Hurtigrute – A name and a legend. The Norwegian coastal route is widely considered one of the most beautiful sea journeys on Earth. My parents, who were both enamoured with Norway, and the Nordics as a whole, had always wanted to go on that journey, as did I. Back in 2017, my parents and I had agreed to take this journey together once they were cancer-free. Unfortunately, cancer won that particular race, leaving me to pursue this dream alone. And I’ll be honest here, between a job change and the chaos brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns, it seemed at times as if this was going to be just another unfulfilled dream.
It wasn’t until summer 2024 when a combination of an unexpected company bonus, a batch of RSUs vesting and falling prices with one of the two operators on the Hurtigrute finally brought this dream into reach for me. Even then, it took some nudging by my manager at work to actually go for it. However, it would take most of my remaining vacation days for 2024 to make this trip, and by saving them up, I actually ended up burning out and having to leave my job before I was able to go. A number of health issues including a health scare the weekend before I was supposed to fly out that saw me spend the weekend in the emergency room left me questioning whether I should go at all. I decided to go ahead with the trip regardless.
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| And yet another early morning KLM flight out of Cork! |
The journey I had booked, a twelve-day round trip on the Norwegian coastal route with a company called Havila Voyages, would leave from the port of Bergen in southern Norway. That meant I first had to get from Cork to Bergen, which would mean a connection through Amsterdam with KLM. In turn, this meant another 3 AM wake-up call. Why? Just why? Why do I keep doing this to myself? Anyway, I made it to the airport on time, with Cork being as painless as usual. My ride to Amsterdam came in the shape of PH-EXU, a seven-year-old Embraer 170 that turned out to be fully booked. Unfortunately, shortly after boarding, we were told that a ground stop had been put in place for Amsterdam as the airport was operating at reduced capacity due to unfavourable winds. The sting of this was partially taken off by a round of drinks that the cabin crew serve while we were waiting. Besides, my transfer window was big enough. After around twenty-five minutes, we pushed back from our stand and began our flight, which ended up being pretty smooth, ending with a soft landing on Runway 36C.
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| There's something magical about experiencing sunrise above the clouds though! |
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| The landscape may be Dutch, but the weather was typically Irish when we landed at Schiphol airport. |
The same couldn’t be said for my experience at Amsterdam. Going through border control was as quick and painless as usual, I just love those automated checkpoints, however, the Schengen lounge was in the process of being completely remodelled, meaning that most of the shops and cafes were closed, as were most seating opportunities. The fact that the walkway over to the B Gates at Schiphol had been replaced with a temporary structure due to the ongoing work for the new Pier A also didn’t help. Thankfully, there was still plenty of seating by the gates and the actual gate for my flight was pretty easy to find as well. I just needed to follow the people with the Hurtigruten tag on their backpacks. For real though, with daily departures from Bergen by either Hurtigruten or Havila Kystruten, a significant percentage of passengers on the Amsterdam-Bergen route seems to be made up of coastal route travellers.
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| My flight to Bergen boarding. At least half of the passengers were booked on the Hurtigruten departure that same evening! |
Anyway, shortly after settling down at the gate, a group of French tourists apparently due to depart on that evening’s Hurtigruten departure arrived, and almost immediately began queuing up in front of the gate, even though we were still half an hour away from boarding. And I thought Germans were bad in that regard! When boarding finally began, they also seemed to be completely oblivious to the concept of boarding groups, even though their tour guide had presumably tried to explain it to them. It didn’t really matter in the end as, due to the flight to Bergen being operated by KLM Cityhopper, boarding was done by bus. That flight turned out to be a pleasant surprise on two accounts. The first was that the seat next to mine was apparently the only one on the aircraft that wasn’t occupied, giving me some welcome space. The second came in the shape of the aircraft, PH-NXO. This was an almost brand-new Embraer E-195 E2, barely two years old at the time, and it was equipped with KLM’s new short-haul seats. I’ve waxed lyrical about these before, but they really are the best short-haul seats I’ve seen in Europe. Despite a seemingly interminable taxi out to the infamous “Polderbaan” in Schiphol, Runway 36L, our departure was on time, and we soon settled into our flight north, out over the North Sea. There wasn’t much to see, for most of the flight, given that we were out over open water for most of the flight, but once we began approaching the Norwegian coast, the excitement really set in.
