I’ve been travelling back and forth to Bergen for work for three weeks now and to tell you the truth, I’m exhausted. I just want a weekend in my own bed, eating home cooked food and binge-watching Netflix. But since I’ll be here for a few more days, we decided we should come on Friday and spend some time together away from chores and to-do-lists. 

And so we did! It was a romantic weekend, even though we did lots of socialising and the weather was typical for Bergen- rain, drizzle, clouds, drizzle and some pouring rain again. The fact that Oslo had their second summer weekend didn’t make it any better, but then again, when your lover is with you, you’ve got no care in the world.

We landed late on Friday and barely made it to the restaurant before the kitchen closed. It was raining heavily, we forgot to borrow an umbrella at the hotel and got soaked to the bone. So we sat by the fireplace, ordered some wine to go with his entrecote and my moules frittes and felt the muscles relax, little by little.

“Let’s go for a drink”, he said and so I took him to  what I remembered to be a cosy wine bar, but proved to be a sad place for “them over 50”, full of skimpy dressed people who’d had too much to drink. Haha! But we were in a great mood and so we had a couple of glasses of wine, first some crappy Austrian for Frederic’s part and some Prosecco for mine and then some nice Italian rosé that lifted our spirits to yet a higher level.

Saturday I woke up with the world’s worst headache, nothing that a sturdy breakfast and a Paracetamol couldn’t fix, though. After that we went for a little stroll, entered a couple of stores and stopped for coffee by the old docks at Kaf. Such a lovely place, they’re working hard to stay true to their concept and be a hidden haven from all the Espresso Houses and Starbucks popping around like “mushrooms after the rain”, as we say in my mother tongue. Tourists and locals alike found their way there, savoured a cup of fresh espresso or chatted over a rustic lunch, away from the main street’s uproar.

In the afternoon a friend of mine picked us up and tok us to her place in Sotra, an idyllic village on an island just 20 minutes outside the city center. There was cheese, grapes, crackers, Prosecco and cake, a cutie of 6 who got under our skin by playing the piano and reciting poems and a view to make even the pope green with envy. 🙂

To digest the feast, we took a little walk around the estate and went all the way down to those cute boat houses, colourful and weather-beaten, standing there as fierce as the rocks they were built on.

In the evening we had dinner at Colonialen Litteraturhuset. Unfortunately Frederic’s fish was undercooked and that kind of ruined his experience, although they were extraordinarily nice and apologetic about it. The desert was divine, though and it left me thinking about how much I’ve missed meringues lately. I should make some soon!

Today we had a pit stop at Kaffemisjonen, their coffee is rated as Bergen’s best. And since I love my coffee, it better be just right. Although a very hipp place, it had a good vibe to it and since hipp usually means no kids, I was happy about that, too. After another stroll in the rain, we went to Frederic’s uncle and aunt for dinner. They were so nice and so easy to talk to, I couldn’t believe my luck. Haha! I’ve never been great with family, neither mine or others’ and while I usually socialise just fine, somehow I manage to ruin a dinner pretty well when I feel I need to live up to certain expectations. haha!

This was us on the way to Bergen. I’m still here for a couple of days, maybe I’ll manage to take a couple of pics with my camera, for a change.

xxx, Alina