The advantage of feeding just on imagination, like Bjørkisen, Dwarf and I do, is that you can stay longer in bed and unlike humans don't have to get up to have breakfast.
One last look into our room
When we left Rosendal at about half past nine, the sun was shining - bad timing, if you ask me.
Queuing for the ferry in Årsnes
View to the north from the landing in Årsnes
Ferry approaching
The ferry coming from the opposite direction
On our way back to Bergen, one of the tunnels - I think it was Tyssetunnelen - had been closed because of construction works. Burkhard and the other car drivers in front of and behind us were informed that we would have to wait for "ledebilen" ("the leading car") - some kind of Norwegian specialty - which would take us along the old way.
Waiting for Godot...er...the leading car
View to the left while waiting
When the leading car eventually arrived, the queue behind us had already gotten a bit longer:
It turned out that the old way was so small that at most places it wouldn't have allowed traffic from both sides - therefore, having a leading car did make sense.
A bit later we made a short stop at the Samnanger Kirke.
Samnanger Kirke
View over the graveyard at Samnanger Kirke
The next place we stopped was a vantage point near Trengereid. There was a roundabout from which we had to get onto the E16 leading to Bergen.
Vantage point near Trengereid
Risnestunnelen lurking ahead
We eventually arrived at our hotel in Bergen, the Hotel Park, at about 1 p.m.
Thanks to the map of Bergen we had got on the ferry, where all the one-way streets and the directions in which they were going were shown, it wasn't too much of a problem to get there. Burkhard could park his car right on the opposite side of the street in front of the hotel, but parking wasn't for free. It cost NOK100.00 for 24 hours, but that was OK.
After checking in, Burkhard went into the centre of the city looking for some bookstores where he could find the newest volumes of two of his favourite Norwegian comic-strips, Kollektivet and Nemi. And he was successful. But sometimes it is wise not to buy a book immediately where you see it first. Burkhard remembered from his last trip to Oslo in November 2013 (I haven't written a report about that one) that the record shops of Platekompaniet usually also have a selection of books which sometimes are a bit cheaper than in "proper" bookstores. So he also checked the record shop of Platekompaniet in the centre of Bergen and found out that not only the regular price of volume X of Nemi was about NOK20.00 less than in the bookstore where he had seen it first, but that they offered it with another discount of 20%, thus he only had to pay NOK239.00 for it instead of NOK319.00.
Volume X of one of Burkhard's favourite Norwegian comic-strips
Talking about comic-strips, I think it's quite remarkable that in a rather small country (as far as the population is concerned) like Norway there are several monthly comic-magazines like e.g. Nemi, Kollektivet, Pondus and Billy featuring (mostly) funny comic-strips/cartoons aimed at an adult audience, whereas I can't think of any similar magazine in Germany. It has to be said that those monthly comic-magazines in Norway do not only feature the comics from which they derive their title, but usually from at least 5 or 6 other artists, some of American and some (also very good ones) of Norwegian origin.
E.g. it was thanks to a copy of the monthly Nemi-magazine (already several years back) that Burkhard discovered the fantastic American comic series Fables (not a funny one, though, as should be added here). And thanks to a copy of the monthly magazine Kollektivet he became a fan of the funny American comic-strip "Pearls Before Swine" by Stephan Pastis and most recently, thanks to a copy of the magazine Billy, he discovered the funny American comic/cartoon series "Tundra" by Chad Carpenter. Anyone into the work of Gary Larson should check out the latter! Also the cartoon series "Helt Nils" by the Norwegian cartoonist Nils M. Ofstad, currently featured in Pondus-magazine, should appeal to fans of Gary Larson.
When checking the section for books on art in general and for books on the art of Edvard Munch in particular in one of the bookstores, Burkhard discovered a funny book titled "The (True!) History of Art" by Sylvain Coissard and Alexis Lemoine. It should be pointed out that it features only one piece of art by Munch, namely "The Scream" (and what happened before) - already shown on the front cover -, whereas all other paintings featured in this book stem from other artists. Burkhard enjoyed this book so much that after our return to Germany, he ordered "Les (vraies!) histoires de l'art - le retour" (a sequel of the idea of the first book with different paintings) - so far, it's only available in the original French version, but I think that even people who (unlike Burkhard) do not understand French should be able to get most of the "jokes".
Surprisingly, it hadn't been raining after our arrival in Bergen until Burkhard went into a restaurant to have something to eat. Fortunately, the rain stopped when he had finished.
A nice pavilion in the centre of Bergen
The fountain in Lille Lungegårdsvann
At about 5.30 p.m., when Burkhard had become a bit tired by walking around the centre of the city and through different stores, he returned to our hotel to have a little rest. From Grieghallen he had to go uphill to get back to the hotel.
The street uphill to our hotel
Just a few more metres to go
Our room was on the first floor.
The corridor on the first floor
The room was very small.
And so was the bathroom.
At about 8 p.m., Burkhard wanted to go out again to take some pictures, but by now it had started raining again, so after just a few hundred metres he decided it was better to return to the hotel again.
When switching through the TV-programmes, he came across a music-programme called "Allsang på Grensen" and soon found out two things:
1. The music-genre "Schlager" obviously does not only exist in
Germany.
