Day in Bergen, Norway

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Trip Start Jul 28, 2009 Previous
Entry Trip End Aug 17, 2009

  Bergen, Western Fjords, Norway
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Bob -one more thing about our expensive dinner last night, Bob had Norweigan cod, a non endangered species, while Shirley had a whale steak which tasted and looked just like beef. We do not know what kind of whale it was. We walked through the outdoor fish market today where they had all sorts of fresh and smoked fish and the whale looked ghastly, all black, yuck. I somehow pictured it as whitish.

We took a brief city tour up and down the narrow cobblestone streets up and down the hills and visited a historic museum and church. Bryggen is the word for wharf and is along the harbor in Bergen. The colorful wooden buildings that line the harbor date back to the 1600s and are now leaning in all directions with supports on the sides holding them up. Bergen is unlike the other major cities we have visited in that it is surrounded by 3000 foot peaks heavily forested. The other cities and surrounding countrysides were all very flat. We English speakers are very lucky because this is now our 7th country this trip and we have hardly ever encountered anyone who did not speak English and many of the signs are also in English. Thank goodness for ATMs which also have an English option because in addition to the ruple we have had to deal with the Kroner, Krona, Krone, and the Kroon as well as the Euro.

The most fascinating thing in the outdoor fish market were the many stalls selling fur hides of all sorts of animals, reindeer, lots of different colors of seal pelts, wolf, coyote, sheep, etc. - not exactly politically correct but beautiful. I was really tempted to get a reindeer hide because they were beautiful and the meat is eaten here so it would be just like buying cow leather in our country. I may still do that . from Shirley.

Think of the fish market as a more authentic Fisherman's Wharf. It was also fun to go around to the different fish stall and taste samples of 3 different colors of caviar, the usual black, red salmon and yellow cod. My favorite is still the black. I also tasted reindeer sausage, yuck,

Tomorrow we start Norway in a Nutshell with spectacular train rides and a 2 hour fjord cruise. We end up in Flam and may or may not have internet there. Friday there are more train rides to get us to Oslo.

Ate various fried fish and chips (very mediocre) and a delicious creamy Bergen fish soup which is a specialty here in town. We ate outside at picnic tables at the fish market at the harbot and this only cost about 40 dollars but better than our more than 100 dollar dinner last night which seems to be the average for a dinner out in a restaurant.

McDonalds is everywhere. They even have McDrive and a Big Mac meal here in Bergen is about 16 dollars!

All for now-

Bergen Bellolis

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