Bergen Days

And off to Bergen we go! When we got to the airport, Bjorg’s brother Bjarne Martin picked us up and gave us a nice little driving tour of the city.  It’s amazing how much history he knows about the city (and as we learned later, everything else). After the driving tour, he dropped us off near the Fløibanen cable car. We arrived shortly after a cruise ship had docked in Bergen, so the line was crazy long. Luckily, there was a path nearby that led to the top of the line. Instead of waiting, we walked up to the top. It was a wonderful hike. One thing that keeps amazing us is how green everything is. The trees, bushes, small waterfalls, river, and lookouts along the way were beautiful. We also came across a couple of playgrounds, which were really awesome. Beside them were rows of children's embroidery on little squares. And of the course the view from the very top didn’t disappoint.

 

On the way back down we stopped and added a cairn to the surprisingly plentiful collection we found along the side of the path.

 

At this point we were quite hungry. We made our way to a tiny little restaurant that was really just the kitchen of this little old lady (probably 85 or so) who singlehandedly ran it. This place was one of Monisha’s highlights of the Bergen trip. The woman was awesome. She barely spoke English, but she made the most delicious food we could have hoped for. And, of course, traditional Norwegian. She lit a real candle for our table while we ate. We ordered fried cod, and it came with boiled potatoes, a tartar like sauce, and shredded apples and carrots. At the end, we went to pay, and it turned out she only took cash…whoops. We didn’t have a single Norwegian krone on us. Skeptically, we showed her a 50 euro bill. She gladly accepted that and gave us 100 Norwegian krona back. She was just starting to cook something that looked intriguing We asked her about it, and she told us it was cod tongues – torske tungen; it’s a classic Norwegian dish it turns out, and she ensured us is was delicious. She said “next time”. At the time, we thought “we’d love to, but there’s no chance that’s happening – we have one and half days left in Bergen.”

 

Believe it or not…we came back :) Two days later, before heading to the airport, we made the walk out to her little restaurant kitchen, and got an order of torske tongen. It was totally worth it. They are fatty, soft little chicken nugget like cod pieces.

 

The entirety of Wednesday was filled with a fjordcruise in Hardangerfjord. It was 11.5 hours round trip. The voyage was chock-full of rocky and greenery covered mountainsides with waterfalls starting from the top and fruit trees near the bottom.

 

Halfway through the cruise was a 3 hour stop in Eidfjord, where we napped, walked around, and had a chai latte and carrot cake. It was quite a day!

 

We spent our evenings in Bergen with Bjarne Martin and his family: Elaine, Hanna, and Kelly. Like all the relatives we’ve been spending time with on this trip, they welcomed us graciously into their home, showed us around, and fed us delicious meals. 

Oh yeah, and at one point when walking around near the university, we saw a shit ton of pigeons...!