Once a year the M/V Fram stays for 2 nights in the Norwegian city Bergen. We use this time for maintenance, meetings, loading new supplies and cleaning. And this year we can really say 'major' cleaning, all the carpets and the chairs were cleaned by Norwegian professionals. And the result is there, they look brand new again. We also received a lot of new supplies here, the crew was working to the last minute to load everything on the car deck. Today the first guests arrived between 13 and 15 o'clock. This is the first bunch of them, the rest will come aboard in Hamburg. Most of the current passengers stay on board until Las Palmas (Canary islands), but some only stay on board until Hamburg. After the check-in procedures and the safety drill we left the harbour of Bergen, bow of the Fram heading South: sunshine here we come!! And as soon we were loose from the pier it stopped raining and we could enjoy the coastline of the many islands scattered around Bergen city. Many of these island are connected by bridges. We sailed under the bridges called Askøybrua and Sotrabrua. Askøybrua is a suspension bridge and crosses Byfjorden between Bergen and Askøy. It opened in 1992, and is the longest suspension bridge in Norway. It is 1057 meters long and has a main span of 850 meters. 
