Photographic Self-Promotion #1, Bergen

Some of you may know that I went cruising around Norway and to Spitzbergen (Svalbard) this summer. I don't have many interesting anecdotes to tell, but I do have lots of photos (1,215 to be precise). So, over the next few weeks I shall show off a selection of photos.
Our first stop is Bergen:

This was also our first port of call. This photo was taken from one of the hills (or possibly mountains, I'm not entirely sure how high they are) overlooking the city. The focus was deliberately on the leaves on the right, but clearly the aperture was too wide to get good focus on the rest of the frame.
Anyway, two interesting points the make about Bergen in general. Firstly, during the Second World War, the Germans managed to take Bergen without a shot being fired, they just snuck in at 5am, raised their flag on the ancient fortress in the town and then a few hours later the townspeople woke to find themselves under occupation.
The other interesting point is not so dark (I deliberately put them in this order). Grieg (of Hall of The Mountain King fame) lived in Bergen, you can even go and see his house (but we didn't because we wanted to go on the coach tour and see the whole town and couldn't do both). An interesting point about the hall of the mountain king is that it was one piece that was written in full orchestra score from the incidental music that Grieg was asked to write for a friend's play. Grieg wrote quite a bit more music to go with the play than the 8 pieces in the Peer Gynt Suites, which are also not in any kind of order with respect to the storyline.
If you zoom into the centre of the picture really closely, there's a white blob, that is our ship.

More to come.