September 15, 2015

 

 

Bye-bye Norway

Does it ever stop raining here?  We have read some of Norwegian author Jo Nesbo’s books and as an Oslo snob he likes to beat up Bergen over the rain.  According to Nina the Bergen Burghers don’t care much for the Oslo folks either.  It is a northern west coast city and like Portland and Seattle it will get its share of weather.  It is just dripping a little as we are down earlier today to attack the breakfast buffet.  Mary is fully into Herring and salmon at this point and she reminds John to leave a little for the other guests.

We drag our luggage down the hill to the bus terminal for an 8:15 Flybussen to the airport.  Everything is right on time and we get to experience rush hour traffic from the center heading east to the airport.  Everything really moves well here even though there aren’t multi-lane expressways.  We have seen two stop signs in Norway since our arrival and a couple traffic lights in the center cities.  Otherwise every intersection is a round-about or a yield.  Because the flow is pretty even—no big rushes of traffic on green lights--the merging into and out of traffic circles is very smooth.  We like it a lot.

We’re on our way to meet Sister Pat (a relative, not a nun) in Helsinki, Finland.  We have an hour to Stockholm, and hour layover and another hour flight to Helsinki.  We also lose an hour on the way which will make it late afternoon when we reach our destination.

Since we’re now in the back of the plane where we belong Mary grabs a little of her “flight medicine” from the duty-free in Bergen.  That makes a nice addition to the in-flight coffees on both our segments.  All is uneventful, all connections are smooth, and our luggage arrives promptly.  It would have been nice to have clear skies to catch the great views in and out of these port cities but there isn’t much we can do about that.

We grabbed the Finnair bus from the Helsinki airport into the city.  It really looks very big and very pleasant.  Pat is waiting at the bus terminal when we arrive.  She has already checked into our hotel for the night and sort of knows the ropes.  Guess what?  It’s drizzling. 

Pat guides us the 10 minute walk to the hotel and we find check-in on the 6^th floor.  The elevator holds the three of us and our two suitcases with perhaps an inch to spare.  We sacrificed room size for budget and location on this stop but little did we know.  The room is the size of a cruise ship cabin and the bathroom is smaller.  The bathroom is one of those unique Scandinavian designs which incorporates the sink, toilet and shower all into the space of the shower.  There is a curtain you can pull across the bathroom door and clothes hooks to keep your towel dry while you shower.  We think of ways to combine all of our activities into one which is funnier in concept than in reality.

Pat is dragging with jet lag—she arrived this morning--and while we want to take a little walk around town she needs to get a bit of a nap.  The guy at the front desk has recommended a couple “pub” style restaurants for dinner tonight, both about 3 blocks away.  We looked into a few windows and decide on “9” for at least a beer and to check out the menu.  We still aren’t sure and then the place starts to fill up and we see some pretty good food appearing from the kitchen.

We have another beer and Mary gets the chorizo pasta, Pat has a chicken yellow-curry stir fry and John has a salmon stir fry with noodles—all excellent.  Once again we are lucky to find some really good food without the effort of a dress-up restaurant.

Still drizzling!  Do we need a spot for a nightcap on the way back to the hotel?  After looking in a few spots we stop at a pub across from the hotel and grab beers.  The two guys tending bar have very little interest in being there and as more people come in they tend to move slower and pretty soon there is a line at the bar.  Now even slower.  We have to leave before Mary gets into supervisor mode.

We make plans to meet Pat in the morning and curl up on our army cots for the night.  Hello Finland!

What did we learn today?   You can use your phone in selfie mode as a mirror to see if you have any spinach in your teeth.

September 14, 2015

Beautiful Bergen

The forecast is for cloudy with periods of rain today.  We have a few things on our list but not a full day so we can take our time and dodge showers if we must.

