For the first time in almost two years we are travelling back home to Norway!!

We didn`t had a plan to go back home while we were sailing in the Med, but we were invited to four different confirmations this May, within three weeks, so we decided to go. We booked a berth in Rome, as I told you about in our last post, and booked flights from there to Bergen.

We had prepared for this travel for some days, and Thursday we were ready to fly to Bergen. When we woke up in the morning and checked the news, we saw there was som issue with the control system for flights in southern part of Norway, and all flights was stopped in the morning. That also means that it would be a lot of delayed flights later that day.

A guy from the marina took us to the airport and we went to check in. A guy stopped us and told us that our flight was cancelled. What???? Our first time back to Norway and our flight was cancelled??? It was many people waiting like us. The people at checkin tried to help us as best as they could, but the only thing we could do was to call the airline, Norwegian. But that was only a Norwegian number and everyone else was also calling them so we were nr 119 in the line… Okay, we didn`t had many other things to do so I was waiting.

After 45 minutes I came through, and the guy at Norwegian was really helpful. He rebooked us to another flight to Oslo in the evening and further on to Bergen the next morning. They helped us with a hotel that night at the airport. It is a bit boring waiting for so long at a airport, but it was okay.

So the next morning we arrived in Bergen, one day delayed. We took the “Bybanen” (city train) into town to visit Miriam, our fosterdaughter, who is living there. I had ordered shrimps for lunch, one of the things we really miss!! And it was so delicious! Thank you so much Miriam!

After lunch we walked through Bergen to take some photos.

The city was decorated with many flowers.

Bergen was found in 1070 and has a lot of old buildings. This is the building for the newspaper.

Here is the guest harbour. We have stayed here once. Not much traffic now.

One of the tourist attractions in Bergen is Fløybanen. This is a funicular going from the city center to the mountain Fløyen at 320 masl, and takes 5-8 minutes. You can see it up in the hill in my photo.

Bryggen

“cheese”

Old buildings in Bryggen, a part of Bergen

We have been in Greece for so long time, and we have eaten too many Gyros. The price has been between 2,5 and 3,5 EUR. In Norway it is 179 NOK, which will be 15,75 EUR!!! If I will be eating Gyros in Norway? Not! Then I have to make it my own!

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Lille Lungegårdsvannet

It is a really nice walk around the lake.

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From Bergen we took the public boat to Florø, it takes 3,5 hours and it is a perfect way to travel on the coastline of Norway. Florø is the town where we are living when we are not sailing in the Med.

Astor took some photos of Bergen when we left the city.

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We were on a boat like this one, but this boat goes somewhere else.

Håkonshallen, the city museum

After a beautiful, calm, travel from Bergen we finally arrived in Florø. Our house is in the middle of the photo sorrounded by fjords and mountains.

Check out this short video from our boattrip to Florø:

Since someone is renting our house we couldn`t stay there, so we asked our friends Ingrid and Johnny if the had a bed for us, and they welcomed us! Saturday we did a hike together to Brandsøyåsen, the most popular hill in Florø, at 293 masl.

We have been at Brandsøyåsen many times, but they took us to another path we hadn`t tried before. It was really nice, and the view was as always, stunning.

Florø, Norway`s westernmost town with about 9000 inhabitants. Florø has a beautiful archipelago and we look forward to be sailing around there later this year.

Enjoying the view!

On the top. It is not strange that thousands of people are walking up here all year around. There are several routes to choose from, and you can also walk all the way from city center.

We are so happy we had time to hike up here, since we had only a few days in Florø.

Check out this video from the hike:

After our hike we visited our house and the people who lives there. Look at the view we have from our house!

And they were flagging for us!!

After that we visited my friend Rachel and her husband Terrance. Their view is also stunning, specially in this amazing weather!

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Sunday we were ready for Johanne`s confirmation. She is daughter of my friends Nina and Kjell Arne. Thank you so much for inviting us!

The church in Florø

The church was full of confirmands and their families.

The confirmands walking out of the church together with the priests.

After church it was dinner and cakes with family and friends. They held the dinner in the new building at the main harbour in Florø. From here you can see the guest harbour which is one of the best in Norway! It was nice to see Nina and Kjell Arne again together with their family and friends!

Here is a short video from the church:

Monday I was at the local radio:

https://radio.nrk.no/serie/distriktsprogram-sogn-og-fjordane/sesong/202404/DKSF02008224#t=1h5m57s

And in the evening we had an event in our yacht club to tell people about our journey.

Many people, friends and sailors came to listen about it.

Thanks everyone who paid a little amount and thanks to Tine for these photos!

Tuesday we visited our lovely neighbours, Gudrun and Ottar. They invited us for cakes (that is normal in Norway). It was so nice to see them and having a chat after so long!

Then we were back in our house to check a few things. We made the lawn right before we left so we were excited to see how it was after two years. And it looked really nice.

May Linn and Asgeir lives in our house and has become very good friends of us. We look forward to spend time with them when we are coming home! Thanks for looking after our house for two years, wish you all the best in Brandsøy!

This was the first part of our travel back home. In our next post we will travel to the place where I grow up and we will see a lot of friends and family!

A specially thanks to Ingrid and Johnny for hosting us! Looking forward to see you all again!