Viking Ultimate World Cruise 2019-2020: Bergen, Norway

Sprinkles, sun, rain, wind — Bergen has it all. Don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes. Bergen is on the southwestern coast of Norway and faces the North Sea. Weather coming off the sea hits up against the mountains and dumps rain, lots of rain, 245 days a year! Bergen sits at the same latitude as Anchorage and St. Petersburg, which means in the summertime it’s bright all day/night and in the winter time it never gets light. They only have two seasons here – – winter time and August. This part of Norway has fjords, high mountains, and is sparsely populated. Because of the mountainous terrain, there are a bazillion tunnels that have been bored through them so roads can be built. The longest tunnel is 24 km. There are only about 5 1/2 million people in all of Norway.

Day 1: hopefully you have seen the beautiful red sweater with the Nordic design that I have worn in previous pictures. I went to the factory in Dale to see where and how they are made. What an operation. I also toured the greater Bergen area by bus.

Bergen Day 2: we woke up to gray skies that were threatening rain. Like the Pacific Northwest that we are used to, you can’t let a little rain stop you. We walked to town looking for a nail shop to get my nails done, and wound up at a mall where we picked up a few supplies that we needed. I never did get my nails done, but that’s another issue. We walked around the fish market, which is huge, and saw the largest of everything seafood including whale meat. The proprietor trying to get us to taste it, but at 10:30 in the morning whale meet did not sound very good.

We stopped to take pictures of the very colorful old waterfront wharf with tall and slim wooden town houses that seem to be leaning on each other. This is a UNESCO world heritage site. We browsed the souvenir shops and picked up a couple of magnets, and returned to the ship for lunch, and had a relaxing few hours down at the spa pool. I made an appointment to have my nails done on the ship for tomorrow at 1 o’clock, figuring that I would have a day off to lounge about and recover from all the excursions. BUT NOOOOO! Just before dinner I received my escort assignment, which I had forgotten that I signed up for 😢. It involves extensive walking around town where I just was today, and with the weather forecast of more rain, all I can say is 💩!