Cycling In Norway, 2007 home cycling Norway, 2007 Updated 26 May, 2007

Day Three - Saturday 28 July

Low cloud and heavy rain all day in Bergen today. It is a demoralising place to begin a cycle tour from, even though we know that the unusually heavy rain is probably local.

Between cloudbursts we walk around the park and the Bryggen museum, enjoying the mix of different building styles and the old wooden houses sprinkled along Lille Øvregaten and Marken. Today, the puddles have turned into deep lakes on the cobbled streets by Bryggen - our socks and shoes are soaked through, and visitors are huddled under the shop awnings to shelter from the driving rain.

At this point I should be getting Janet's bent brake cable hanger replaced, but the shops are already closing for the weekend, because it is midday.

In the living room of our flat in the annexe of Skansen Pensjonat

The flat is handy for spreading out our maps, and for drinking tea while watching the rainwater running down the fish-scale tiles on the steeply pitched roof next door.

Day Four - Sunday 29 July

Second full day in Bergen today - still raining fairly heavily, but gaps are appearing between showers. We take the Fløbahn funicular railway up to the top of Fløyen (vertically above the pensjonat), and go for a 4km walk in the rain at the top - misty and cold up there!

Over lunch we jointly decide that instead of heading down the coast to Stavanger - following the North Sea Cycle Route - we'll head up towards Ålesund, starting the journey from Ballestrand, which is half way down the Sognefjord.. The logistics of getting to Ballestrand by ferry are resolved by visiting the Tourist Information center at the Torget in Bergen, where we take a ticket and wait in the queue for an hour or two to confirm that we can take the Fjordline ferry the next morning with our bikes. The harried woman on the desk there isn't sure if bicycles can be taken on this route because the boat is a high-speed catamaran, but eventually we get her thumbs up and tickets are issued. Mental note: check for the feasibility of ferry journeys from Bergen before leaving home, it's easier to find things out with an internet connection these days.

Our catamaran will leave Bergen Strandkai at 08:00 tomorrow, so we buckle down to an evening of repacking and checking everything for an early move and then clean the flat carefully.

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