Day 24 – Tromso to Bergen complete!

Trip odometer: 2,117km

The final day has arrived! We woke up to a beautiful day, Viki having pursuaded us to have a lie-in (until 7:30am). The sun was shining over the church and gravestones although the tent was doused from the overnight showers.

We set off anticipating a quick 30km dash to Bergen. Unfortunately, Eurovelo 1 had other plans for us. First we got lost for a kilometre, and then had some of our slowest cycling of the trip so far – struggling to maintain 10km/hr for the 34km stretch. The route took us off the main road, winding up and down steep sections of cliffy coastline, and some rather unnecessary hills under and over the highway.

Fortunately the Eurovelo 1 signs increased in frequency as we drew closer to Bergen, counting down the distance every few hundred metres. At long last, we drew in to the centre of Bergen, passing the famous fish market and reaching the designated finishing line of Festplassen. We celebrated with a finishing photo, mackerel sandwiches, and higher quality cinnamon buns than usual.

This however, was not to be our final destination. Our final destination was the airport hotel 16km away. The rain, which had sprinkled down on as as we entered Bergen now came down in torrents, as the heavens unleashed their one last bid to keep us from comfort. We persevered, through difficult route finding (though Bergen is very well laid out for cyclists), finally arriving at our hotel. When booking the room we had told the receptionist about our trip and on entering our room we were greeted with a heartwarming surprise by the staff at Quality Hotel Edvard Grieg (see photo).

This concludes our Norway Cycle Tour. We now have three days to relax in Bergen as we completed the journey ahead of our intended schedule. Thanks for joining us over the past 24 days and we’ll post again as our travels continue!