Hurtigruten

After a quick breakfast, the first agenda of the way was to get a ticket for the ferry, the famous Hurtigruten lines, which has been cruising the Norwegian coast-line for some 100 years or so. The ticket was to be bought on the ship itself, I did have a reservation made over the phone the previous day, the guy never found it, but it was for the better: he sold me a ticket for less than they quoted. So I declared my place on the open upper deck of the 7-storey ship, with my bike safely stored, alongside a few cars, some 5 floors below. It was somewhat of an overcast, rainy day, so soon after we sailed, I was the only one on the deck - but then I was a biker with a sleeping bag and plenty of rain gear.

The ticket for the south sailing to Bergen was not exactly cheap, it cost close to Eur 200 without a cabin, but it was worth every Euro-cent (also taking into account that it contained an overnight stay, where I'd had to pay about half of that for a hotel or a simple wooden hut). It was a beautiful trip - while we did not get to see the fjords Norway is famous for, most of these are located to the north of Trondheim - we sailed through narrow passages, next to scenic islands, saw wild mountains, even wilder rock formations, valleys, light-houses. We stopped at a few cities and I took advantage of having been with the bike, jumping on it and circling the highlights of the cities for the 30 minutes or so - including buying of groceries - these were obviously a lot cheaper on the ship than on land. As the regular passengers looked at me in disgust - or in envy - as I spread out on the deck, cuddled up in my sleeping deck, ready for my dinner, fresh fruits and yoghurt, cheese and bread, they were dressed up in their finest clothes, heading for the 5-course dinner. I found a nice book to read, called Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt and finished the first 100 pages or so.

It started getting dark somewhere around 10:30 pm and was quite breezy, so I found a covered spot on the deck, which even had an overhead heater. Putting two deck chairs together served as a real comfortable cabin - and that is how I dozed off on my Friday night. Dawn kicked it somewhere before 4 am, some early birds came to the deck to watch the sunrise, thus waking me up - this time I moved to one of the rooms inside and laid down on a nicely hidden spot on the floor and slept till about 7 am like a baby. Who needs a cabin?

We reached Bergen after some 28 hours at 2:30 pm, exactly on time, though I could have sailed longer...At first, Bergen appeared to large, it is one of the biggest towns in Norway and my plan was to leave in an hour or so, in the direction of Oslo by train. Luckily, the train had no more room for bikes, so I was 'forced' to spend the afternoon there. I found a hotel that was reasonably priced, pleasant place somewhere outside the city, which even had facilities to wash my clothes.

I spent the afternoon with sight-seeing in Bergen. I visited the famous fish market, the UNESCO World Heritage sites of the wooden houses next to the harbor and barely escaped a huge downpour dashing for some cover, where I chatted with two Norwegian fishermen, both speaking perfect English. Then it stopped raining, met a somewhat older American hippie, who came to Norway some 35 years ago and never left; then found an Asian place a decent dinner. I did not escape the next downpour on the way to the hotel, got soaking wet, but then they had the washer/drier (for free - which makes things easier than having the hassle with the coins). Well, some washing gel had to be bought, which I managed to spread on the floor of the reception, I was busy trying to wipe the sticky stuff for the next half hour or so. Clean, but tired, I went to sleep, ready for the train ride towards Oslo the following day.