We have had more visitors from the Netherlands. This time it was the mine hunters M862 ("Vlaardingen") and M863 ("Willemstad"). They are here shown moored at "Tollboden" in Bergen. They had at least better weather than there colleague M861 this winter, which by the way, was moored at the same quay.
The bridge on the picture has featured on many of the pictures in this blog - it is called "Askøybroen" and is straight across the fjord from where I live. It was opened in 1992 and was in the beginning illuminated at night. But not for long - soon the light was turned off - nobody wanted to pay. Now the various parties involved have come to an agreement and the light is on again.
"Byparken" (the City Park) containing the lake "Lille Lungegårdsvann" is in many ways both the green and the blue lung of Bergen. It is not a true freshwater-lake since there are covered-up connections with the fjord outside, but that doesn't matter. The fountain in the middle makes up for all that.
The pictures contained in this panorama-picture were taken from "Festplassen", a central square dedicated to official festivities etc. The mountain to the left is called "Fløyen", while the one in the distance is the highest one around Bergen and called "Ulriken".
"Blomkarse" (I hope it is called Indian cress in English) is also a frequent guest in the fields at this time of the year. Very popular with small girls who loves to pick them and sell them to all the neighbours for a piece of candy or whatever. I know all about it - I have three daughters.
And this one has a guest too.
Dandelions are not the most popular guests in the gardens. They may be a nuisance to the "green-freaks", but so what? They have a beautiful yellow colour and other inmates of the world appreciates them - as you can see here.
Anemone is a large genus of flowers with about 120 species. Just which one of them this is I don't know. In Norway we call them "hvitveis" and it is one of the most common and welcomed flowers at this time of the year.
"Bryggen i Bergen", (The wharf in Bergen) is on UNESCO's World Heritage list. Some time ago I took eleven separate pictures of these old buildings (you can see them here). Tonight I tried to make a panorama picture out of them. They are not taken from the same point, but by moving in parallel with the buildings. They had also been edited individually. Aided by first Canon's Photostich software and then subsequently by Adobe' Photoshop CS2 I managed to get the result you see here.
Not bad for a first try?
I passed this yellow bush on my morning stroll today. As usual I do not know what it is called, but now matter. It was very yellow.
We cannot have spring without a fair sprinkling of these busy fellows. They seem so large and clumsy that it is a wonder that they get so much work done as they really do. You can hear their buzzing all over the place, and in my experience: if you leave them alone, they leave you alone.
The cottage season has started late for us this year, so it was just as well that it started with a bang, so to speak. 19 degrees in the middle of April is not what we are accustomed to around here. I took the opportunity to make one of my panorama pictures of Ostereidet (where we have our cottage). The fjord in the background is called Osterfjorden. It is in fact much closer to us than it looks in this picture.
Human are like animals - or the other way around. In any case, humans are animals. I saw it today as a young male duck did his best to attract the attention of a couple of female colleagues, but without much apparent success - as with most men trying to do the same concerning women.
It is springtime.
The coltfoots (or should it be coltsfeet?) doesn't look altogether happy this year. Maybe the spring has been to much of an up-and-down tour for them; as it has been for many others in this area.
At least they haven't given in altogether.
This was once a fire station. Since Bergen has always had large areas with wooden buildings, placing a fire station with a watchtower like this makes perfect sense. I have even shown pictures of this station before, but then from an other angle. The lake in front of the picture was to act as a water supply during fires.
The station has been out of use for a long time and is now used as a clubhouse for "Skansen bataljon" - a "buekorps" (a boy's brigade - a peculiar custom seen only in Bergen as far as I know). There are plans for filling in the lake and using it as an entrance for an underground parking lot for the people in the area. A thing not to popular among the historically interested people in Bergen.
Someone might think that I had a thing or two about cats. In fact, I am forbidden by the doctor to even touch them. But a camera's lens doesn't normally touch the subject it is taking a picture of, so in this case I am safe.
There is something peaceful about a cat resting on a doormat. Not a worry in the world. The other one had obviously found a nice shrub decorated with some daffodils where it could ponder the problems of the world without disturbance.
I found these a couple of meters apart not far from the Sandviken area in Bergen.
This church is not only the oldest church in Bergen, but it also the oldest remaining building. The first mass was held about 1150. It has twin towers, which is not common in Norway. It looks like a small cathedral, but it has not that function. When the Hanseatic traders dominated Bergen, it was their parish church.
I have posted few photos lately, but I'll try to make up for that by posting four today! You may have noticed that quite a number of my pictures are photos of ships. Living as I do I can hardly escape that, but I think it is fun too.
The first one, A516, is a support ship (or a tender as the experts likes to call them) of the Elbe class. The M1095 and M1096 are minehunters of the Kulmbach class. The M1058 is a minehunter of the so-called Frankenthal class. As the names imply, they are all from Germany.
It has been some time since the last post, but that has been due to circumstances beyond my control. Since we are getting closer to Easter - why not celebrate it with the foremost Easter flower - the daffodil?
