No ships in sight! Pilot strike in Bergen!

Oh dear, it is going to be very quiet in down town Bergen over the next few days. Much of the Norwegian Public Sector, including teachers, cleaners, government and tax officers and harbour pilots is on strike over pay.

That means that the cruise ships, which are Bergen's bread and butter in the summer, will be unable to come into port. According to the port authority, two are expected today, four on Thursday, ome on Friday, two Saturday and four again on Monday. Considering each cruise ship carries around 3,000 passengers and crew it means that the tourist trade will suffer quite alot. What a shame when the weather is so good and you can enjoy the views from the top of Fløyen, which is an absolute must if you visit At NOK70 per return trip on the funicular (only locals and idiots like us take the steep path up, which takes 40 minutes!) that means a loss of approx. 2.5 million kroner to the railway!

The town will feel very quiet this weekend, thta's for sure!

The strike by the way is over a half percent difference between what the state is offering and what the unions require. Apparently despite the doom and gloom elsewhere, Norway's union bosses feel that 4.25% is a fair increase for their members across the board, while the State is budgetting for 3.75%. Since no-one seems able to get either party back to the negotiating table at the moment, it seems everyone will have to just enjoy the weather as best they can and try not not sit downwind of the ever increasing piles of rubbish appearing around town (bin men on strike too). For now, there seems to be no sense of urgency, I guess the weather is too good!

As for support, it appears to be mixed. Some parents support the strike, but those who have to go to work must be finding it difficult to find someone to help out over several days.

Apparently a qualified pre-school teacher with 20 years' experience earns NOK 419,000 p.a. (about £42,000 p.a. or US$69,000 p.a.), which considering the cost of living isn't that much. My average shopping basket (not including beer or wine!!) costs double that in the UK. Our second hand, 2 year old Honda Civic cost NOK172,000 (£17,500, US$28,300) - they did try to convince us we had made a good deal though at the garage as it has 2 sets of wheels, one for winter tyres and one for summer tyres. Wow!

Rhododendrons etc.

Whew - the past few days it has been warmer here than in southern Europe, with temps hitting 22 degrees here in Bergen (30 degrees on our balcony, which gets the sun for much of the day). Today, however, a stiff breeze has kept temps down around 16 degrees, though the sun is still out. Looking ahead no rain is forecast for the next week - are we on the verge of a drought? It is certainly unusual not to have any rain whatsoever!

This afternoon we walked along Fjellveien, which is a road/wide path running behind Bergen about a third of the way up the mountains that ring the city. Built in 1897, it is a lovely  place to stroll along - and relatively flat too!  All the rhododendrons are out now, which looks lovely in the sun and with the harbour as a backdrop you realise just how picturesque Bergen is!

The tourist train runs along here too. A strange looking thing, which picks tourists up from the centre of town and takes them for a ride up the road past where we live, along Fjellveien and then back into town.  Looks like something left over from the 60's!

Yesterday we drove over to Sotra, which is an island west of Bergen, that acts as a barrier to the worst storms from the Atlantic - that is why the harbour here was so important in earlier times. Sheltered and deep, it provided good anchorage for the Hanseatic (German) traders who traded here from the 1300's to the middle of the 19th century. It was cooler out on the Atlantic coast and surprisingly misty - guess that is due to the differences in air/water temperatures? 

Looking back towards Bergen you could see a band of darker 'cloud', which looked surprisingly like pollution.  Bergen does get problems with pollution, particularly in the winter.  If the weather is dry and there is no wind, a combination of the cold air and the surrouinding mountains cause dust from the roads to lie in a thick layer above the city, which is terrible for asthma sufferers.  Why dust from the roads you may ask? Many of the cars have spiked tyres in the winter and they just churn up the road surface. Maybe dust is being blown up from the Sahara? It happens in Denmark so why not here too!

Walking in Norway

In my second to last post I mentioned that we (me, a colleague and 9 children aged 5 to 6 years old) would be walking up Løvstakken.

Løvstakken is one of Bergen's 7 mountains and rises to 477 metres above sealevel. I guess we started at about 80 metres above sea level and walked.

The interesting thing about walks in the Norwegian mountains is that there are virtually no paths - just arrows painted on rocks or nailed to trees marking the general direction in which you need to go!  The next picture I think illustrates this quite nicely - see the path?



We all made it to the top though! It took us 2 hours, with plenty of fruit and water stops on the way to give us energy.

At the top because it was so clear there were beautiful views over Bergen and Fyllingsdalen and out to the airport at Flesland. It was fun for the children watching the aeroplanes flying in and out, like toys. 



Then, of course, we had to go down the same way we had come up. Thank goodness for my colleague who knows the route blindfold as I certainly would have mised the way across the rocks (arrows do not always occur when you think they should, and going up is so much easier as you can see your target!!)

The children were definitely tired by the time we got down, but an ice lolly raised their spirits amazingly!