It’s 9:30 before we saunter down to breakfast.  It is a nice spread of eggs, sausages and all the great Norwegian breakfast items—dark bread, smoked salmon, herring, geitost cheese, fruits, vegetables, ham, muesli and yogurt.  Mary goes right for the herring, salmon, dark bread and fruit.  John goes for the whole buffet.  A fella’ needs his energy.  Lots of coffee and juice complete the picture.  The breakfast hours are until 10:00 but they are still replacing and refilling items at 9:55—that’s a pretty high level of service.

Our two “musts” today are the old town (Bryggen), a Unesco World Heritage site, and Floyen, the tip-top perch above the city for spectacular city and water views. It isn’t raining when we leave so we head right for the funicular up to Floyen.  The line is over a block long out the building with tons of tour groups and people holding up paddles.  Being no fools we decide to wander around Bryggen first.

This old port city was ruled by Hanseatic League merchants for a few hundred years between the 15^th and 18^th centuries. These international traders populated the port cities of Europe dominating trade and actually forming their own navies and armies to protect their wares.  There is still a lot of Hansa-this and Hansa that throughout Northern Europe that are directly descended from the league.

The structures are wooden and pretty well preserved.  The old trading houses of the merchants and guilds are now populated by trading houses of tourism businesses.  There are cute little shops, markets, restaurants and other services which makes for a fun morning of just nosing around. At one point Mary decided to find a rest room which required a 10-krone coin.  We were both reading coins in our pockets when a bystander, obviously frustrated with our ignorance walked over and dropped a tenner into our hands (that’s $1.20).  Tusen takk sir!  Of course the coin didn’t work when Mary dropped it into the slot so she just waited for someone to come out and then grabbed the door to go in.

It is a little after noon when we go back to the funicular to find almost no one in line.  Apparently the tours get going in the morning and again mid-afternoon.  There are two cars running back and forth on a single track with a bypass in the middle.  The views on Floyen are as spectacular as advertised.  Bergen is surrounded by 7 mountains with the city in a valley reaching down to the North Sea.  Our aerie is at a couple thousand feet offering vantage points for every direction.  This is understandably the number one tourist attraction in Bergen.

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway and the comfortable center we have become familiar with we now see stretching a few miles inland.  Around a corner from the center and beyond our hotel on the far side is another large port where a massive cruise ship is docked.  There are also a couple smaller cruise ships docked at wharves farther out—probably for fjord trips.  Now we know where all the tour groups came from on a rainy Monday.

There is a sign on a tree that says, “Don’t insult the witch.”  A group of French men and women are trying to figure out what it says and they ask Mary.  She goes into her witch routine and they immediately understand what a witch is—imagine that.  We browse a bit in the restaurant/bar and it looks like this is a lunch stop for some of the tours.

It begins to rain lightly as we are wrapping up on top so our timing is perfect.  The afternoon tour groups are also starting to appear which is our cue to get back in line for the ride back down.

The rest of the afternoon is just spent appreciating more of central Bergen.  We visit stores, parks, monuments, stroll through the university.  We blow off lunch since one of us ate most of the breakfast buffet and the other doesn’t eat much and opt for an early dinner after a bit of a rest in our room.

We were so enamored with Pingvinen last night that we dangerously decide to go back.  We again find seats at the bar and the same bartender recognized us bringing our English menus right away.  John orders the lamb and spinach sausages with mashed potatoes and cauliflower, and Mary has the open faced smoked salmon and scrambled egg sandwich.  Like last night we trade plates halfway through dinner.  While we both finished each other’s dinners last night, the sausage was too much lamb and not enough spinach for Mary so we traded back and everybody was happy.  The beers are good and the encore was as good as the original performance.

We stroll around town for the rest of the evening and finish it siting on a bench on the water in Bryggen watching the boats and the rest of the world drift by.  We finally wandered back up the hill to our hotel for a brownie and tea before bed.

What did we learn today?  There is a cart in Bergen where you can get a reindeer hot dog or a chili dog.  That means you could get a reindeer chili dog—the ultimate in fusion cuisine.

