Bergen

First, a relief that my legs look better with the angry red botches fading. Don't know what it was and don't care. Bob says it's the meanness coming out of me.

We were docked in port which looked like pictures I've seen of a Mediterranean City with stacked buildings going up the side of the mountain. It was another lovely day and we again learned how fortunate we were as some say it rains in Bergan 366 days a year. Oh and we heard that Tromso, the industrial town where we walked to the city center, just had a summer snow storm. I'm glad we missed that!

We stepped out the door to go to breakfast before going ashore and saw Sheree (from the Philippines) our house keeper, who is always so cheery to us with the greeting, "Good morning, Mum Cherie and Sir Bob. Do you need anything? Have a fun day." Seriously, our day is - get up and go to breakfast while Sheree cleans our room. Go off to enjoy an adventure. Come back to the ship for snacks, a rest and clean up. Go to an elegant dinner, chat with friends and go to a great show. Then come back to find our bed turned down and a little newspaper telling about the next day. How can you top that! We're spoiled!

There were four ships in Harbour so the streets and shops were crowded. It was fun walking down the cobblestone streets exploring. We, of course, saw a McDonalds, but the decor kept with the city's style. There were so many beautiful, expensive and unusual things in the little shops along the waterfront street. Then, the Old Town section was down narrow streets and allies and was rustic with reindeer skins, antlers, fur hats and muffs, moose skin clothing, belts and purses and more.

There were also lovely hand embroidered lace things and hand made jewelry. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

 

We moved on to tour a beautiful old church and then came to the famous Bergen Fish Market set up along the wharf. Unbelievable! We ewed and ahhed at the displays. Again it was quite expensive so we decided to split a seafood salad which had a variety of seafood on top. It was delicious. We sat at a  table with four kids of different nationalities that worked on the Azamara Ship. They could speak English and were fun to talk to. They told us Azamara was for old, retired people, not like Royal Caribbean. Hah! Anyway, they said we had to go up the side of the mountain on the funicular/tram to the top for the magnificent view. They said it was very worth it.

The whole mountain top here in Bergen is one of Norway's National Parks. We walked to the tram just as some tour buses were unloading. We heard the wait was over an hour. Bob looked up and saw steps to a railing with a view and said, "Let's just go that far and see the view and call it good. I'm not standing in line that long." You know where this is going, right? One step leads to another and up we went. My mouth was open gasping for air but would turn it into a smile if we passed anyone.

We stopped to rest at each view and met some cool people. One cute older couple could not speak English and of course we couldn't understand them but we had a quick, fun conversation with pantomime and a good laugh. They left us saying, "Goud! Goud!" And we laughed some more.

We met a man who was an administrator for the park. He walked with us going about a third of the way up to his office. He was interesting and I could just listen and breath. He encouraged us to keep moving.

Next we met a young man running up the trail who had stopped to take a picture. He walked beside us for a little bit and told us he worked for the Aida Ship 6 months a year and was a professional triathlete the rest of the time. He has done the Iron Man six times. He joked with us and offered to pull us part way, then off he jogged leaving us huffing along.

Next we saw Paul from Liverpool, who was jogging down. He had walked and jogged up and was in a hurry to get down as he had left Pauline waiting and it was taking longer than he thought. He is in fabulous shape and reminds of Jim, our neighbor back home.

Finally we saw our dinner mates, Brian and Helana, who had ridden the tram up and were walking down. They encouraged us that we were almost there.

We saw lots of school groups having field trips. Wow the energy!

There were huge trees and ferns and an increasingly mystical feel to the woods. The cool breeze and shade saved us. It finally leveled out and we began to see carved wooden trolls tucked in the trees and then,

 

the lovely visitor center with a restroom. We made it and oh, the view! Yay!

We enjoyed the area and relaxed a while and considered riding the tram down. But, I started taking pictures of trolls and we moved on down the path and just decided to keep going.  Parts of the trail were so steep we had to take it easy. I could breathe better, but it was very hard on knees, shins and hips.

We made it, but oh we were tired. We stopped and bought a Norwegian pastry to split and headed back to the ship for its much cheaper coffee. On the elevator to our floor we saw a man that we had seen in other ports on trails. Bob asked him if he'd walked the mountain. He said he walked down and that was tough enough. He said that no one could walk both ways. Bob proudly told him that we did and he said, "Both of you!?" Then we limped off the elevator down the hall to our room and straight to the Motrin!

We had another lovely dinner with fabulous scenery rolling by. We even saw some wind surfers in the bay. Hearty people!

After dinner, several of the staff paraded in the Centrum with flags of their country and cheered and danced as each was announced. There is a lesson for the world here that so many nationalities can work, travel and play together.

We were now farther out in the ocean and the wind was strong and the waves got rough. It was hard to stand still. The dancers had started an aerial show of the four seasons in the Centrum and you could see the fear in the newest young lady in the cast. I was glad when they stopped and cancelled the show. I wanted to just hug her.

The theater show tonight had Beetle Impersonators. They were fab! They really did a nice job and got people involved. Meanwhile the ship turned south and rode with the waves and things smoothed out.

We watched a little of the late night Rock and Roll party in the Centrum with our cruise director singing Elvis songs and everyone dancing. But, we were done. We let the waves rock us to sleep. A final thought that we saw on the bakery shop chalk board - "Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful." Yah! However, tonight, it seemed pretty perfect.