Bergen Photos


I had talked to a guy in Oslo that had rented a car and driven through the western fjords, to Trondheim, and back. During his entire trip, the fjords were fogged in. He showed me a picture of Geirangerfjord, the most spectacular one in the country, and it was just a picture of clouds with the tips of mountains poking through. So, when I got to Bergen early in the morning and mist was covering the tops of the mountains, I was worried I was in for exactly what the guy in Oslo had described. Luckily, by mid-morning, the fog had cleared.

Bergen is not located next to any fjords, but it is on the coast and is quite pretty when viewed from elevation. There's a tram that takes passengers to a nearby mountain peak and there's a gondola that goes to an even higher peak, the highest in the city. I decided to skip both and hike to the highest peak instead. There appeared to be two paths up the mountain, one that wound around the back and one that led steeply straight up it. Of course I chose the steep one. Near the top, I nearly stepped on a European viper before it slithered off. I didn't have my camera out, so I had to chase the snake while, at the same time, rumaging through my bag, but I did finally get a few pictures of it. At the summit, in addition to the beautiful view, there were a bunch of sheep, a theme that was pervasive in all my Norwegian hikes.

Back in town, I got some lunch from the local fish market and later came across a street magician who didn't seem to have enough tricks. He kept saying that he was going to through a playing card through a particular second story window, but he didn't seem to want to do that trick until he had a crowd that was big enough because he knew that he would make more money that way. That makes sense, but I would expect him to draw a crowd by doing other smaller tricks. He did have a few of these, but not enough and one of them didn't even work. He would do a trick and then stall and stall and talk about throwing the card through the window and then ask the audience to clap even though he hadn't done any tricks because he thought that would help draw a crowd. Of course, by stalling he was losing people at the same time he was gaining others and it therefore seemed to be a never-ending saga. I left before he executed his finale.

The hostel I stayed at was on a hill overlooking the city and it happened to have a westerly view. So, a bunch of us went outside and watched the sunset. In the distance was the ocean and closer in, there was a small inlet that expanded into a circular pool, surrounded by buildings. As we watched, a layer of mist descended above us and hung low over our heads. It was nothing short of spectacular.