Yup...100 Tall Ships have arrived & Geocaching took us to the most interesting places this last day in Bergen!!

Great start to the day... up at a lazy time.. brekky... relax... then off on our explore!  Found 10 geocaches over two hours.. Parks, Fountains, Churches and, better yet, little out of the way cool spots we might not have seen if not for the geocaching.

Oh yes... the Tall Ships!... EVERYWHERE in the harbor... meaning people everywhere checking them all out!  As I'm writing this in the evening, lots of people milling around, laughing, drinking, bands playing, folks just plain making lots of noise... I think it's gonna be a long night!!!! The temperature was warm all day, but, some cloud cover has moved in this evening and things see to be in at least the upper 70's.  Tonight will be the last night of having daylight well past 10:15... and the sky never really becoming dark enough to see the stars... can't say I will miss that...but I am happy I got to experience it!

So... lots of pictures... hope I don't bore you... but you see just a few of the gazillion I took... So glad digital is the way now... imagine having to wait and get the film developed and just hoping they turned out...!

Jerry stopped and is smelling the roses!!!

 Somebody has to keep those parks so beautiful... she was snipping dead flowers off with tiny little clippers...

 Cool little area and those are real outdoor xylophones you can play... we had fun... Jerry is signing a geocache we found in the area...

 Beautiful gardens abound...don't know why I get infatuated with taking closeups of flowers... but, you're stuck looking at them...heehee!

 This tree was huge and beautiful... reminded me of a Contorted Fig... like the Bowman's had years ago!!!

 Preschool kids out for some time in the park... think you can identify the preschoolers?

St Olav's... built in the 1100's by the Roman Catholics... became Lutheran during the Reformation...

 This was some of the awesome wall/street artwork on the way to one of the geocaches!

 The process... all done with a can of spray paint!

 Those are shoes glued to the wall....

 Jerry was talking this poor guys ear off... or wait, maybe that guy was talking Jerry's ear off????

Found a much better Fish Market thanks to Stacy S.... Love facebook and how you can get that info from someone who's been already!

Monk Fish

 My fingers I was hoping would give a frame of reference... alas not so much... but these puppies were humongous!

And... the ships....

 This tiny little boat would take preschooler/kinder kids out... what the heck???? in that bay with all those big ships clogging up everything?? What parent would say, yeah... you can go for a ride on that...  btw, no room for the parent to go along...

 Older kids got to make their own wooden boats with sails and then create a wind in the sail and have fun!

 Shall we say he had a birds-eye view?????

 Here's the band we know from the states... love them... L'Angelus, from Louisiana... Ended up they we were staying in our hotel... had a good long chat with them...!

Tomorrow.... France!

From Edvard Greig to Tall Ships Coming and in between all that!

So warm, that I don't even attempt to write this till our early morning hours arrive...  I have always hated to have the air conditioner on in hotel rooms and not being able to open windows... well, now, you will no longer hear me complain about that!!!!

Our day started out with a more in-depth exploration of the city Bergen.  Bergen has been THE place in Norway history for years before Oslo, etc came to have some importance.  The picturesque Wharf Market buildings have so many stories they could tell, including the fact they are collapsing into each other and are being 'saved' at great expense and time. We saw other parts of Bergen, for example, housing once for sailors and their families a couple hundred years ago, are thriving and now, of course, one of the most expensive and prestigious areas to live in.  Folks who are from Bergen, we soon became aware... but in a good way... think they are better than all the other Norweigiens...they even have their OWN national anthem, distinct accent and definate opinions and love to disagree just to disagree!

Drove to the home of Edvard Greig, a Norwegian classical composer I knew very little about but certainly had heard his music.  His life story (died in 1904), his wife, his home location (late 1800's he built it)... only to be topped off with a private concert for the 25 of us in the gorgeous mini-concert hall built next to his house (that, of course, was built just recently...)  I was surprised at how much  I enjoyed it, but the room felt cool, the view was beautiful and the music was wonderful...

Tall Ships are arriving in Bergen... started on Wednesday, and I venture to think, when we walk the docks this AM before the heat, there will be plenty more.  The advertising says 100 will be here... A band we heard in Tennessee and then on our Cruise with Michael W Smith is performing today (the only American Band)... it's a Cajun with a Twist sound... four siblings now in their 20's/30's...L'Angelus.  Definately gonna go see them...  Okay... off of here... time to get out and explore.  Tomorrow we leave for Paris and then, the River Boat Cruise.

Nohting wrong with this porch... it was just pretty!

The cheap sailor housing... no so cheap anymore...

 These are two different houses... and the tiny on on the right... 400 square feet... 

 They are replacing the roof on Edvard's home, so the house is draped in material printed with what the house looks like underneath it...

The house is on a hill next to the water... and the path down to the water... sweet

 and the views... pics say it all!

The outside of the concert hall with the traditional sod roof you see here

The Tall Ships arriving,,,

 The sister ship of the Concordia that sank a couple years ago...