Saturday, Oct 19

Today we set out on our last long drive.  It was about 4 hours from Kaupanger to Bergen.  We didn’t stop for much along the way. We did go through a lot of tunnels.  About ¾ of the way there, we wished we’d been counting them. Our best guess is that we probably went through about 35 tunnels on the 4 hour trip.  We arrived in Bergen about 2:00 in the afternoon and checked right into our penultimate AirBnB house. It’s in the historic district, with a little park in front and cobbled streets all around.  It was tricky to drive the car through the centuries old streets. As soon as we had unloaded all our stuff, we took the car back to the rental agency and dropped it off. We are now car free. It took about 2 hours to walk back from the rental car agency.  We sort of meandered back, stopping at various places that looked interesting along the way. We bought groceries and then relaxed in the house for the evening.

Sunday, Oct 20

We set out this morning a little after 10:00am.  Nothing much is open on Sundays, especially in the morning, so there was no hurry to get going.  Our general plan was to take the funicular up Mt Fløya. We started out just wandering along in the general direction of the funicular.  As we reached the dockside, we spotted a building with several pieces of street art painted on its side. As we walked around it, we found paintings on 3 of its 4 sides and stopped to take a bunch of photos.

Just across the street from the building with the art, we spotted a really cute cafe called Sweet Rain.  It was just opening and the beautiful pastries inside the display cases lured us in off the street. We had some amazing chocolate mousse desserts; one with 3 kinds of mousse and one with a really strong orange purée encased in chocolate mousse.  Magnifique!

Having filled our bellies, we made our way along the waterfront toward the funicular entrance.  We bought our tickets and headed up the mountain. We got spots at the very top of the car, which turned out to be the front, so we could see where we were going.  It was a short ride to the top, maybe 5 minutes. Once at the top, we admired the view. We were able to easily spot the house we’re staying in, thanks to the park out front.  Lots of other people were up on top of Fløya, both tourists and native Bergeners. It’s a fairly warm (temps around 50F) and slightly sunny Sunday, so lots of people were out getting their exercise and walking the myriad paths.  We set off down a random path and spent about an hour walking around on top and then slowly making our way downhill toward the city center. By the time we neared the bottom, my knees were not so happy with all that downhill, but it was good to be out on what might be our last nice day here in Norway.  

When we were again in the city center (really the touristy area) Rob decided to head back to the flat.  He was feeling a little bit under the weather. Ginger and I wanted to grab reindeer sausages from a place we’d heard was famous for them.  It’s just a little kiosk located next to the McDonald’s called Trekroneren (which means 3 kroner – I guess sausages were originally that cheap, they are more like 69 kroner now).  I got my reindeer sausage served the traditional way in a bun with lingonberry sauce and mustard, and topped with crispy onions. It was really nice. The sauce and onions really made it so, the sausage could have been made from any kind of meat – the flavor of it was nothing special.  Ginger had mango curry sauce and crispy onions on hers. She liked hers, too. She and I did a little bit of shopping in the touristy area (those shops are open on a Sunday). But, my knee was still unhappy, so we parted ways and I headed home to rest my aching knee (and feet). I’ve clocked 14,607 steps today.  Not bad!

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