Traveling to Bergen

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In the small world category, while walking through the Pulpit Rock mountain lodge, we saw the woman from Michigan who picked her Volvo up the same day we did. She’s having a great trip and has driven and hiked all over Southern Norway and Sweden. What are the odds we’d happen to be at the same spot on the same day and bump into each other? We picked the right day to hike yesterday as today was very rainy. A good day to sit in a bus, hear the rain pitter patter and nap. The transport dance was required - bus back to ferry at Tau, ferry back to Stavanger to catch a 5.5 hour “Express Bus” to Bergen, where we spend our last 3 nights. This last bus takes you on two car-ferries so we got to see even more from the water. Everyone disembarks from the bus and you wait in the lounge with lots of windows, tables, couches and a small restaurant. We found out you REALLY need to hustle to get on the bus right before the ferry docks. You have about 4 minutes to fast walk down the stairs to the car decks and get your rear in the seat before they close the doors and move out. On the first ferry, we were the last ones on because Amy left her bag at the table (shocking to all) and we had to run back to get it (no more than 1 minute!). We got a stern look from the driver and on the second ferry, we sat by him and moved when he moved. We were the FIRST ones on that time. We met a nice older gentlemen from England who was hiking and exploring by himself. We keep running into him at various stops and struck up a conversation. He travels a lot and seems to be loving life. He outwalks us by a mile and we last saw him motoring to his youth hostel or B&B as we all walked from the bus station. We went for higher end accommodations in the Bergen old town harbor and, are we glad we did?! Perfect location, great staff and breakfast, waffles in the afternoon and included dinner! That is unheard of here. This part of the city is quaint and classic looking – Disney's "Frozen" is based on this town. We’re looking forward to exploring tomorrow.

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