7 September 2023

The excitement was mounting! Today had finally arrived. Today was the day we boarded MS Polarlys to begin our Hurtigruten trip north to Tromsø.

This is where those other Swedes come into the story, in a round about way.

Back in 2020, Linnea and Gustav invited us to their wedding in Sweden! We were delighted to be asked and began booking flights and other activities to fit around our attendance at the wedding. We booked a short trip on the Hurtigruten Ship prior their big day. Obviously, everything went belly up a few months later and sadly we could only attend the wedding via video link.

Three years on, here we are. We still intend visiting our Swedes, but we have a little coastal voyage along the West Coast of Norway to complete first.

Our first task of the day was to lug our bags over to the storage units at Bergen Train Station. We are missing Ruby and her spacious boot, already.

From here we walked through the city to the base of Mt Floyen where we joined the queue to be transported quite rapidly skyward to the summit on the Flóibanen (the fernicular railway). Some people choose to walk up, but given my intense dislike climbing steep hills, the fee was probably well worth it. ( Not entirely sure as I haven’t quite worked out the conversation rate yet! )

The views back down over Bergen were,of course, fantastic.

We shared the summit with lots of tourists and a few other goats.

These goats were incredibly friendly and had a penchant for little kids in prams. Parents found the goats quite cute until they started trying to nose their way into the pram and nuzzling their child. There was lots of crying . And that was just the parents.

We “hiked” (walked actually, but when in Norway, everyone hikes) the 3 kms down the steep path back to the city centre.

We were half way down, admiring the view, when our ship, literally, came in. That’s her, MS Polarlys, returning from her voyage back down the Norwegian coast before turning around and doing it all over again.

The hike down was steep with lots of switchbacks, but the forest was lovely, the air fresh and the city noise, minimal.

I particularly liked the quaint streets we passed through, perched in the side of the mountain. The colourful. old timber clad buildings and the pretty gardens were a pleasure to wander past.

After a quick lunch (salmon and prawn rolls from the fish markets), we headed back to Bergenhaus Festning, and the Rosenkrantz Tower. We thought we’d use up a few hours visiting the Tower and King Håkon’s Hall. Nope! Closed!! ( It was only 1:50 pm.) That danged Norwegian work /life balance thing.

I know, we will check out the Cathedral. Nope Closed!! If only I’d done some research!!!

We returned to Bryggen and explored more of the back streets and some of the lovely little shops.

We did however stumble across another historical museum, Shøtstuene based on the Hanseatic League and it’s old Assembly Rooms in Bryggen. Open until a reasonable 5 pm , we spent an hour or so learning about the Hanseatic League (a bit like the East India Company) and how it operated in the region. Sounded like a pretty good club to be in really.

Check in at Hurtigruten was after 4 pm and we were now getting itchy feet , so back to the station we went , collected our bags and made the 10 minute trek to the Port.

We are now happily ensconced in cabin 374.

It’s a tight squeeze but we all get on well and we’ve already had practice in tiny spaces. There’s certainly plenty of space to spread out on the public decks if we need a break. And there’s always the jacuzzi on deck 6!!! Grahame says he has already found his favourite spot. The bar at the pointy end of the boat!