Norway July 16th-20th

So, Norway is just frickin' beautiful.  Mountains, lakes, rivers, waterfall, fjords, ya can't go wrong anywhere you look.  The only downside, is how expensive it is,  we were in one restaurant in a hurry, kids would only eat hamburgers, we paid $30 for EACH hamburger.  We now compare everything to that meal, "Well at least it's not as expensive as the hamburgers."

The ship first docked in Bergen, which is a smaller city for a day and a half.  It was a bit rainy, but fun to walk around, see the shops, the fishing market and ride the funicular up a mountain and hike around for a while.  Liam liked finding all the wooden trolls around town.  This was Andy's last port before he had to head home, so we made the most of it.

The ship left Bergen to then make it's way to Oslo.  We could choose to ride the ship or travel throughout the country and meet the ship in Oslo.  We did one of Semester at Sea's overnight trips.  It was really a great trip.  We took off from the ship in the evening, stopped by a gorgeous waterfall you could walk behind and started driving through some amazing mountain scenery.  We stayed the first night in a hotel on a gorgeous lake, and had a great Norwegian dinner (provided as part of the trip), lots of  wibderful salmon.

The next day was a combination of culture museums, fjord ferry cruise, cider farm (not apple juice, with alcohol) visit and a stay at another great hotel.  The last day on our way back to Oslo, did a two hour spectacular ferry ride to a town called Flam, had lunch and then through two trains and a bus made it to Oslo, incredible scenery throughout.

For the last day in Norway, we were now back on the ship but in Oslo.  We spent the day in the city getting it all in: Viking museum, which Liam loved; a cultural museum that has recreated old buildings with sod roofs, character reenactments etc; and a visit to the new opera house.  We then returned to the ship where we had to say goodbye to Andy, sad day for him and for us.