Whichever day of the week this was, it was lazy like the best kind of Sunday. We’d purchased the Bergen Card for each of us, a card which allowed us free entry to most of the main attractions in the city along with free public transportation in the area. We were reserving our last day in Norway for some sort of fjord tour, so we planned this day to do all of the interesting things our cards could get access to.

But the house was just so cooooozzzyyy…

My mom woke us up around ten, and though it was hard to get out of bed, it was even harder to leave the living room. The view was so amazing!

I made us all the breakfast I ate everyday when I studied in Denmark: plain yogurt with chopped up apples (and this time I added raspberries and bananas) with muesli (soft granola) mixed in. We kicked back and enjoyed the sunrise, hopping between the balcony and the couch when we got cold. It was marvelous.

We finally did get the motivation to leave around noon, and we headed over the Gamle Bergen, an open air museum which is supposed to depict life in Bergen some two hundred years ago. Because we were visiting in the off season, the buildings were closed, and there were no character actors wandering around to answer questions. It was still adorable though, and we wandered around on our own for a while.

My mom had a very lively conversation with some geese because she a little cray..

And then we climbed a little hill to watch the beginnings of a sunset. (There really isn’t much daylight to go around this time of year.)

My mom also found a swing!!

Then more sunsetting…

And more exploring…

Then on to Bryggen, a colorful little street similar to Copenhagen’s Nyhavn in terms of fame.

We also marveled at this amazing building that actually turned out to just be a Starbucks.

I’m 99% certain it didn’t start out that way. That’s just kind of what happens in these old cities sometimes. Churches get taken over by Starbucks, four star restaurants taken over by McDonald’s, etc. etc.

Then it was time to ride up the Fløibanen Funicular! A funicular is somewhere between a train and an elevator in that it rides up on tracks, but the path it takes is so steep that the vehicle itself is redesigned at an oddly steep angle to better fit the slope, and it just goes straight up the mountain without messing with switchbacks or climbing all the way around and up.

It was a lot of fun, and the view of Bergen was beautiful. Jonathan kept saying he didn’t really care about what was up top and that he only wanted to experience the funicular itself, but, to no surprise, once we got to the top, he didn’t want to leave.

The town down in Bergen was cold and dry, but after only half the ride on the funicular, we started seeing snow and ice along the pathway. Up at the top, it was nothing but snow and ice. Like a magical teleporter train to a different world.

There were bunches of people riding up the funicular carrying skinny cross country skis, and all the kids were in little snowsuits.

Plus, the view was just breathtaking.

And there was a playground! Whoop whoop!

We also climbed this wheel thing that used to be an actual driving wheel for the funicular.

We found this out-of-season rope and zipline course…

And a troll!

More sunsets. (It was a long sunset… Haha.)

And the ride down…

We were hungry when we got to the bottom, so we stopped at a little tapas restaurant and ordered a few yummy dishes.

We’d planned on going to the aquarium, but we ran out of time while eating because everything in Bergen closed at three or four. The aquarium was the second-latest attraction available (closed at six), but we were a little too cozy in the restaurant, and it took about 25 minutes to get across town to the aquarium.

We wandered instead…

Over to the art museum, the latest attraction in Bergen…

Then we stopped for some unreasonably delicious hot chocolate before finally heading back to the house after a busy day.

We were all quite sleepy, but we had to stay up to book our fjord tour. It could have been all-inclusively booked at the tourism center, but we decided to book it ourselves in pieces to save the moneys. (Also the tourist office was closed by the time we could get there. Haha.)

Once all that was settled, we slumped to bed to prepare for an early and eventful morning the next day. Stay tuned for next time.

Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa