Last day in Bergen

Well, this is sad. Our flight leaves at 7:30 pm, and we are spending our last day in Bergen. Fortunately the check out is at 12 noon, so we’ll have a room to nip back to for the morning. We had another walk round and I found a fantastic camera shop. Something of a payback for all the time I’ve spent in wool shops over the last few days.

Anyhoo, I did buy a camera, but it is kind of a joke device, shaped like a film cassette and with a tiny viewfinder sticking out of it. It does work, and you can get pictures out of it.

I was a bit upset to discover that it was sold without a memory card but since we were having our lunchtime sandwich opposite a tech shop I was able to head across the road and solve that problem easily. The camera is a blind box deal, with six different film simulations. So they say. The pictures are quite low resolution, massively over-sharpened and rather charming.

The pictures below have been made deliberately small so that they don’t look too bad.

After lunch we chilled in the lobby before walking to the station and taking a tram to the airport. The tram is not the fastest way to get there but it is the cheapest, at around four quids for the pair of us. Plus you get to visit all the places where normal people hang out and see a bit more scenery.

The airport was nice until we got to the “cattle class” gate for the plane. They must have considered the probable passenger count for each plane as a few hundred and then gone ahead with the plans for only sixty or so seats at the gate. I’d like to have been at that meeting.

The flight home was smooth, and at around nine o’clock in the evening we started the two hour journey home in the car. Unfortunately, we were now back in England using English roads. Which they like to close at night so they can play with them. So, we got the diversion experience of a lifetime. As in “it seemed to take a lifetime to get home” and “it will take a sizeable chunk of a lifetime to forget it”. One part of the diversion planning process seemed to involve sending enormous lorries down tiny roads past rows of parked cars outside neat little houses that probably weren’t expecting motorway traffic levels.

We also need to mention the signage. What there was of it. You might think that if you were planning a road diversion, you’d get an appropriate number of signs in. Not so. Signs were rare and confusing. At one point we spotted one with the word “Diversion” on it being displayed upside down, presumably so that the arrow pointed the correct way. It felt like we got home in spite of this “help”. In the end we let the Satnav sort it out and just hoped it would get us back on the motorway after the blockage. Which it did. If you ever wonder if you should take a trip to Norway you totally should. We had a great time.