It’s the second largest city in Norway and has a population of approx 285,000. It has the title, “rainiest city in Europe”…. Averages 89 inches of rainfall and rains approx 280 days per year.
Our tour group from the top of the funicular overlooking BergenBergen in the background, a rare sunny day. We’ve been lucky with the weather. Heaviest rain has been at night or when we’ve had indoor plans or some of our bus rides.Our first troll encounterA walk with a local guide in an old part of Bergen. The guides name is Patrick and spoke perfect Midwest American English! Come to find out…. He is from Chicago and married a girl from London and they moved to Bergen a few years ago. In Europe, like the USA,Norway has trouble finding enough local people for the jobs that are available.Colorful and beautiful old homes A few old homes still preserved in downtown. Because all the construction was wood and the homes were built close together there were big fires that would burn large parts of the city every 50 years or so.Lots of hill side homes. The funicular can be seen in the middle of the hill and the top of the hill has a restaurant that dates back to 1920Bergen from the top of the funicularWe took a 30 minute trip out to a salmon fish farm. The water was to rough to ride zodiacs out to the pens and see the fish up close. So, we had conversations with a fish farm employee and two museum visits about life in the old days and a history of outboard motors. Norway lays claim to early outboard motor development. There is a controversy about fish farming and this company is proactive in explaining, in a convincing manner, how fish farming does not adversely affect the wild fish habitat. A controversial topic for sure.A great presentation and discussion about Norwegian prison system. This young lady is 37, mother of three and has been a prison guard for 12 years. Norway concentrates there prison system on rehabilitation and they make life for most prisoners very nice. The prisons are more like a small college campus. The cells are like dorm rooms. The maximum sentence for any crime is 21 years. In 2011 there was a home grown terrorist that set off a bomb in Bergen that killed a few people and that was the distraction for the larger crime of going to an island summer camp and used guns to murder 66 young people. He is a right wing neo Nazi, he is beyond evil. The controversy is how can this guy come up for parole every five years? He is unique in the prison system, he is in isolation to protect him from being killed by another prisoner. It might be time to rethink the prison system in Norway.Time for the reason we booked this trip. We board the Hurtigruten boat for the fjord trip to northern Norway. We will make 31 stops in 7 days/6 nights before we get to Kirkenes, Norway. We will travel in and out of the fjords with occasional diversions into the North Sea. Then we will go on to Lapland, Finland and Sweden.
Rod and Patty Jenkins are retired and enjoy traveling. We hope you enjoy our posts as we we see different locations around the globe.
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