Month: August 2018

Day 3 Aboard the Hurtigruten, Richard With and We Visit Trondheim

Today was an absolutely perfect day, warm and sunny with a cool breeze. We spent a lot of time out on deck enjoying the weather and the wonderful scenery.

We also got a chance to taste local mussels.

This morning we docked in Trondheim and spent a couple of hours walking around and exploring the city. We visited the Cathedral and the Army Museum. The Cathedral is Scandinavia’s largest Medieval building. The original building was built in 1153.

At the Army Museum we spent most of our time on the top floor where they have the museum of the World War II Norwegian Resistance.

This evening we docked in Rørvik. While we were there the southbound Hurtigruten ship Lofoten was also docked. It is a beautiful ship and is the oldest and smallest ship in the Hurtigruten fleet. We got to go on board for five minutes to take a look.

Day 2 Aboard the Hurtigruten, Richard With

Today our ship sailed into what is probably the most famous fjord in Norway, Geirangerfjord. We spent all day going east and south until we were deep in a narrow water way with steep cliffs and waterfalls all around us at the head of the fjord.

The expedition staff on the ship gave us a couple of interesting presentations during the day. We had periods of rain and sun all day. They described the weather as trollish. They also told us that Bergen had 278 days with rain last year.

Our ship stopped this morning and this evening at Ålesund the town at the opening of the Fjord. Both times we got off for a bit and walked around.

Hurtigruten offers a lot of shore expeditions as add on to the trip. We didn’t do any today but they offered one for which people got off the ship at the end of the fjord and went on a bus tour. The people on that expedition will meet the ship at a town we stop at later tonight. At one of the info meetings today the staff showed a video of the road that the bus tour took today. It is called Stegastein. The video shows the road being cleared of snow in the spring. It’s a pretty amazing video. You can see it here.

Leaving Bergen – Wednesday, 29 August, 2018

This evening we left Bergen on the Hurtigruten Ship Richard With. We will be on the ship for six nights as we move up the Norwegian coast stopping at 34 ports. If you would like to see where we are at any time you can click on the map icon on this page.

It rained off and on all day but after checking out of our hotel we spent the afternoon walking along the Bergen coastline checking out the sites.

Bergen – Tuesday, 28 August, 2018

This morning we did laundry. While we were waiting for it to finish I had a great time browsing in the yarn store in the train station across the street.

This afternoon we took the funicular to the top of Mt Fløyen overlooking Bergen. From the top we took a short walk around the lake.

For dinner we had reindeer sausage with lingonberry sauce, mustard and onions. As we ate we walked along the harbor by the old shipping warehouses. The area is called the Bryggen.

Voss to Bergen – 27 August, 2018

Our train from Voss to Bergen was at 2 this afternoon, so we had time this morning to walk to the Voss Folkemuseum. It was really interesting to see the 16 old farm buildings some of them date back to the 17th century.

One of the interesting things we have seen throughout Norway is the variety of roofing material. We have seen a lot of sod roofs on both old buildings and new. In many areas we have also seen a lot of slate roofs.

In Bergen we are staying very near the harbor. This afternoon we enjoyed exploring.

In the fish market we saw many interesting fish but I have never seen crab as big as the enormous king crab in the market.

For dinner we had fish sitting at a restaurant overlooking the harbor.