West coast story

The western part of Norway is famous for two reasons, rain and beautiful nature. We only got the later half of the experience on this trip. Bergen is infamous in Norway for having between 230 and 280 days of rain every year (2015 had 279 according to some site I looked at), however on our visit the city displayed a more friendly side and was bathing in sun the whole day. The same weather stayed with us for our days with Hurtigruta on our minicruise in Sognefjorden, which included going through the UNESCO-fjord Nærøyfjorden. We also passed Urdal stavchurch which is also protected by UNESCO, but opted against going on the trip to see it when the boat stopped for some hours in the (very) small town Skjolden.

Well, let's back up a little before we go there.

Arriving in Bergen we swiftly headed for Hurtigrutens departure hall where there were some luggagestorage. Leaving most of our stuff there made it a lot easier to roam around the city. We headed for Fløibanen funicular which takes about 3 minutes (maybe a bit more, but it sure didn't feel like it) to reach Mt.Fløien.

The view from up there was great, and again, it did help that there was no downpour.

We spent some time up there just enjoying the view before we headed for yet another UNESCO site, Bryggen i Bergen. Unfortunately there were major reconstructing going on, so no picture really worth taking.

The ship left at 17, but we could get on a bit earlier and did so. The cabin itself were so-so, but the rest of the boat was great, with a special pluss for the panorma bar/area at the top with very comfy chair where we could sit/lay and just enjoy the fjords as we cruised on into the night.

A decent buffet for dinner, but a quite good breakfast the next morning. Some of the staff were quite inexperienced, but all were friendly and that is in itself a lot more important in my point of view.

We came to Skjolden which were covered in sunlight as well. Small and honestly quite dead town with probably between 10 and 15 inhabitants. There were however some houses for rent by the shore where at least one was rented out to a gang of drunkards who even went out swimming. Or swimming might be strechting it, so building up the courage to walk out in the water and screaming like small girls is probably a more accutrate description.

There were four options for trips out there, the formerly mentioned trip to Urdal stavchurch, but an hour on a bus both ways wasn't tempting. A trip to the glacier, where we weren't able to go closer than 1,6km was also a no-go. As was a hike to a mountaintop, basically because the average age of our fellow passengers was somewhere between 200 and 300 years, and just the thought of the speed that would be held there was enough to stress me out. The last option was a cruise with a RIB boat, this was a clear go, and with spectacular weather it was even more tempting.