September 13, 2015

Moving Day

Our 3 day stay with family in Stavanger is about the average length of stops on this trip, although this one will be harder to leave.  Usually after 3 days we have gleaned some sort of understanding of the destination and have engraved the sights, sounds and smells into a brief but lasting picture.  Once you get past three or four days you get into some depth, lesser museums, neighborhoods and the more subtle nuances which can take years to master.  Our visits might be on the superficial side but we try to pay attention and learn as much as we can.

In spite of a pretty hard night little Thilde is a smiling bustle of activity this morning.  So far she has looked at the intruders and then at her parents wondering why these people were still in her house.  This morning she seems pretty happy to see us and John & Mary take turns bouncing her around and making her giggle.  In the normal flow of the house Patrick speaks only English and Nina speaks only Norwegian when Thilde is around.  The book says that she will develop speech a little later but will be multi-lingual as soon as she does.

There is a big spread on the dining room table with more pancakes, breads, smoked salmon, liver pate, cheeses, blended fresh strawberries, cucumbers, fruits and more.  We’re getting spoiled.  We’ve booked a 10:45 bus for Bergen so there is no dilly-dallying or sleeping late today.  We seem to have conquered jet lag and should be back on schedule.  We try to tell our hosts how smart, energetic, hard-working and beautiful they are as well as wonderful parents but it just comes out as, “we’re so proud of you.”

It’s hugs all around and Patrick pulls up the chariot for the short run into the central Stavanger bus station where the larger chariot awaits.  It’s a 5 hour haul to Bergen with winding roads through pretty dramatic country as well as a couple ferry rides.  All the guide books tell us to fly if you must, take the train if you want to sleep, but take the bus if you want to see Norway.  The bad news is that it is overcast with off and on rain which are not the best conditions for getting the big picture.  It looks just like, well, Norway.  Cute rustic cottages, the occasional sheep, lots of water and rolling green hills.  This area is pretty temperate (no snow in Stavanger last winter) so it doesn’t take the weather beating that might be more frequent in other parts of the country.

On ferry number 2 we decide to eat something to hold us over until later.  John sees brats on the menu and orders a couple but the fellow behind the counter says, “No brats for you.”  Or it was something like that.  He perhaps suggests something else and when John nods he gets two bacon wrapped hot dogs (Polse mit brod?).  Mary hates limp bacon so she pries it off and piles it on John’s and everyone is sort of happy.

We’re due in Bergen at 3:45 and when we pull into a pretty big town at 3:00 we wonder where we might be.  It was Bergen.  Maybe we hit the ferries better than usual.  It’s raining again and although it’s supposed to be an 8 minute up-hill walk to our hotel we’re a little unsure about direction and grab a taxi. The ladies at the Park Inn are very welcoming, give us a map of the city and some dinner recommendations.

After unpacking and settling in we decide to have a low-key evening, grab a quick bite and retire to a book and bed pretty early.  It has stopped raining when we go out which leads us to a longer walk around this very beautiful city.  Parks, fountains, mountains, beautiful harbor, music playing, lots of people wandering around—what’s not to like.

We eventually refocus and start looking for dinner.  A bacon polse mid brot only goes so far as you all well know.  Nina went to school here and has given us a couple recommendations, and when we asked at the hotel for typical Norwegian food in a casual atmosphere they recommended “Pingvinen” the penguin.  We grab a couple seats at the bar, look at the menu and decide we are in the right place.  John has the meatballs with mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, mashed peas and lingonberries.  Mary gets the fish and macaroni casserole with little baby potatoes and vegetables.  Both of those were hard choices because we saw many other things on the menu we would like to try so there may be another visit in our future.  Service was good (sitting at the bar), the food was great and it didn’t break the bank ($70).

There are brownies, tea and coffee out at our hotel so we do dessert there and tuck it in for the night.

What did we learn today? The statue of fiddler Ole Bull in Bergen is the same as the statue of Ole Bull in Loring Park in Minneapolis.