It is snowing heavily in Flam. We are waiting for our ferry to Gudvangen through the Norwegian Fjord land. We have a restful morning in our rural hotel as its cold outside. At 3.10 pm the ferry departs full of excited Japanese travelers and a few Australians also, as we later discover. It is very moody with snow falling, very high snow capped mountains on either side of us and the occasional colorful rural village, with houses largely either of red or white.
The trip on the ferry is two hours then a bus through snowy mountains to Voss, then Bergen. We arrive at 9pm and as the hotel dining room is now closed, we go to a nearby very old building for dinner at 'To Kokka'. This setting is in one of the very oldest and original waterfront buildings of Bergen. The local cuisine is deer and fish (Fisk), an excellent meal.
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway, it is set around the water, currently there are lots of warships and a submarine in the Harbour. We visit the WWII resistance museum, the castle and the archaeological museum. We stop for a delicious fish soup at the waterfront fish market. MB also has smoked Herring and mackerel for lunch.
Afterwards we visit the contemporary art museum. There is a very interesting exhibition of an exceptionally good Norwegian artist 'Per Inge Bjorlo' (He reminded us of Mike Parr).
At mass on Sunday we are reminded how quickly the world changes. The majority of the congregation for the English mass is of Asian and African origin. Sunday night we have dinner with David and Debbie Ramm, who are from Hobart and we met them on the Fjordland cruise. David sailed to New Zealand with MB's brother Richard a few months ago. He is a marine scientist and is in Bergen for an international fisheries conference. What a coincidence!
Tomorrow we are off early to Stockholm, Sweden. We have enjoyed Norway immensely and have very fond memories of our time here, we hope to return again one day. There is so much natural beauty here and the people are friendly and everything functions well. We loved it, and having a friend here makes a big difference.
JB and Mick