*AN ARCTIC ADVENTURE*

** TWELVE **

** ARRIVAL IN OLDE BRYGGEN **



We eventually docked in Bergen harbour and my personal transport picked me up and took me to the old part of town (Bryggen) for a new type of Hotel, the ORION Bryggen. It was very nice , but the best part about it was the location it had a harbour setting ! I also had a `non-smoking' room which was unpolluted from any previous occupant.

After sorting myself out a bit, now early afternoon, I went for a slow quiet walk around Old Bryggen, its harbour, its fish-market and its medieval warehouses , these being still in use, attractive, well-preserved and recognised as one of the World's great treasures. It really feels to be a genuine part of the Hanseatic traders empire still.

Between walks in the pouring rain (Bergen is like that, folks!) my hotel-room's TV has some `Euro-Sport' on satellite and other channels. These revealed a broad range of items of programmes, including Tennis, SpeedYachting, Wind-surfing etc, - and even more important from my `personal interests' viewpoint - was the appearance of a friend that I had not seen for a year or four, - namely Ian Sweet, - as an expert/commentator on the World Triathlon Championships in Turkey.

Ian had always excelled in his aspirations for a professional approach to Sports Management - and he intended to do it full-time after his demob from the RAF. He specialised further, even then, on finding sponsors for tri-athletes.

My initial exploratory walks around Bergen (well, the more interesting Bryggen & surroundings) were done this first afternoon and evening, but the main walks will be tomorrow.

Tomorrow arrived, providing me with breakfast at 7.30a.m after decoding the lift- buttons labelled OPP and NED. Lucky I don't speak Norwegian, isn't it!! For the first time on this adventure, it was an `English-style' breakfast with a variety of the inevitable fried items. So one cannot eat healthily ALL the time out here!! However, it was not as bad as that because the ingredients were prepared in a Norwegian way. Whilst I'm eating, not being able to communicate with many people because of my lack of Scandinavian languages, I'm sitting in this International hotel with the impression that the majority of the clients are business people. The hotel has got a great taste in music for breakfast over the discretely-volumed loudspeakers, - Country Music. I love it !! Naturally, here, it is mostly with Norwegian lyrics (I guess) - but the `feeling' is there. However, they still had some of Anne Murray ( a Canadian) with beautiful backing on the electric pedal-steel guitar. A welcome appearance of the Everley Brothers singing real Country as well - what more could one ask for - good ol' Don & Phil !!

Back in my room, there was a Scandinavian version of "Come Dancing" on the Euro- Sport channel - and it was Latin-American time!

Right. Now for the walking tours of Bryggen! Through the automatic doors (with their overactive imaginations) I get `lost' (in the nicest possible way) in the medieval wooden buildings, workshops, trading offices and shops, craft shops, professional premises etc - it's fantastic. Appearing so old, it made me grieve more about what the planners and builders had done to our own local Tewkesbury. Tewkesbury could have been like this, I'm sure, but "Yuppy" developments have changed the `Olde English' character of the place. Bryggen didn't fall into that same trap - and the World appreciates them for it (listed by UNESCO).

There is a funicular railway further up the hill in town - but who wants a funicular (however good) when there is such an attractive area as this to travel on foot? Given another day or two, the funicular could, more easily, have been worked into my visits here.

Bryggen, including the medieval wooden wharf complex, is a three-dimensional maze and is one of the world's best (if not the best) for history and culture in a medieval settlement. More than just an older version of Tewkesbury (which went wrong!), it has hills behind - which more than match the charm of Malvern and its hills. It has steep slopes, paths and roads IN town which provide one with attractive walks. Housing is tightly packed, so at any point, one can stop, regain one's breath, look at a wide variety of houses (mainly wooden - but not all), wallow in the tremendous views of the harbour, the olde town , the hills - and any combination of these that you so desire. The higher reaches of this part of town reminded me of the mountain villages in the South of France overlooking the Merditerranean, - places such as Bormes and Eze. Furthermore, in the same area there was a likeness to Hawkeshead in the English Lake District (a likeness, yes, but not with the dreaded extensive commercialisation. Olde Bergen is still very much a `lived-in' town rather than a tourist showpiece).

