The Started our day early so as to catch the bus at 9.00am that will take us to Stavanger which is south of Bergen but along the coast – kind of.
Whilst in the breakfast room we bumped in Ester and Howard from Bondi. They mentioned to us to be very careful if you are making a sandwich for lunch in the breakfast room as if you are caught they will charge you. They unfortunately got caught yesterday and for a couple of slices of bread with cheese and ham, they got hit with a $7.00 fee – ooops, we will be a little more careful. We do understand why they do not want you to do it, but we would have thought a warning would have been more appropriate. Making a sandwich saves you a lot of time, plus you get to have better control over your diet and of course here in Norway it is the hideous expense. We always buy some fruit to supplement our lunches. We reckon we have saved ourselves over $300 on lunches. All part of the rich experience of travelling.
So our bus took us along some excellent scenery which is very much like driving through the suburbs of North Vancouver. With all these fjords, lakes, rivers etc we reckon it would be pretty difficult to have a property that did not have water views.
It took us an hour to get to the first ferry. The Norwegian’s certainly have these water crossings down to a fine art. We were first onto the ferry and within five minutes we were off and racing. The first crossing is approximately forty minutes. They request that you vacate the bus so found a great warm possy up higher on the ferry with stunning vista.
Oops, not that good a photo of Fras but you can see that comfort was the name of the game.
You might want to have a look at the area around Bergen on a map as you will then realize how difficult it is for transport. Most of the coast is exactly the same. Goodness knows how many car ferries there are and then of course there are the bridges and the tunnels.
We have the best weather today that we have had for the entire trip in Norway. Blue sky with light clouds and a bit of a fresh breeze. We will get a high of +14c which is perfect travelling weather.
We came over a pretty specky bridge and then dropped immediately into a tunnel which was 7.8k’s and went 260meters below sea level. One might hope there is no ship above us dragging his anchor. For that distance it became very mesmerizing.
Another short 25 minute ferry ride followed by more numerous tunnels. They are very lucky here in Norway with their geology as they must have some of the hardest rock there is. Very difficult when building anything and requiring lots of dynamite, but once built it is there to stay.
Got into Stavanger about 3.00pm and found our hotel. Went for a short walk down to the old town on the warm. Remember how we said that the cruise ship MSC Fantastia was stalking us, well the blasted thing was here in port.
We were looking for somewhere to eat dinner and found a nice Trattoria. Well, we thought it was nice until he said there was nothing available. We could see heaps of empties tables but we think the reason we were declined was that Di decided to go into a hacking episode at the front desk. That would scare anybody off.
Early to bed as Fraser has a big day tomorrow climbing up to Pulpit Rock. When we download pictures tomorrow you will recognize the place. Di’s not up to the two hour climb so she will stay behind.
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