Day six of our trip found us flying to Bergen, Norway, a lovely old city.

Although I had intended to keep a daily diary, the sights and
experiences were so overwhelming that I decided to "live in the moment"
and just enjoy what I was seeing rather than to keep a strict record.
Therefore you will see few specifics and lots of impressions in my report.

We stayed at the Strand Hotel on the waterfront, directly across the
street from the FishMarket, an outdoor shopping area with many fish,
fruit-and-vegetable, souvenir and Norwegian sweater and knitwear stalls.
I have never seen so many varieties of marine life, ever, from mussels
to whale meat and everything between on beds of ice. The fruit was
gorgeous, with huge raspberries, small, juicy strawberries, piles of
chanterelle mushrooms, beautiful grapes, and other fruit and vegetables
from all over Europe and Africa.

We only had a day there, and wandered around the old waterfront which is
being beautifully and authentically restored. We also took the
funicular (a very slant-y railroad) up the high hill overlooking the
city. We had some nice meals in the waterfront cafes but it was drizzly
much of the time so we didn't eat outdoors as often as we would have
liked. Neil ordered whale one meal despite my rant about the evils of
whaling. I had a small taste. Ugh. It was fibrous and sweet and salty
at the same time--not like beef as the waiter had promised although it
did resemble beef in color.

We boarded our ship, the 2 year-old Midnatsol (midnight sun) at 6PM
Tuesday for an 8PM sailing. The Norwegian Coastal Cruise Lines run 12
ships up and down the coast, year round. These leave daily and combine
car ferry with cargo on the lower decks and passengers in cabins and
suites on the middle decks. Ours, the newest and largest, had a
capacity of 1,000 passengers and included two outdoor hot tubs, saunas,
an exercise room, and even laundry facilities. I loved the heated tile
floor in our bathroom. (It doesn't take much to make me happy!)

Our ship had multiple stern and bow propellers which could rotate 90
degrees and allowed it to turn on a dime, silently. It was also able to
pull up near a dock and glide sideways until it was touching full length
in order to offload cargo with onboard forklifts. The engines were very
quiet and nearly vibration free. The schedule for coming into ports was
very precise, to the minute, and the ship managed to meet every stop on
time.

Although the ships are clean, perfectly maintained, and attractively
decorated, they make no pretense of being luxury cruise ships. Three
meals are served daily in two seatings. Breakfast and lunch were open
seating buffets, with a served dinner menu and assigned seating. The
food and wine was good and plentiful. There was a cafeteria for food
between meals or if you had not bought the meal plan (some of the
passengers were just using the ferry between ports and only embarked for
a few hours or a day.)

The two upper decks were nearly all glassed-in lounges with comfortable
chairs and small sofas for scenery viewing, playing cards or board
games, reading,or just socializing. Two bars were open most of the
time. We met some very interesting, friendly folk.

Each day the boat would dock a few times, anywhere from 10 minutes to 4
hours. (I believe 28 stops in all in the 7 days) Shore excursions were
offered each day. We chose to walk through the port towns instead, and
saw interesting slices of local life everywhere plus lovely old and new
architecture.

One spectacular example is the Nidaros domkirke, a cathedral in
Trondheim which has a huge rose window and ornate Wagner organ plus
lovely flower beds. Trondheim was described to us as Norway's third
largest city and appeared very liveable.

The two major fjords on the coast are Geiranger and Trollfjord. Both
were spectacularly scenic with forested walls rising out of the ocean.
We spent something like 4 hours each way in the Geiranger to reach the
port and back out to the coast, and it was spectacular. Lots of
waterfalls and old farmhouses which are mainly vacation homes now. The
staff did a good job on the intercom pointing out significant sights.

I was quite surprised to note that there were usually chains of small
islands to our west, keeping water very calm. It also surprised me that
the coastline changed from thickly tree-lined to nothing but rock, and
then back again. I thought briefly when we were in the rocky areas that
we were too far north for trees, but a few hours later, there they were
again.

Another thing that surprised us is that we were above the Arctic Circle
for a couple of days (Our final stop was in Kirkenes, on the northern
coast just a stone's throw from the Russian border.) and the weather was
really not very cold. When we were in open water on an open deck it was
chilly, fleece jacket weather, but on land it was mid to high 60's.

The Crossing the Arctic Circle baptism ceremony, for those passengers
interested, was accomplished with ice water and lots of horseplay.

We did not get to see the Northern Lights because the sky was cloudy
most of the time. We also did not see whales, dolphins, or walruses
which we had expected. There was so much else to see that we were not
disappointed.

One big disappointment: walking around the town of Bodo I dropped my
camera. I tried it and all seemed OK. I didn't discover until we
were in Copenhagen that the 1GB memory card had popped out and was still
lying on a Norwegian sidewalk somewhere. No photos of the wedding and
few of the rest of the trip.

I was a little disappointed in Copenhagen. All of the historic and
lovely places were still there, but the streets were crowded with
tourists, much more than our last two visits there. In addition, the
Stroget ("walking street") which had housed many shops with local art
and beautiful clothing, jewelry, silver, china, etc. was now too high
rent for many of the old shops which are being replaced by Starbucks,
The Gap, Nike, and other U.S. chains. What a shame.

We had planned a night at the famed Tivoli park, an interesting locale
in the middle of the city. It contains many restaurants, beautiful
flower gardens, a large number of outdoor and indoor concert venues, and
many amusement park rides. Unfortunately it rained or drizzled every
night that we were there. Does it prove that we're getting old when
rain convinced us we didn't want to go that badly?

We did hoist an umbrella one evening to stroll through Copenhagen's red
light district (quite close to downtown) which seems to cater to
straights and gays equally. We were surprised to see groups of people
tucked into corners obviously sharing drugs. Interestingly it never
felt dangerous to be there.

For the foodies: Scandinavian breakfasts are traditionally lavish
buffets containing hard and soft-boiled eggs, bacon, sausage, liver
pate, assorted cold cuts, toast, hard rolls, croissants, sweet rolls,
coffee cakes, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots,peppers, lots of fruit, and a
large, wonderful assortments of cheeses. Most also offered marinated
herring and smoked salmon as well as small tubes of caviar. Tea, coffee,
juices were standard. There were also a few items I did not recognize.

As you might expect, fish was plentiful plus delicious shrimp from
Iceland. Fruit was beautiful and very tasty, particularly berries.
Pineapple from Costa Rica was the best I have ever tasted. Desserts
were bountiful, artistic, and delicious.

The whole trip was just a delight. I would strongly recommend the
Norwegian Coastal Cruise Lines to anyone who wants a happy, relaxing
voyage without frills. We both decided we would like to go again, but
the 14 day round trip instead. It's one of our retirement dreams for now.