Snow and ice at last

Ørnes

Trondheim was quite special – and had snow. Well – none fell but there was a bit lying around. There was also lots of ice on the footpaths and I of course managed to fall over – narrowly avoiding doing this on my camera.

Thinking ‘Huskies’, ‘broken ribs’ and ‘smashed cameras’ as my feet slipped from under me I grabbed my camera and flung it to the side. Fortunately it was tethered to me by a strap – and I nursed it as I fell – taking the hit on my thigh.

So we boarded the ‘Nordnorge’ which is the biggest and newest of the Hurtigruten fleet. There should have be about 50 of us but one of the other boats broke down so we have been joined by about 200 Germans – oh goody.

But for some reason we were upgraded and have cabins on an upper deck – and they are really quite nice.

It’s a bonzer boat but you can’t get an espresso coffee until the bar opens at 2:30 PM and until then you have to drink the brown sludge.

A decent bottle of wine costs €95.

You can tell the new passengers on board after each stop – they are the ones looking vacantly at the wine list and dribbling. 

The scenery is just stunning – never seen anything like it.

It is getting colder and frostier as we move north. We moved into the arctic circle this morning – but we still have not seen snow falling from the sky - and may not while we are on the boat.
  

Tomorrow night we are going on a Snowmobile Safari for 2.5 hours into the wilderness. What an opportunity for complete mayhem. I will not be carrying a camera. 

I won but Gwenyth was plastered

Bergen was closed and it was raining hard all day so we were stuck indoors.  So we napped and sort of shot the breeze.

On Sunday afternoon - New Year’s Day, there is not a lot happening in Bergen and it is raining so we went to  Egon which is the only restaurant which is open and I had a pizza and it said it came with meat which it certainly did and I tried to prise most of this off.

Cate and Gwenyth had some other stuff and two bottles of French Chablis.

This was not too bad and was only €70 per bottle – a bargain by Norwegian standards. 

I stuck to the coke because this was like 4:00 PM and the sun was not over the yardarm (even though it set at 3:27 PM). (It rises here at about 9:30 AM.)

We had a delightful lunch which I finished with pancakes and then adjourned to our room which is a deluxe double room overlooking the harbour and costs almost as much per night as a meal in a restaurant. This is now the benchmark.

Gwenyth had sent me to 7-11 to buy playing cards so that she could teach me German Whist. This is not a complicated card game but requires that you remember the cards that are played and that you picked up.

This is of course quite beyond me because at my age I can barely remember to put my underpants on in the morning so she beat me hollow. I won no games out of about 20.  

My revenge was to challenge her to chess using my iPad. The advantage I had was that:

1: She had not played chess for a very long time.

2: The iPad chess game makes all the pieces seem like imploded sea creatures. It is impossible to distinguish a bishop from a pawn.

3: She was completely plastered.

Naturally I won – but not easily because I had been sucking Jameson at the time and deteriorated as time went on – but fortunately not as rapidly as Gwenyth.

Tomorrow early we go to Trondheim. Who knows? It may snow. Sorry Steph. No pics, too much rain.  

Bergen is closed and wet

Akershus Fortress Oslo

When we went to collect our railway tickets I finally found a money exchange place so was able to get an enormous number of Norwegian woggles. Well - enough to buy a couple of dinners anyway.

The prices of everything just leave us gasping. It’s just like when we first arrived in Vienna from Australia.

Restaurants in particular are horrendous – and the food is just not that good in the places we have been. But of course we have not yet – and will not be able – to visit a restaurant with any sort of reputation.

So we arrived in Bergen after a 7 hour train trip from Oslo. A most beautiful and spectacular train trip – reputed as one of the world’s best – through wonderful snow covered mountains and villages. Snow so deep it almost covered houses.

Unfortunately – and as usual – as we came down to the sea – the snow disappeared again and we still have not actually experienced snow falling on us this winter– or walked through snow – and me with all my woolly gear and Ugg boots and Ugg gloves and Boss winter coat and special lined pants.

Bergen is a lovely town and – like the rest of Norway – is closed - even more so than Oslo.

We had tried to book restaurants for New Year's Eve from Oslo but none had replied (now we know why) but when we arrived our hotel concierge said that he had managed to get us into the ‘best restaurant in Bergen.’

This turned out to be the Ole Bull in the Radisson Blu and it was the least impressive buffet any of us had ever seen.

It was rather like a works cafeteria – but with food that would have had the workers out on strike.

The first two bottles of wine with which we were presented were corked. There was no choice of a main meal –  we were told it was in fact old bull. There was no fish. No fish in a Norwegian buffet?

Because it was in fact the only restaurant open in the hotel we were of course surrounded by families with small children.

We were kept amused by the sight of people dressed to kill for a night on the town arriving and beginning to understand what New Year’s Eve at the ‘best restaurant in town’ was like.

It was of course shriekingly expensive at more than €100 per person.

We were done by 9:00 and in bed by 10:00 but the fireworks over the harbour woke us up at midnight.

We are a bit stuck for our one day in Bergen. It is  raining so we cannot do much walking about and as it is New Year’s Day all the museums are closed – along with ALL the restaurants and shops and coffee shops.

Tomorrow we fly early to Trondheim where we pick up our boat – the Nordnorge.

We have paid for this in advance and so that we do not need to rely on their alcohol (wine from €37 per bottle) I have with me 1.5 litres of Jameson.