Bergen, Norway

Our next big trip was a two-part one. The first part being Bergen, Norway. If I am being technical, it was really three parts. One night in Bergen, several nights in the Faroe Islands and then back to Bergen for a few more nights before heading home. But for the purpose of this blog, I am going to lump all of our Norway information together. 

Bergen is famously rainy. I went in with low expectations in regards to the weather. We were pleasantly surprised with decent weather while we were in town! Sure we had some rain and chilly wind, but we also lucked out with some sunshine!

On our first day in Bergen we took a walking tour which led us down cute alleys. We learned some of the history of Bergen.

Bergen was rife with street art! 

Another outing while in Bergen was a "fjord" cruise. It was pretty much just the fjords closest to Bergen, so it was more populated and less scenic than I would have liked. But it was a relaxing boat trip. 

We rode the funicular up to the top of the mountain for some panoramic views of the city. 

We did not eat nearly enough pastries while in Bergen. This was like a cheese Danish. Charles was happy to see mochas on most of the café menus. Surprisingly, we haven't seen that a lot in Germany.

We mostly avoid Mexican food in Germany. It's just not good. I saw a taco place with good ratings and thought we'd give it a try. It was actually pretty tasty!

We also enjoyed some Thai food while in Bergen. Yum, yum, yum!

This was the view from our Airbnb which was located outside of Bergen. Downstairs is an Italian pizzeria with some of the best pizza we have had in a while. The owner was so friendly and brought us fresh croissants every morning of our stay. His story about living in Italy and how he came to relocate to Norway was fascinating!

Dining in Bulgaria

I have had a few people ask me about the food in Bulgaria. We ate really well and inexpensively there. 

Charles enjoys Thai food and we don't eat it very often. I found a highly rated Thai restaurant and had it in mind for his birthday dinner, but we ended up eating there the night before instead. It was so good! I had the yellow curry and a Thai beer. 

We are a dessert every night kind of family. Our first night we did not want to venture back out for gelato so we decided to try out the room service. Check out this fancy looking dessert! 

Another type of restaurant we tried while in Sofia was a BBQ joint. Being Southern BBQ lovers, we had to see what Bulgarians are doing with their BBQ. We were pleasantly surprised. We also tried some Bulgarian beer. I did not really care for mine (pictured above), but Charles' was good. I took a picture of our BBQ platter, but it turned out blurry. That's what I get for not checking before digging in. Our platter had a great sampling of different items--ribs, pulled pork, sausage, pickles, bread and corn. It came with a pineapple BBQ sauce. Mmmm! 

For birthday breakfast, we walked about 15 minutes to a place that came very highly rated on Google. When we arrived, they had a sign that said closed for renovations. Sadness abounds! Around the corner was a very hipster coffee shop called Chucky's so we gave that a try. The coffee was good. I had lemon cake and Charles had banana bread. Not exactly birthday level special, but we made do. 

One of our afternoon treats was bubble tea from a tiny place down the street from our hotel. I had green apple fruit tea and was not going to get any pearls, but the owner insisted so I chose cherry. It was very refreshing. 

This was Charles' choice for breakfast one of our mornings. It's a Bulgarian fried dough. Mine was topped with Nutella and bananas and Charles had honey and walnuts. It was pretty tasty!

For Charles' birthday dinner we tried Bulgarian food. The restaurant was down the street from our hotel (did I mention how conveniently located our hotel was???) and it was so affordable. We ordered a bottle of wine, an appetizer and two entrees for the grand total of about $40 USD. Wow!

Our wine was a Bulgarian white wine and it was very refreshing and light. 

The appetizer menu included several different dips to choose between. We chose this one which had garlic, tomatoes and cream cheese served with bread. It was delicious.

Bulgarian food has some similarities with Greek food. My meal, for example, was like puff pastry stuffed with chicken, spinach and cheese. It was really, really good. Charles' entrée was like a pot pie with several meats in the filling. 

Our very amazing hotel left Charles a birthday treat! What a fun surprise to come back to the room to this. 

Our very first meal in Sofia was at Supa Star, a soup restaurant. Each day they have a variety of different soups to choose from. It was quick, filling and delicious. Plus, like many of our other stops, was right down the street from our hotel. This is the broccoli soup. 

Can you have a European vacation during the summer without gelato? We didn't think so!