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We spend the first part of the
morning getting ready and re-packing our bags. This evening we will be
boarding the coastal express (Hurtigruten) boat MS Narvik that will take us
from Bergen to the far north, getting off at the last stop in Kirkenes.
We will load our car on board, but we do not want to take all our stuff with
us into the cabin, so we arrange things so we will only need to take the
minimal amount. |
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This, along with breakfast, takes
some time and we leave the campsite at 1000. We are on the outskirts
of Bergen, and it takes us only a short time to drive into the city.
Along the way, we pass through an automatic toll booth - no person to pay
nor even a lane where you could throw in coins for the Kroner 15 toll.
We do not know how to pay the toll, so what to do. |
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The first job is to find a place
to park. There are limited places on the street, so we have to park in
one of the multi-level parking garages which charge a fortune for a day of
parking. Then it is on to the information office to get some maps and
to see if they can tell us how to pay the toll. We get the maps and
limited information on paying the toll - all they can say is to try at a
Hydro-Texaco gas station. We will look for the one they mention just
before we drive to the boat. |
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It is now time for lunch.
We decide to check out the stalls on the pier selling seafood. What an
operation - the numerous stalls are groaning under the weight of the wide
variety of seafood loaded onto them. It is all fresh and some is even
ready to eat. Jacqui decides to get her prawn sandwiches, whereas Lars
decides to go for a large sausage, sold nearby. We then take a seat on
the edge of the pier and enjoy or lunch while looking over the old buildings
of Bergen. |
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And now it is time to explore on
foot this old Hanseatic town, curved around the bay that forms the harbor
and fenced in by the mountains that shot up from right behind the town.
We decide to not spend much time indoors on this beautiful day, but to just
wander the lanes and alleys as they come upon us. |
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We pass by the famous Bryggen -
the old warehouses on the quay - that have been so well preserved.
They date back to 1702, when they replaced the old warehouses burnt down on
this spot. At times we wondered how this old, crooked buildings can
still be standing. They lean over at strange angles, buckle this way
and that way. And yet, they still stand. As we wander through
them, we notice that the veneer of age has just made them even more
beautiful. Each one is unique in its own way, in particular the way it
defies gravity. |
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We make our way to Hakon's Hall -
a medieval building that was built in 1261. We walk around the
courtyard and look up at the tower. We also take advantage of the
clean (and free) bathrooms located there. |
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From here we retrace our steps,
once again passing by the Bryggen. We take the time to wander into a
few more of the shops and into the back alleys that pass between and under
some of the buildings. There are even more old wooden buildings hidden
behind. |
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We wander through the streets and
after some time we come upon the cathedral. We decide to check out the
interior and are rewarded by an organ concert that is underway. We
take a seat in the pews and spend sometime listening to the music. It
is now getting late in the afternoon and we need to spend some time in an
internet cafe. We have some emails to check and some work to be done.
Lars may have to fly back to Singapore and KL for some meetings. We
shall see. |
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After the internet session, we
decide to get some soft ice and drink and sit down on the pier and just
relax and enjoy the city spread around us. Tall sailboats are in the
foreground, with their masts jutting up into the sky. Just behind are
the buildings that surround the circular bay, with the large mountains
rising steeply up behind them. |
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But soon it is time for us to
head on. We need to get some groceries, fill up the gas tank in the
car and make our way to the boat. We take the long way around the
other side of the pier to the supermarket, make our purchases and then load
up the car. Now the search for the petrol stations. Despite
directions, it was not as easy as it seemed to find them. The map was
poorly done for the area we went through. It should also be recalled
that we were also in search of the gas station where we could pay the toll
from this morning. Guess what, in the process of trying to find this
petrol station, we went to far and ended up going through another automatic
toll booth. Then to get back to where we started from, we had to pass
through the booth again. Finally, to top it off, we just could not
find the petrol station they insisted was there. Well, we gave up
trying to pay the toll - if they are going to make it that difficult and
provide no information on how to pay, then it is their problem. It is
not like we did not try to pay it. We finally find another petrol
station, a self service one, which did not accept our credit card as we have
no PIN for it (in Norway, they use PINs rather than signature). So we
used up some of our "precious" cash to fill up the car with petrol. |
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Now on our way to the Hurtigruten
(or coastal express). We have no problem finding our way to the
general area, but are frustrated by the lack of signs directing us to the
exact pier. It certainly has not been set up for tourists. Also,
the pier is quite a disappointment - for a voyage described as the "World's
Most Beautiful Voyage", it is not a very impressive start. Not that we
are expecting them to have a fancy terminal, but it looks almost like a junk
yard. I have seen freight piers that are much more impressive. |
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Anyway, we get there a bit before
6 PM for an 8 PM departure. There is really no information telling us
what to do or where to go (maybe they are more used to large groups with
leaders who take care of everything), so it takes some time to find the
right place to check in. We get our cabin and are told to wait until
the cars are boarded. We get contradictory information on what time
that will be. So, in the meantime, we carry our stuff on board and get
ready to load the car on the boat. Then it is time to sit back and
wait. |
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Finally at 7:15 PM, they begin
the loading of the car. As we are going all the way to Kirkenes and
ours is a small car, we are selected to go first. We have to drive up
a ramp into the side of the ship onto an elevator that seems to be just
large enough for our car. With a jolt, the lift drops us down to the
level of the cargo deck. We drive into the boat and then undertake a
three point turn so that we can reverse our car into the far, back corner.
And then it is off to enjoy our 6 day trip to the very top of Norway and
Europe. |
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We will describe the boat and the
journey in more detail in tomorrow's entry. Before we depart we take
some time to organise our stuff in our small, but comfortable two bunk
cabin. We have limited how much we have brought on board, so it is not
too difficult to sort out and find places for all our stuff. Then it
is time to head up to the buffet dinner that they are serving. It is a
large and decent spread that should cater to most tastes. A bit of
everything. The best meals were the buffets - better then the set
meals where we did not have a choice. |
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We head up to the deck of the
boat for the departure. But we are delayed and just hang out waiting
for something. A tender boat that has been used to paint the side of
the boat is idling nearby, waiting for the ship to pull out so she can be
pulled aboard. Finally, a taxi pulls up to the pier and couple
frantically gather up their stuff, pay the driver and rush onto the boat.
We leave Bergen at twenty minutes past the hour, pulling up the tender when
the hull pulls away from the pier. We are now underway, but
unfortunately the clouds have rolled in and covered the sky. |
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We wander around the ship for a
while to get ourselves acclimatized and find out where everything is.
Then we retire early to our cabin for the night. |