The 1952 North Cape Cruise - 13/14 July 1952
Bergen
Bergen is known as the “Spotless Town”, washed and rewashed by frequent showers, scrubbed and painted by its people. In days of yore it was an important city of the Hanseatic League, a leading centre of trade in the North. At the harbour entrance stands a massive tower and banquet hall of Viking splendour where Norse kings feasted and drank wassail six hundred years ago.
Along the quay is a medieval warehouse of the Hanseatic era, now filled with mementos of Hanseatic factors and clerks. At Fantoft, a few miles away, is an old “Stave Kirke”, a steepled building black with countless coats of tar, wooden with tiers of overhanging roofs and gables that end in dragon heads with tongues of flame.
All these typify old Bergen, founded in 1070, a capital city with palaces and cathedrals. Today it is the centre of one of the largest fishing industries in the World and a city of intriguing individuality - spotless and bright with flowers.
Norheimsund
Norheimsund is located on the great Hardanger Fjord, known as the fjord of villages. In the northern fjords settlements are few and far apart, for the mountains rise straight out of the water and there is rarely any land to cultivate. Although the Hardanger has its mountains, as high and precipitous and rocky as the others, they are better wooded and the lower slopes are more fertile. Pretty little villages dot its shores.
[Image: from 1954 postcard - Peter Stevens Collection]
