We had spent a few hours walking around Bergen and were back on board Crown Princess with plenty of time to spare. This was a case of nerves on our part, something we’re far better at now. If you’ve read the previous entries in this travelogue series covering our Norwegian fjords cruise then you may remember that there had been a five-year gap between our first foreign vacation and this one, and that this cruise stop in Bergen had been our first time in another country since that first cruise and the only port of call of the cruise on which we had no excursion organised. With it falling firmly on us to make sure we were back before the ship cruised away we left nothing to chance and as a result our visit to Norway’s second largest city had been briefer than it needed and involved none of the museum or gallery trips that we have since tended to fill up free shore time with. Well, that and visiting bars.
We spent a lot of time on our balcony on this cruise because it had been something we’d not expected to have. We’d only paid an inside price but had been upgraded substantially when we’d boarded at Southampton. The generally cool weather wouldn’t keep us from using the balcony every day and we’ve never booked anything less than balcony on any other Princess cruise since so it was a fabulous investment from the company. We still love balconies and we still use them every day, rain or shine; for us, with limited annual leave each year, there’s no point saving money for extra cruises we can’t take anyway so we may as well get the best we can afford.
While we waited for Crown Princess to depart Bergen we could look out not only across the water to parts of the city sprawling around the shoreline of the fjord but also straight down to where someone was most likely taking some tender boat driving lessons or refreshing his or her piloting skills.
Late in the afternoon Crown Princess let go her lines and slowly pulled away from the Norwegian city giving us a different view of the surrounding land than we’d had during the approach.
Crown Princess wasn’t the only cruise ship visiting Bergen on that day but while we’d been allowed to dock at the port the AIDA Sol had needed to anchor in the water and tender her passengers ashore. We’ve subsequently seen quite a few of these AIDA ships when we’ve been cruising and their hull designs are always a welcome sight.
We continued to make use of our balcony for the cruise departure from Bergen rather than heading up on deck. This limited our view to the starboard side only but, hey, it’s a balcony! That’s what it’s there for.
If you’ve read the account of our morning cruise into Bergen then you’ll know that cruising along the Byfjorden involves passing under the Askoybrua Bridge, a suspension bridge with a main span of over eight hundred metres and a clearance just over sixty. It was not something that made the biggest impression on us because neither of us could remember cruising under it on Crown Princess in either direction and it was only the act of taking a look back at the photos long after the event that we realised we had even watched it all from our balcony.
The lesson there is that it might be a more memorable event to see your cruise ship passing under a bridge from the top deck so if you’re going cruising for the first time or the first time in a stretch of water that requires you to transit beneath a bridge then get out of your room and see it from the highest point of the ship. The lesson might also be that there’s a good reason I take so many photos and write as much as I do and that’s because our memory is just utterly shocking.
As Askoybrua disappeared in our ship’s wake we spotted AIDA Sol chasing us along the fjord.
All that remained while the light was good enough was to watch the landscape pass by. Crown Princess followed the Byfjorden then turned to starboard and retraced its route of the morning up the Hjeltefjorden. Occasional boats and yachts and rocky islands caught our attention for a time but eventually the lure of showers, changing into evening wear, and some drinks became too much to bear.