2. It doesn't get any better when the songs are being sung in Norwegian.
When Dwarf saw the folded little piece of cardboard which contained the keycard to our room, he asked Burkhard to hand it to him so he could build a tent as he had already done 5 years ago in our hotel in Voss.
Dwarf has built a little tent. (OK, using the verb "build" in
this context is a slight exaggeration.)
Next, he climbed onto the table lamp to show some acrobatics.
"Look at me - just with one foot!"
Eventually, it was time to get ready for bed. First, Dwarf helped me to assemble my bed.
Bed-assembly
And then he had to show me how his comfy recliner chair worked.
If you press one of the buttons...
...the restback slowly goes down, until it has reached a nearly horizontal
position
Good night!
Since Dwarf had complained that it had been a bit chilly without a proper blanket, he had come up with the - in his opinion - brilliant idea to just move his cape from back to front while lying in his chair, thus using it as a makeshift-blanket (as can be seen in the last pic above).
Since we wouldn't have to check in for our ferry back to Denmark before 11.30 a.m. the next day, Burkhard had hoped that he could go for a walk through the centre of Bergen after breakfast to take some pictures. But when he looked out of the window of our room the next morning, this was the sight that met him:
Well, hope dies last. Maybe the weather would get better while Burkhard had breakfast. By the way, while the breakfast room was rather small, the quality of the breakfast buffet was, according to Burkhard, better than the one at the Fjordhotell in Rosendal. Here, they did have buns of different types and Burkhard really liked the homemade raspberry and strawberry jam. Usually, he isn't too fond of these types of jam, because they are far too sweet for his taste, but these homemade jams still had a nice touch of sourness.
After Burkhard had finished breakfast, it was still raining. Burkhard took his umbrella and went out nevertheless. He wanted at least to see the famous Bryggen, but didn't take any pictures of it due to the rain.
In a street near Bryggen, Burkhard discovered an interesting shop called Rubens Skattkammer which sells games and toys for young and old. They have got a huge selection of wigs and costumes for adults.
Rubens Skattkammer
If you want to dress up as e.g. a superhero, bunny, pupil, nun, priest, policeman/-woman, well-hung Scotsman, pirate/pirate wench, this is the place to go. Since Burkhard isn't a big fan of carnival, he didn't buy anything.
A random interesting mural painting in a side street in Bergen
At 11 a.m., we had to check out of our hotel and drove to the ferry terminal. Our ferry, this time it was the Stavangerfjord, arrived at about a quarter past 12.
A look into the left rear mirror at 1 p.m.
But it wasn't before an hour later that we got on board.
View from the upper deck of the ferry over the centre of Bergen
Same time - view from the upper deck to the west/northwest. The blue sky
was not just a Fata Morgana!
It seemed a bit unfair that the weather in Bergen just got better when our ferry was about to leave.
While we were leaving Bergen, a ship of the famous Hurtigrute was approaching from the north.
Hurtigrute approaching Bergen
People on a little boat waving at the ferry
Since the weather on our way from Bergen to Stavanger was much better than it had been on our way from Stavanger to Bergen, Burkhard recognized some places from our trip to Norway two years ago, as e.g. the bridge connecting Haugesund with the island Karmøy. Two years ago, Burkhard had driven over the bridge to get to Kari's concert at Falnes Kirke in Skudeneshamn and we passed under the bridge with the ferry.
The bridge connecting Haugesund and Karmøy
To the west, Burkhard also recognized the church of Avaldsnes, where we had stopped two years ago on our way back from the concert in Skudeneshamn to our hotel in Haugesund.
The church of Avaldsnes
If you look close enough on the picture above, you can even spot the bench Bjørkisen, Dwarf and I sat on when Burkhard took some pics of us two years ago. It must have been the one to the right.
The church of Avaldsnes seen nearly from the opposite site
What might appear a bit like some old bunker on the picture above is in fact a museum, if I remember correctly, but it was already closed when we were there two years ago.
A look to the west and to the east
The south-eastern part of Karmøy
To the east, Burkhard recognized the ferry going from Mortavika to Arsvågen, which was one of the two ferries we had to take two years ago to get from Sandnes to Rosendal:
Do you spot the ferry in the middle of the picture?
Zooming in
Two ferries meeting near Mortavika
Another look to the west and to the east
A little island with a lighthouse
Approaching the ferry-terminal in Stavanger - backwards...
...and sidewards
In Stavanger, the ferry had to be refuelled with LNG and as a security measure, one half of the upper deck was roped in.
A model of the Stavangerfjord and some details
We eventually left Stavanger somewhere past nine.
View to the west at about 10.15 p.m.
Since it had already gotten dark outside, Burkhard decided it was time to go back to our cabin.
On our way back to our cabin
We finally went to bed close to midnight.
Burkhard had to get up already at about 6 a.m., because he wanted to have breakfast on the ferry and we were to arrive in Hirtshals already at 7.30 a.m.
Ready for disembarking
We left the ferry at about 8 a.m. and about three hours later we got into two big traffic jams near Kolding, both caused by accidents. It took about 90 minutes to cover a distance of a few kilometres. Fortunately, those were the only traffic jams we got stuck in. Burkhard made it just in time to the Italian Restaurant in Tarp before the kitchen closed and we eventually arrived at home at 8.45 p.m.
The magazines and books Burkhard bought in Bergen
Text: Miss Loona
Photos: Burkhard
- August 2015 -
