The Purple Penguin

So that was the phrase on a window in our hotel. Or how to stay wet on holiday. We slept quite late today – sort of hard to know when to get up when the sun isn’t up until around 10am! And goes down around 2:30pm. Ugh. But we finally got up and got dressed and headed out – into that foggy nasty drizzly rain that soaks through you. We walked around the harbour and down to the old castle/fort – Bergenhus fortress. Only one battle fought there – they defeated the English fleet that came in to attack the Dutch ships sheltering here. Only the king of Norway had given permission to the English to take the Dutch ships and share the bounty. Only Bergen hadn’t got the message. Joe and I laughed.

We also walked around the park a bit, getting more and more wet. We finally decided against climbing up to the higher section and instead headed off to find somewhere drier with food and coffee. Walked around Bryggen through the little alley ways and finally found a pub serving coffee and food. Of course the bartenders were Australian. I think it’s a law that Aussies have to travel and be bartenders. Very nice and Joe had an excellent fish soup. Fortified with soup and coffee we headed back out in the damp and did a circle around the central part of Bergen. So saw some of the churches, the old leper hospital, around to the park and lake where the art museums are (though didn’t go into the museums), then into the shopping district. When the rain started falling even heavier we headed back to the hotel.

Got dry in the hotel and sat in the bar drinking coffee while Joe uploaded his photos. We then headed out to see if we could get reservations for new year’s eve at one of the restaurants in Bryggen. We ended up with reservations for the 30th! Then had really good Spanish tapas for dinner.

Up earlier tomorrow to go to the aquarium! Also have to pack as we’re off to the ship  tomorrow afternoon. Dinner on board then we’re off to the arctic circle. Checked sunrise and sunset times for our journey and a good bit of it just says ‘none’. <sigh> But a good chance of seeing the northern lights later this week. Not sure what sort of internet access we’ll have then.