Photos from the bus

The Coast Bus goes hourly from Bergen to Stavanger and back again. It uses two ferries to cross the fjords, goes over, under and around mountains and offers very few opportunities to get out and take photos. Except, obviously, on the ferry.

Very easy from the ferry

It was a good opportunity to see some parts of the country I haven't seen, with all its beauty and its danger.

Fair warning.

The weather out of Bergen was fantastic, bright and warm until we hit the second ferry.

The sky was almost blue.

After that, though, it started raining. It's been raining since then.

I'm Bergen

Every few hours I would wake as the engines roared to life to pull us out from a pier. The ferry kept operating all through the night. Combined with the white night (the sun sets at night in the north, but it never really gets dark) it made for a strange sleep. I found it reassuring after a while; I never woke up wondering where I was.

I rose at what I thought was breakfast time but turned out to be not-quite-breakfast time and went to take some photos. I had to be careful not to stray too far. With an average passenger age around 86 I suspected there would be a rush for breakfast as soon as it opened.

Everyone wanted a photo of this little house

It was too windy to stay outside all day, and long stretches of bare coast provided few photo opportunities, but I felt bad sitting inside and reading (though I am reading Justin Cronin's The Passage and it is fantastic). In the end I tried to find a seat close to a window and the bow where I could check for upcoming photo opportunities.

There were many

As we approached Bergen the scenery changed. The hills and mountains became greener, the houses which had been built on strips between the slopes and the sea were built further up.

Still lots of cool islands

Entering the city from the water gives an appreciation for its layout I never got again, once I was wandering around it. Bergen is spread all about the fjord, anywhere there is land to build on.

But still very green, in summer

It was late when we got in. I had to wait for the next day to get a good view of the city from above.

All down the broken coast

The ferry left at 10am and so, using the no information they provide on their website, I walked out of my hotel and in the direction of the huge ships. Given that the ships are enormous and Trondheim is not that big, it's probably fair that they provide no indication of where you should board the ferry. Once I reached the pier it became clear pretty quickly.

Once aboard I disinfected my hands (they had a thing about that), stowed my stuff in my cabin and went outside to get some photos.

A Trondheim raven hanging out on the ship's bow. I thought it augured well.

For all their talk of 'partial to no view,' the cabin was pretty good; spacious and comfortable. I was as far aft as could be and there was a bit of engine noise, but I didn't plan to spend a lot of time inside.

The advantage to booking late and being stuck with the expensive cabins.

The ferry itself is a working boat and takes cargo and people along the coast of Norway, in and out of the numerous fjords. Trondheim was a long stop-over, and a number of passengers took the opportunity to get off and look around.

For me the ferry finally offered an excellent shot of the Lade peninsular. For those of you playing along at home, one of the major characters in the novel I've written is the Jarl of Lade.

This is Lade

My objective was to get some really great fjord photos on the trip. Turns out fjords are freaking huge, and while they are beautiful to travel through they are impossible to effectively photograph from or close to the water level.

So most shareable photos come from towns, like this one in Molde

Any time the ship stopped we were invited to step off and have a look around.

Thanks for the photo, random German nona!

Those parts of the country were all glacially formed. The mountain ranges are ongoing, continuing even into the sea. They pop up as islands all along the coast, or sit just below the water's surface. The ferries have to stay to very specific routes, or risk tearing open on the underwater ranges.

The landscape was breathtaking; towns and farms built onto thin strips of land between ocean and mountains. An American passenger quipped, "they must be very concerned about global warming."

The price of natural gas is what they're worried about.

"And erosion," I said.

"I think all this is pretty stable," he said, nodding to the mountains.  "But when it goes, it goes big."