Bergen, Norway...

In Bergen it rains about 300 days each year, but today was not one of them, is was a beautiful summer day.

We decided not to go on tour but to check out what turned out to be a very interesting city. It is across between Sydney,Copenhagen and Cape Town, plus a myriad of other interesting port cities that we have visited. There was none of the roughness and dirtiness that sometimes goes with ports, but neat and clean and full of history. It was Sunday so shops were late opening and it was teeming with locals strolling as families, kids hanging out and the occasional lover.

They really do like their own money, [Norwegian Kroner], but some will take Euros, Pounds and dollars. They also take plastic.

We have been steeped in Viking lore and history the last two weeks and it was rather nice to see where it all began. There is a strong tie between Norway and Britain, particularly in the north of Britain, and that includes Shetland as well. The fishermen in Shetland co-mingled with the fishermen from Norway during WWII and an important role was played by them in the battle with occupied Norway. The fishing boats slipped in supplies, information and agents and also took agents out of Norway on a regular basis. It became known as 'The Shetland Bus' and is still referred to that to this day.

A word on the 'Vikings' please. Some people think that the 'Vikings', as they have been named, have had a bad rap over the years. They were not all raving marauders bent on pillaging their neighbours, although many were. Some who left from what is now Norway were people that were banished from their homeland. [Eric the Red was one such man.] Some where farmers edged out by overcrowding here, and many were shipwrecked sailors that decided to stay, because they could not get a ship to sail home on. [It appears that wood in Shetland has never been plentiful.] Just my conclusions though, and what do I know?

I mentioned the other day that the accent in Shetland seemed, to me at least, to have a Norwegian lilt to it. So here, I thought that Norwegian had a Scottish lilt to it. Maybe it was just my imagination. Ian, who comes from the north of England on the east coast said that many, many names of town and bays in that area had Norse sounding names. No wonder, we made it from Shetland to Bergen in an evenings sail, 182 miles to be exact.

So, please enjoy our day in Bergen, it is as nice as it appears in the photos, believe me.