bergen, norway - Day 7-8 - July 18-19, 2023
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 - Fly to Bergen, Norway - Embark on Viking Mars
We awoke early this morning to catch a flight to Bergen, Norway. The airport in Iceland, is about an hour from Reykjavik and then a 2.5 hour flight to Bergen. When we arrived in Bergen it was pouring rain. Bergen is the rainiest city in Europe and it showed. We boarded the Viking Mars which was a little strange, because it is identical to the Viking Sky that we were on in March.
Hal , our guide for the last five days in Iceland - he was wonderful!
View from the Bergen, Norway Airport
Viking Mars
Wednesday, July 19, 2023 - Bergen, Norway
We awoke this morning on the Viking Mars. It was great to be on the ship, unpack and relax. We had a wonderful breakfast in the World Cafe. Today we are going to go on a couple of excursions. The first excursion this morning was to Edvard Greig’s summer home. It was still raining pretty steadily - we are in Bergen! We went to a piano concert by Fuko Ishii in the beautiful concert hall and toured his summer home which was interesting. We then proceeded to a restored stave church. The Fantoft Stave Church, the 800 year old church had been moved from the country to its present location in 1883. In 1992 some Death Metal folks burned the church to the ground; it took six years to rebuild. The Death Metal band was Burzum and featured the burned out church on their album. Apparently they burned several churches around Norway.
We went on a boat tour of the Bergen harbor in the afternoon it was interesting to see everything from the water. We had sail away drinks in the Explorer Lounge, which is Rick’s main hangout when on the ship!
Piano Concert Hall at Edvard Grieg’s Summer Home
Fantoft Stave Church - rebuilt with a security fence
Old homes of Bergen from the water
Explorer’s Bar on the Viking Mars