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Day 15 - our last full day and the only one in which the weather was rubbish. We spent it wandering around central Bergen for a bit.

Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway after Oslo, but even so only has a population of just 385,000.

Among its few attractions are the big fish market on the water (which stinks but makes a seafood-lover like me hungry at the same time)...		...and Bryggen, Bergen's old quayside and the oldest part of the city.		Safe as houses ;)

A (stolen) panorama of Bryggen, and a perfect example of the normal Bergen weather. In fact the tourism board plays on Bergen's weather a bit, and there are plenty of postcards available of Bergen in a total downpour hehe.

It's very cool walking through the little side streets of Bryggen, and I particularly like the fire extinguisher there. Bergen has throughout its history been plagued with numerous great city fires since traditionally most houses were made from wood. In 1476, Bryggen burned down in a fire started by a drunk trader hahaha. So yes, fire extinguishers! Today, Bryggen houses tourist, souvenir, and gift shops, in addition to restaurants, pubs and museums.

Bergenhus Fortress, dating right back to the 13th century but evidently entirely useless because it did nothing to prevent people coming and setting fire to the city during various battles throughout history. Never mind.		And that's about it for Bergen really. There are two cable cars in the area that go up a couple of adjacent mountains for apparently great views of the city, but there wasn't much point in this weather.		We've all had mornings like this.

And after these 15 days of fun, we were completely knackered! We went back to the hostel that evening, showered and napped, and treated ourselves to McDonald's for dinner hehe - it was a change from microwave meals at least. Then it was another extremely early morning for the flight back to London.		While we were away, Christchurch had more earthquakes, Osama bin Fucker finally got what was coming to him, and England had a royal wedding. And boy have they gone nuts over it hehe. By the way my, my Mum thinks Prince Willy and I look alike. Thoughts?

So that was Scandinavia in a nutshell. When Kristina and I were originally discussing this trip, we had actually considered a four-week gallivant rather than just two which would have also included Finland, more of Sweden, and the far north of Norway where they have 24-hour daylight during the summer which is starting about now. Unfortunately though, two weeks was going to be expensive enough let alone four, and in the end it certainly proved to be so. With my pending departure from the UK in just a few months, I will have left a very large chunk of Eastern Europe unticked which I plan on coming back to see some day, so I'll hopefully take in Finland and the like then too. But regardless, what we did manage to see in these two weeks was pretty amazing stuff. Scandinavia is a brilliant part of the world for many reasons, so don't let the expense or the point-and-shoot-camera quality of these photos put you off (maybe it's time to start thinking about a DSLR). Oh, bonus video of Kristina here ;)

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