If this trip hadn't taken me to the fjords, arctic scenery, snow & ice, the Aurora etc, I would want to remember Norway purely for this fantastic place. Bryggen, - you're terrific!! Your angled cobble-stones, your everything! And bear in mind that my entire stay in Bergen was in the pouring rain - and I still feel the love of the place. It would have been even more fantastic had the time been in dry weather!! Still, not bad for a winter-time so close to the Arctic!

Back in the Hotel room at the ORION, I heard some Country Music from the next room. It was the selection of the `Cleaners' on some channel at 10.15 a.m.. I quickly found it in my own room also - on Channel No1 !! It had Norma Jean's rendition of "Candle in the Wind" plus other singers and songs. This morning I felt awkward in the hotel, where I found it `unusual' and difficult balancing and coping with a non-moving deck. Still, after 11 days and 2500 miles travelling around a choppy coastline, it might have been expected. I overcame it comparatively quickly, thank goodness.

This mornings TV gave me more of Ian Sweet's presentations on the World Triathlon Championships in Turkey at Alanya. After a small stretch of sporting TV, I got my own legs working again for walks around and about Bryggen, a delightful place which has all of Malvern, ancient Tewkesbury, the better parts of Hawkeshead, San Francisco, Eze, Bormes etc, etc included in its wonders.

Again, it has everything - including the rain which is PISSISTENT ! This rain has been continuous from an early awakening and will continue until my departure.

Before collection by my transport, I waited in a TV-foyer-drinking-room (Coffee only, your honour!) conversing with some Norwegians and Germans. [My room had to be vacated by 12noon]. Good job that these people were all proficient at English! Eventually, my transport arrived - and again I was the sole passenger - this time to the Airport. We left 10 minutes later than I had previously scheduled. However it had been radio-phoned to the hotel at about 15.20 hours regarding the anticipated lateness (complete with reasons!). Good, aren't they?! We (sorry, I) departed at 15.35hrs.

The same guy collected me as on previous `legs' this month. Now we are off to Friesland (Bergen) airport. It was a very comfortable Minibus with 8 passenger-seats, plus driver, complete with two electronic voice links and one data link with printouts.

Due to our lateness, we headed off at high-speed despite the heavy rain (but we were not on `slicks). He had opted for wet-weather tyres for this race. (I think most competitors had made the same choice!) Our tyre-choice held us well in a four-wheel drift we made in a bend in an under-pass. (How does the wet get there?) This was quite a small underpass but a second underpass was longer and straighter.

On arrival at Friesland, I checked in , answered some odd questions because I kept on activating a bleeper! On inspection by curious airport staff, the object-of-interest proved not to be the camera, as I had supposed, but one of the shavers. I'd never seen it by X-Ray vision before! Now I know how it works!!

Following this, I make my way along to Gate 23 for Flight SK517, having specified the requirement for a seat in a non-smoking area. Bergen's airport's Tax-free area is relatively quiet but it was "all go" on the way here all those days ago.

A digital display shows me that the ETD (estimated time of departure) for SK517 is 17.35hrs - so I had a little while to spare with some Kroners to spend and some American girls to talk to. I had to convince them that these duty-free prices were higher than in ordinary shops in England. They were going there next!

Our late departure was expected because of the plane's late estimated arrival-time from Copenhagen. Now I can see it. Through my binoculars, I see its details and its name - it is called MARGRET VIKING.

Using the Norwegian taps at the airport revived memories of the various hotel rooms with their unusual taps. They are not now unusual as they appear to be a Norwegian standard tap, very user-friendly, very effective !! It is a mixer-tap which controls both the flow-rate (up/down movement) and temperature (left/right movement), so one `flies' it like an aircraft with a joystick! One can move in two planes simultaneously, for example (when wanting to decrease the flow-rate AND temperature) by moving this single control-mechanism downwards and to the left. I grew to love this system.


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This page is dated 27 June 2005.