter’s walking tour of Bergen but she was way off beam again rambling about a conference she’d attended sponsored by Cubans (I think that’s what she was talking about) and Nordic knitwear and how good it is, not a lot about Bergen. So just as well we went to the daily port talk, got much more out of that.

For dinner we had a booking at the Chef’s Table, a five course tasting menu with matched wines, an emphasis on Norwegian dishes including a REINDEER ravioli in reindeer consommé, and lamb farikal which is literally ‘sheep in a cabbage’ and was a very tender lamb loin wrapped in cabbage and I guess poached. Very nice too.

We went to the theatre for half an hour of music from the Filipino band and singers, then at 9.30pm the Captain came and thanked everyone for being the best passengers ever, and there was a farewell parade of staff from all sections. And then the resident four entertainers gave us The Beatles Songbook, so that had a couple of people singing along (I was one of them), they were really good, it was a great final night at sea.

Sunday 16/4 – Arrival in Bergen at last but I wish we had another few days on the cruise, it has gone so quickly and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. We were awake not long after 5am and had a great view of the sun coming up from our bed, the little islands in the fjord – definitely snow on the mountains and could see frost on the ground. It was truly beautiful, very peaceful. It took about two hours up the fjord to Bergen, docking just before 8am – we’d had breakfast by then and were ready for the day.

It was urgent ‘life admin’ first for Pete, he took a taxi to the station to sort our train bookings for Wednesday; he’d booked on line, we got half price for being old, BUT there was no option to choose seats and we ended up with one seat carriage 7, the other in carriage 2. Not ideal for a six hour trip. The lady at the station was really helpful, strictly speaking the tickets were non-refundable but realising they had been booked together, same booking number etc, she said it was all pretty strange and kindly moved us both to the same carriage. Phew. Then he went searching for a SIM card – our NZ roaming doesn’t roam in Norway, Poland or Denmark so we’re going to be difficult to contact apart from Email at times – being Sunday it wasn’t the easiest but he got one at a 7-Eleven and that’ll activate sometime Monday. He also sussed out our hotel which isn’t very far away, and walked back to the Jupiter.

In the meantime I’d taken my book and phone so spent the time checking and replying to messages, all the while enjoying a great view over the harbour, a few boats going to and fro, then decided I might go Spanish and have a ‘second breakfast’ – donut, spicy bun and a cuppa. Pete must have smelt the teapot because he turned up then and told me all about his adventures.

The ship was parked directly opposite the Bergenhus Fortress so we had time to have a look around. It’s a 13th century royal residence, currently a naval/military base with a museum, but also used by the King when he’s in town for receptions etc. And indeed the king has been in town, we’ve seen his ‘motorcade’ three times: one cop on a motorbike, one police car and four black cars. Just low key. He had been on board a beautiful tall ship, over 100 years old, that had come back to Bergen after 20 months at sea, parked just along from Jupiter. Anyway, we had a walk round the grounds, admired the line-up of cannons pointed into the ground so they wouldn’t have done much good in a raid, couldn’t get into the museum part but will try again. The fort is also used for concerts, past stars include Elton John and the Rolling Stones.

After lunch we took the included tour of the town, waterfront, through a huge tunnel to the next fjord and up high above the town – or really Bergen is a city but with all the beautiful old buildings it has a ‘town’ feeling. The population is a bit less than 300,000, it’s Norway’s second city after Oslo, country population is a bit more than 5 million. Norway was ruled by Denmark up until 1905, became independent, but the people still wanted a king so they asked Danish Prince Charles to become king, he changed his name and was then King Hakon.

We had three photo stops: an old church, though called the ‘new church’ where we only went into the crypt; the concert hall named for Edward Grieg, famous composer who, by the way, was only about five feet tall so his statue is life-sized. The hall is shaped like a giant piano, you can see it from the lookout on Mt Floyen; and the last stop was above the town looking down on the waterfront. The houses are like dolls houses, mostly wooden and similar-looking but there are a few very modern builds which look a bit out of place. It all seems clean and bright. The guide was doing her very first solo tour, she did ok, a couple of glitches but we got plenty of information without being over the top.

We had a half hour walk along the waterfront when we got back, I was interested to see the tall ship, and then we found the navy was doing a demo of a small ship so the inner child came out and I sat on the gun seat. Lots of people around, small stalls, nice to see everyone enjoying the sunshine.

Then it was time for our second tour of the day, this time to a farm a few k’s away on another arm of a fjord, beautiful setting for a tiny 130 acres ‘farm’, half of which was granite up the side of the mountain. Owner Arild met us and walked us through the property – they also run horse treks and other tours. The farm has been in the family for five generations since 1875; it was originally owned by the King of Norway, sold in 1663, had a couple of other owners before Arild’s family. He showed us his horses, quite rare old breeds (protected) which he’s keeping going to work on the farm and for commercial reasons. His ‘day job’ is teaching baking to prisoners in an effort to give them a trade when released, also business management so they know how to manage money.

He’s got a few coloured sheep, some baby lambs (ready…..aaaaaah……), told us about farm subsidies which used to pay out per animal on the farm and farmers apparently didn’t have many, then it was changed to animals sent to the works and suddenly the numbers changed. Norway used to import most of their lamb from New Zealand but hardly any now. An average dairy farmer would have maybe 20 – 25 cows, I couldn’t work out where they would get enough milk for the whole country. He talked about other business subsidies and said how important Norway’s oil production was, as well as gas, especially now with the Ukraine war. Only two or three years ago there was a lot of talk about cutting back on production for environmental reasons but that’s quietened down now.

https://www.ovre-eide.no/turisme The farmhouse has been restored but much of it is original, the oldest timber in it was dated to 1540, pine. The boards are thick, rough-hewn, amazing joints, and the room was quite dark red which is original to the house, they’d found samples during the reno. They’ve reclad the outside walls, put insulation in the middle, and rebuilt many stone walls especially the walls which would catch the worst weather.

Arild disappeared while our group of about 20 was served a selection of his baking, four different small cakes, very nice especially a sort of macaron which had quite a chewy centre. Little apple cakes were served with whipped cream, and we had a choice of tea, coffee, hot chocolate.

The big surprise was one of the young women serving us appeared with Arild, both in national costume, they did a short folk dance then he talked about the costumes which apparently can cost up to about USD6,000, can be inherited, can be a family design, regional, or just made up. Red stockings for unmarried women, black for married, lots of beading and very fine embroidery or drawn thread work on the shirt cuffs. Last was a short piano piece by Grieg, played by Arild – he’s a man of many talents.

I was especially keen to do this tour, my great grandfather sailed to New Zealand from Norway in 1875 with three siblings, had the general store in Chertsey. When we went to Oslo in 2015 with Jen we visited the Stange/Hanum area and a Genealogy contact had found the farms where my 4 x great-grandfather and the following generations had lived, it was a special time, and I was interested to get a bit more of an insight into Bergen and surroundings.

We had to finish our packing when we got back, bags had to be in the hallway for collection by 8pm ready for disembarking on Monday. Dinner was at Manfredi’s again, once again excellent food and it was nice to talk over the last fortnight’s adventures on the high seas (literally). Our last night on board, the two weeks had really flown.

I'll add farm photos in a second post.Read more