Kathleen
Bergen, Norway, July 15, 2013
We left sunny skies in Aberdeen to arrive in the Bergen rain. This is not very surprising since Bergen acheives close to 90 inches of rain on average each year. Bergen is another city supposedly built on 7 hills (I have lost track of how many of these we have already stayed in on this trip at this point. The only thing I can figure out is that since the 7-hill thing began with Rome, all the folks founding new cities in the Roman Empire thought their city should emulate Rome and so they picked the seven biggest hills and the land in between and called it a town). Bergen is a beautiful city and we got a brief break in the weather on our way in from the airport and looked at the beautiful hills dotted with colorful homes leading down to the harbor. It is stunning in a classicly Nordic way and we thought instantly that we might want to take a couple of extra days here just to relax.
I had been looking forward to the point in the trip in which we no longer had each day carved in stone and it is amazing what happens when you have a bit of flexibility. As I have already indicated, Scandanavia is very expensive and Norway is the most expensive of the group. For example, we stopped for lunch on the first day at a little pizza/gyros place and each of us had a gyros plate (salad and fries and gyros) and the cost of the meal was about $45 US. In essence, things are about 2 to three times as expensive as they are in the United States. It appears that the Norweigan’s have one of the highest standards of living in the world and the locals do not seem to realize how rediclously expensive everything is as they continue to shop, dine and drink.
Anyway, I digress….the point is that we had booked a room at a B&B place that had very good accolades. It was more than we usually spend, but it was in the range of about the best we could do in Bergen. When we arrived at the place, we found out that they had had some issue with the sewage in the room we had booked and we would not be able to stay there. They offered their son’s house which was in the hills outside the city center and they indicated had marvelous views. This sounded good to us and we asked if we could extend the stay for 4 nights instead of two and pay a discount for the whole thing. They agreed and we felt like we had really gotten a good deal. When the clouds cleared a bit at the house, it did have a very nice view over the entire town and we had access to a washing machine and a full-sized kitchen and living area for four days while we were there. It is definately funny how things can work out if you just sort of go with the flow. The only thing we didn’t realize is how much more rain Bergen receives than the rest of the country and that we might have not had 4 days straight of overcast and dripping if we had headed east sooner, but at the end of the day we were ready for a little break anyway and tried to spend some time catching up on things while we were there. We did get some moments to enjoy the pretty view and we also did a hike one morning and made it pretty much home before the afternoon rain set in. It is a lovely town, as you will see in the pictures and definately worth a visit, but don’t expect the rain to let up!!