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| Now that's a sight I've never seen before! |
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| The lower we get, the more spectacular the landscape gets! |
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| Just before touchdown in Bergen. |
We approached Bergen from the south, with an approach to Runway 35 at Bergen, but things had started getting interesting long before that. My first .sight of Norway came far to the south of Bergen, and indeed even south of Stavanger. The steep banks of Fedafjord, the grey and brown of the leafless hills this late in the year and the encroaching snow cap at higher altitudes made it abundantly clear that I was nowhere near the Emerald Isle anymore. As we got lower and lower, the landscape began to come into sharper focus and what had initially seemed like a rugged, forbidding land started to show its human side, with houses, villages and small towns nestled into wherever the ground seemed flat enough to allow for construction. I was in completely new territory here, something that hadn’t happened since my whistlestop visit to Providence and Boston back in 2018. Touchdown at Bergen Airport was robust, as was our deceleration. With temperatures around freezing, it seemed that the cockpit crew didn’t want to take any chances with the runway. Given the relatively small size of Bergen airport, the taxi to the gate didn’t really take all that long. The walk from our gate in the old terminal at the airport to baggage claim was quite a bit longer though, something that my legs didn’t really appreciate. The airport itself is pretty modern, and the new domestic terminal in particular is pretty spectacular, I will give it that. Besides, the sign outside the terminal is right up my alley.
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| Bergen? You tell me! |
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| The Bybanen terminus at Bergen Airport is integrated right into the terminal. |
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| And here's the city terminus at Byparken in Bergen. |
With the flights out of the way, and my monster suitcase in hand, my next order of business was getting into town. I’d arrived a day before my ship was supposed to leave and booked a hotel room for one night. I guess that experience on my flight back from Austria a year earlier had left its mark. Now, if you read the Facebook groups for passengers of Hurtigruten or Havila, you’ll see loads of comments extolling the virtues of Flybussen, the airport shuttle buses in Bergen. They’d come in handy at a later point, but I’m a public transit enthusiast and so for me, there was only one option: Bybanen, Bergen’s light rail system. I’ll be straight with you, this is probably the best public transport system I’ve ever used! Ticketing is easy and paperless, requiring just a credit or debit card, the system is completely accessible, the terminus at the airport is integrated right into the terminal and both the industrial design of the stops and the onboard experience is second to none. These madlads have even given each stop along the line its own unique jingle. Oh, and services are frequent as well.
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| Dusk may come early in Bergen this time of year, but it looks all the more beautiful for it! |
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| You're never far from the water in this city. |
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| This is as close as I got to Bergen's famous Bryggen district. My legs just weren't having it! |
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| Bergen reminds me of Hamburg in a lot of places! |
The ride itself was comfortable and far more interesting than sitting in a bus going through nothing more than a series of extremely long tunnels. Unfortunately, the line didn’t extend all the way to my hotel, the Clarion Hotel Admiralen, leaving me with a fifteen minute walk from the terminus at Byparken. Could I have managed quicker? Probably, but given my questionable leg and a suitcase that felt like it was filled with neutronium, things didn’t move as quickly as I would have liked. After settling into my surprisingly small hotel room, I decided to head back out and explore the city a little. Unfortunately, at this time, my lack of sleep and questionable leg were beginning to catch up with me and, rather than checking out Bergen’s historic Bryggen area, I stuck to a leisurely stroll around the harbour, taking in the Christmas lights that the city centre had already been decked out in. I didn’t even bother with dinner and simply crashed shortly after getting back to my hotel room. The next day was going to be equally busy.
Click here to get to Part 2 of this incredible trip.
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