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We spent the first full day of our cruise at sea, so of course we explored the ship and found out which bars had all the good beer. (Annoyingly, not in the “crow’s nest”.) The Eurodam has a lot of fun nooks and crannies (including a “secret” staircase), but our favorite place was probably our balcony. Sitting out there with two tumblers of Jameson and watching the North Sea pass us by was awesome!!

Bergen was our first port of call on August 10th. We didn’t have any particular plan in mind, especially since we were coming back to Bergen after the cruise, so we wandered a bit around Bryggen, the old section of town with colorful former warehouses along the waterfront. Carly suggested we get a wool blanket while in Norway so we would stay warm on our balcony, so that became one of our goals. We found a few beautiful ones but decided to wait until after the bulk of our traveling was done so we didn’t have to haul it around!

Our big adventure of the day was taking Fløibanen, the funicular railway, up Mt. Fløyen and hiking around the mountain. (Bergen is surrounded by seven different mountains.) We came across a lake where the rail company apparently offers free canoeing – amazing! Kristan had never been in a canoe before, so she was a little freaked out by how unsteady it seemed compared to a kayak, but we managed to stay upright, afloat, and dry!

Conveniently for our troll-extortion plans, part of the mountain is covered by the Trollskogen, or troll forest, so we put our elaborate scheme for getting the upper hand on these filthy rich creatures into motion. (Hint: it involves looking cute, but don’t even think about stealing a piece of the action from us!)

We finished our brief visit by walking down the mountain and stopping in the tourist office to exchange some currency and take advantage of their wifi to make a few phone calls. Then back to the ship for our first “scenic cruising” of the trip – out of Bergen harbor, through the archipelago, and up the coast.

We went out to the bow of the ship to get a good look of everything going by and to also hear the commentary from our “destination specialist” Ian who pointed out various points of interest. It was very cold and windy and even a little wet, but we bundled up and persevered. Nobody else could handle it, so soon enough we had the entire deck to ourselves – and of course that is when the sun came out!

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