Back to Bergen...and home

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The train to Oslo was uneventful - the flat farmland, forests and quiet hidden lakes of the Swedish interior gliding past the window. However arriving in Oslo I was targeted by Norweigan customs which was a novel experience. After 20 questions about what I was doing, where had I come from, did I have any friends in Norway etc. it was back to the office so they could search my dirty washing for contraband. It made for an entertaining interlude, meant I could get somebody to bring me free drinks and got to tell them all about my holidays, though they could have done my washing as well...

Not feeling like hanging around in Oslo for a whole day I managed to get on the night train to Bergen as I reckoned the timing should be such that it should be dawn as we passed through the highest section and I might be able to get some good photos. In the meantime I had several hours to kill so I had a walk around Akersus Slott - the big fortress on the harbourside and then headed on for some good tapas and a few glasses of wine.

Joining the train sometime after 11pm sleep was needed but didn't seem very likely. There are barely a couple of hours of darkness at this time of year and the blidfolds provided were painful on already sore eyes - there was also Mr Anti-social in the seat across the aisle: A big clumsy guy with a dodgy 80's spiky haircut, the first thing he did after boarding was to get on the phone. The conversation, at least from his end, seemed to consist of the occasional bout of talking very LOUDLY in Norweigan while the rest comprised a regular cycle of 'JA-Ja-ja-aa-aa-aa-aa' intespersed with coughing every couple of seconds. At first it was funny, certainly the French teenagers a few seats ahead were in stitches and kept looking over and starting me laughing. However the best part of an hour later we were on the verge of morphing into a lynch mob - thankfully he finally ran out of things to say though he managed to keep the coughing and other odd noises up for most of the night.

A little uneasy sleep and the mountains appeared, the snow was noticeably less and the lake surfaces were liquid rather than solid - what a difference two weeks make. In the sunlight just creeping down from the peaks the snow was pink but any decent photos seemed to evade me. Almost too soon we were arriving in Bergen and I had a cold and dull few hours to mill around the deserted town with the other passengers until somewhere opened for breakfast, but it was nice to be back in this pretty place though not as sunny as two weeks ago.

A fun final evening out to dinner with Vanessa and friends - a mixture of Canadian, Dutch and French girls who had been studying in Oslo for the year and were now in Bergen for some rainy hiking - turned out to be some of the cheapest, best and most authentically Norweigan of the whole trip: Cod and Salmon together was an unusual mix but it works. We said our goodbyes the next morning as they headed out for the cable-car that runs to Mt Ulriken, when I got to the bus station I couldn't see the peak for cloud and drizzle - but I'm sure it was character building............

T

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