Around the fish market
We walked back down the hill to the quayside, and then through the empty market place until we reached the fish market. Looking through the windows, the market was more like an upmarket fishmongers.
At the end of the building we made our way to the quayside again.
Walking back, we were passing the fish restaurants at the side of the market. It was still early so the tables were only partly filled with people having lunch.
The Bryggen
Back on the Bryggen and we explored up the narrow alleys.
The restoration work on some of the buildings was scheduled to take years. All of this work is far cry from the time before when plans were being made to demolish all of it.
Along Festningskaien on the opposite side to the fortress, we stopped for a closer look at one of the oil support vessels. Up close, this was much larger than they seemed when seeing them from passing cruise ships.
Bentelabo Cruise Terminal
Rain had started as we walked around the buildings at the terminal to get to the ship.
At port security inspection just our cruise card was checke3ed. At the side of the gangway there were chairs near large insulated urns. One of which had delicious hot chocolate. Our next surprise was just walking onto the ship without having to have bags checked or scanned and not having to go a the metal detector– very welcoming!
Afternoon
Our lunch was in the grill on the Deck 12. It was very relaxed and we enjoyed just sitting and sipping our wine. Then it was time to go back to the cabin for a rest and to watch a film.
The Captain made a long announcement into the cabin at around 3:30 pm. It seems that the storms we had experienced on the day before had now intensified. But even more concerning was that there were even deeper Atlantic lows rolling in to the Norwegian coast further North. The visit to Honningsvag was now cancelled completely.
Spirit of Discovery would now stay overnight in Bergen and on the next day make her wait to Alesund rather than to Tromso. We were promised paperwork to explain fully the revised itinerary. The impact of this was that our private excursion in Alta now would have to be rescheduled. We decided to wait until we had a printed itinerary before contacting the tour company.
Then it was back to the rest of the film for us, both a little disappointed and concerned. This was both because of not now going to the North Cape. Plus not going so far North perhaps missing the Northern Lights and just how bad was the sea going to be?
Richard and Adam in the Britannia Lounge
We attended an extra show win the Britannia Lounge. This was by the two Welsh brothers, Richard and Adam and their ‘extra’ show was very good. The brothers were ‘surprised’ when one of their ex-teachers was in the audience!
The Club
Our evening had a special treat, eating in The Club. This was one of the specialty restaurants on board. We had booked with our friends. The ship being docked probably made the evening easier. We all enjoyed our special meals (steak for me) and I for one definitely ate far too much.
The Britannia Lounge
After dinner we went to the lounge to listen to Sarah Moore and her performance of ‘Musical theatre through the ages’.
The evening was rounded off with the music of the house band, Viva.