Hurtigruten; Sunday, 19 July, 2015

Breakfast completed we checked out of the hotel, left our bags and then headed out into town. First stop was over to the Station to pick up our tickets for the Norway in a Nutshell tour that we'd booked at the end of the Hurtigruten trip.

Then we wandered back through the town, stopping off at the Domkirke to have a quick look around as it was actually open for the first time when I've been in Bergen.

By now it looked like the clouds were starting to lift so we headed over to the funicular railway and took it up to Mount Fløyen for the views. The gamble paid off and by the time we reached the top the cloud had lifted to well above the top of the mountain offering stunning views over the whole of the city and the Fjord.

We stopped for a cup of coffee in the very nice restaurant up at the top of the mountain, before heading back down into town, against the flow of a much larger number of people who had obviously waited for the clouds to lift before making a decision to go up.

We continued a wander through town taking in the no longer wrapped in scaffolding St Mary's church (It's been in restoration ever since I first came to Bergen nearly a decade ago!), and the ruins of St Catherine's hospital before wandering past the Bryggen and stopping for a brief lunch down by the fish market.

With about 90 minutes to kill before we could head over to the terminal to check-in we picked up the Bergens Expressen land train tour to take in more of the sights of the city, including a view from half-way up Mount Fløyen that allowed us to watch our Hurtigruten dock at the end of its previous voyage.

Back in town we headed over to the hotel to pick up our bags and walked the short distance down the hill to the Hurtigruten terminal to check in, have our safety briefing and to explore the ship before it set sail for the start of our voyage late that evening.

Weather

Light Rain Sunny Intervals
AM PM
Mild (0-10C, 32-50F)
14ºC/57ºF