August 16th - Balestrand and Bergen

Here are some more pictures of Balestrand. Notice the silvery crooked thread of waterfalls up behind the village.

Transportation to and from our hotel was sketchy at best. The buses didn't seem to keep a schedule and there was no posted schedule. But there were a couple of very nice gestures shown towards us. The first one was a man picking up two students for a boarding school and he offered to take us and drop us off at our hotel and refused to accept any money. Then when it was time to return to the bus stop, the lady that clean the rooms at our hotel offered to take us back over to Balestrand, which was only about 5 miles but little too far to walk when you have luggage. She, too, refused any money.

This was the Grand Hotel in Balestrand that has been operating for five generations of the same family.

St. Olaf's church was built by an English woman who was a very devout Christian and is still used today.

A tree with weird branches.

You can't let the rocks stop you from building a fence. You'll notice here what they do is drill into the rock and then beat a piece of rebar into it for a fence post.

Leaving balestrand behind

As we continued on our nearly four hour ferry ride from Balestrand to Bergen, the scenery changed. Notice in this picture instead of the fjords it is mostly barren rock Islands.

When I saw this, the first thing that came to mind was who thought this was a good idea to build a big building right at the base of the waterfalls.

When we got to Bergen, it did not take as long to find our pensjon. (European  B&B)

A street just below our balcony room. 

This Saint Mary's Church is the oldest continuously used building in Bergen.

Bergens old town call Hanseatic Quarter with wooden sidewalks. The buildings were built real close together.

These are the buildings from the outside looking across the wharf.

Of course there's a town Cathedral.

Bergen's answer to Lombard Street in San Francisco.

Tea time on our balcony with cookies! Check out the view

I'm always amazed how international countries are so aware of U.S. politics

A 3 mile summit hike will give you a view of Bergen and its harbour.

BLOG CONTEST PICTURE!!! 

I have been asked by many why I haven't done a blog contest. So here is one I'm going to do with a picture. What is your guess as to why there are blue lights in the restroom here in Bergen?

Email me your guess! The prize will be underwhelming!!!

The answer will be published in the next blog.

OBSERVATIONS:

• if you'll notice the pictures from Balestrand and Bergen, especially Bergen, you'll notice the sun is shining. This rare occurrence only happens 60 days out of the year in Bergen and we just happened to hit it lucky.

• you rarely see overweight Norwegians, Swedes, Fins, or Estonians. The diet is high in fish and they do a lot of walking.

• one time when Bonnie and I were out walking we happened across some kids, about second or third grade, that we're selling lemonade. They asked us if we wanted to buy some, I assuming that's what they were saying, and when they noticed the deer-in-the-headlights look on our faces they said do you speak English? When I said yes they switched right over to speaking English without any problem.

• we continue to see even more Tesla cars