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This is a trademark view of part of Bergen. One of the cool things about cruise/touring in this area is that you often tie the boat up right in the middle of town. This picture was taken either from the boat or a spot very near the boat.

This truck is parked outside a Bergen bar and is delivering beer to the bar. No bottles, no kegs, no muss, no fuss. Just run the hose from the truck through the basement window and into the serving tanks in the bar.

Note the cobblestone street.

The truck had a meter that looked very much like the one you see at gas pumps. Pretty efficient delivery system but the beer still tastes like Buttweiser.

Depending on who you listen to this is either the oldest or second oldest wood church in Norway. It is one of less than 30 or so "stave" churches that remain in Norway today.

This church is in Vik which is a small town on Sognogfjorden. The stave churches were built in the 13th and 14th century during the time that Norway, in general, was converting from paganism to christianity.

The architecture looks almost oriental but as far as I know there is no solid evidence that there is a connection between the builders and Asia.

The architecture is magnificent.

I mentioned elsewhere that Darcy maintained a trip journal which included some very cool pencil drawings. This is a "picture" that she took with her pencil of the stave church in Vik on Sognogfjorden in Norway.

This is the end of one of the many fjords that are part of the huge Songogfjorden system. The region is called Mundal (say moondoll with the accent on doll).

We had a wonderful dinner at the old old Mundal Hotel.

While browsing the lobby of the hotel we saw a picture of Walter Mondale who, it turns out, visits the region fairly regularly because it is where his "people" come from. In fact it is the source of his name. Mondale is a more or less anglicized version of Mundal.

As we approached this point near Moster, Norway we saw this rather impressive bridge. Because our mast is so high we are very sensitive to bridges and other overhead obstructions. We always plan our routes to ensure that any fixed bridges along the way are high enough for us to get under. We hadn't seen a bridge on our charts in this location because ...

... there was no bridge shown on the chart.

Here is the section of our nautical chart for the relevant area. Clearly it shows no bridge. We were faced with "feeling" our way under the bridge or changing our route to Bergen..

I had some choice words for the people responsible for publishing AND MAINTAINING the Norwegian charts until ...

... we rounded the point and saw that it wasn't a bridge. It was a bridge under construction. Most of the roadway wasn't in place yet and we had no difficult getting through.

In fact it appeard the roadway of the final product will be plenty high for boats like Sister to get under. I haven't checked but I'm betting that the Norwegian charts show the bridge by now.

The Bryggen section of Bergen

Norway Photo Gallery