Bergen - Tuesday and Wednesday

On the 19th of July our holidays started for real. Together with Antonia I first flew to Amsterdam and then on to Bergen in Norway. The weather was fantastic and we had a great view over Switzerland and towards the Alps.

But over Norway it looked quite different. There were a lot of clouds but I had no idea how intense these clouds were until right before we were supposed to touch ground when one of the flight attendants shouted through the plane to stay seated right before the plane accelerated again and took off steeply back up over the clouds into the blue sky. There we were informed that the pilot hadn't been able to find the landing strip and had had to abort the landing at the last moment. I was so scared during the second landing attempt and for once I clapped enthusiastically when we all safely touched ground.

A good night's sleep made everything better and we were ready to discover Bergen. Our hotel, the Radisson Blu Hotel Norge, is right in the centre of Bergen and so it was very easy to just walk around and explore.

We strolled through a lovely part of the city with lots of colourful houses and quite a few graffitis, with little shops and inviting restaurants everywhere.

When we got to the harbour area we were just on time to hop on a little tourist train that took us all over Bergen and even slightly outside. Definitely a great way to get a first impression.

We also had our first taste of seafood while sitting next to the historical houses of Brygge. Antonia had salmon while I had moules et frites which tasted just yummie.

Towards the evening (which we only knew because we checked, not because the sun had gotten any lower yet), we took the cable car up to Fløyen. In the morning the queues at the bottom had stretched out forever but at around 7pm we only had to wait for about 15 minutes before we were able to ride up the 320 meters. The view from up there was stunning, you could see all over Bergen and the surrounding fjords. It was also rather busy but once we'd walked away a little bit we met new friends and it was beautiful to just enjoy the sights from high up.