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Published: July 15th 2011
We arrived in Bergen on Friday evening and learned before we even exited the plane that Bergen is known for its rain, which naively both Aaron and I were completely unaware of! Sure enough it was pouring with rain on our midnight arrival. We were welcomed by the gorgeous Ane and Mark, it was so nice to see there smiling faces.
Our first day in Norway, Ane and Mark drove us to Flåm, stopping at Voss and Stalheim, a hotel which in its previous life was a rehabilitation centre for people with respiratory issues, back when they believed that clean fresh air would be the cure for these sort of problems. We were absolutely blown away by the beauty of this country from the word go. Every couple of hundred meteres was another stunning view, as I am sure you will be able to see from the pictures. We learned very quickly just how mountainous Norway is as we passed through 12 tunnels within the first 20 minutes of a 2 hour drive, quite incredible. The sole reason for us to visit Flåm was to go to Marks favourtie micro brewery 'Ægir', so we embarked on some beer tasting following
a phenomonal typical Norweigen lunch of prawns on bread with mayonaise and lemon juice (I am sure you can just imagine how happy this made Aaron). The beer tasting was great, gorgeous beer and in a great setting, the brewery has been built as a typical Viking house with a huge open fire in the centre. That night we all went out for a drink at the local Irish pub after drinking as much as we could at home, as it is so ridiculously expensive to buy alcohol in Norway (1 beer costs approximatley 80Kroners which is about 20NZD). We left the pub around 3am and started walking home with the sun rising!
The next day Aaron and I slept until 1pm! I was shocked by this as I don't think I have ever, in my entire life slept past midday. With mild hangovers we went for a very slow walk around Bergen city. First stop was the Bergen fish market which is were we tasted smoked whale. Ane reassured us that all the whale that is caught and sold in Norway is highly regulated. However Aaron was not impressed with it and he had to spit his out.
I could eat it but I think it is something I would take a while to get used to. We then carried on walking to a Unesco world heritage site called Bryggen, the site is over 1000 years old and there is a group of buildings that were built between 1702 and 1902 still standing, they were amazing to see and I can't believe that some of them are still there. I tried to take pictures of the angle that some of them are at but I am not sure that you get the same effect from a photo. After this we caught the funicular up to Fløyen, a site at the top of a mountain which has amazing views over the city, we then took the very steep walk down the mountain in our Jandals but were rewarded at the end with a snack of Russian Palmani (yum yum - Russian Ravioli).
On Monday we were lucky enough to go with Ane and Mark and their friends Tone (Sounds like Too - na) and Devon (another Kiwi) to Tone's summer house on an island in a fiord about 40 minutes from Bergen. Tone's family own the entire small
island and they go there during the summer. Ane took me blueberry picking and we made our own blueberry jam for breakfast while the boys fished. On one side of the island there was an abandoned Oyster farm so Mark decided to go hunting for Oysters and of course cause Mark was doing it Aaron had to too. Tone very kindly took them to the site on the boat while the crazy Kiwis jumped into Fiord cold water to hunt for Oyster, only two oysters were found but they foraged a bunch of scallops which were fried for dinner. This was such an incredible experience and we were so grateful that Mark and Ane organised it for us and Tone's family let us go for a night, and we had a true Norweigen experience.
We still have a week left in Norway, and I am sure it will be phenomenal considering what the first four days has delivered. Will update soon.
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