Where We’re Back To Being On The Correct Side Of The Road, Don’t Have To Overthink Crossing The Street, And Get Rained On
Head’s up – there will be no blog for Day 17. Today was our last full day on the ship. Tomorrow is what I call “vomit us off the ship” day, a/k/a “disembarkation”. No matter what cruise line, on the day of disembarkation the level of efficiency getting people off the ship is just amazing. Always polite and professional, the message is still Very Clear: We’ve loved you for the last two weeks, now go home.
We woke up this morning in Norway – Bergen, to be exact. And it was pouring out with massive cloud cover. Nothing stops the excursions, though.
Our morning excursion was a little bit of a panoramic drive, followed by a cable car up to the top of Mt. Ulriken, one of the mountains surrounding the city. As we entered the cable car building, there was a surprise flight of stairs up to the cable cars (not mentioned in any description of the excursion). There was a way around it – walking up a somewhat steep ramp. I opted to climb the stairs up, as time was of the essence.
The view from the top is supposedly spectacular. This is what we saw:
We did get to enjoy a honey bun that is Bergen’s specialty.
Once we came down via the cable car, I opted to take the ramp down to the bus. Then we were back on the bus for a preview of the city. We noticed that our tour guide, though very knowledgable, seemed to be reciting from a script; she referred to her comments as her “presentations”.
Our next stop was at the Fantoft Stave Church. A stave church is a Norwegian medieval church made entirely of wood. The first iteration was built around 1150 CE. It’s been rebuilt a couple of times.
There was a “wishing stone” on the side of the church – if you held your finger there for 3 seconds and made a wish, it would come true. One guy wished for it to stop raining, and it did!
This medieval stone cross was on the church property:
Even in dreary weather, Bergen is a beautiful city.
When that tour ended, we had 45 minutes to the next one. Andy went back to the ship to grab some food and brought me back a sandwich and a cookie.
We weren’t expecting much from the second tour, since we’d already seen a bit of the city. But this tour was much more extensive. The tour bus was weird, though – there was a barrier behind the driver that blocked the front row seats on the left side from seeing out the entire front window! There was no jump seat for the tour guide so he had to sit in the good front seats. How odd.
It seemed that English was this tour guide’s first language; his shpiel was natural and flowing.
These buildings right by the harbor are a part of a UNESCO designated street.
The skies cleared and the day turned into a beautiful afternoon.
When we were back at the pier about about 4:30, I went back to the ship to begin the packing process. Andy stayed in the city to go up the funicular (Floibanen) to the top of Mount Floyen.
Our last official full day of the cruise! No missed ports! No unscheduled days at sea! It’s a miracle!
The evening was spent packing carefully – the bags had to be outside our door by 10:00 p.m., so we had to plan what was staying behind for the morning. Our scheduled departure time was 5:45 a.m. Yay.
Tomorrow: Vomit-off-the-ship (disembarkation) and transit to Reykjavik.
Maryland Meshugas 