Byfjorden at Sunset, Bergen,
Hordaland, Norway

This is the kind of photo that reminds me of one that I created on my 2010 business trip to Sweden when I enjoyed an evening stroll around Södertälje. That was looking towards Lake Mälaren, an inland lake that also borders Stockholm, a city that I also visited in 2010 and again in 2017.

Of course, Bergen is in a different situation with Atlantic waters lapping up against its shores. The place still is sheltered by islands much like Oban on the west coast of Scotland, more so if anything. They do not stop its being one of the wetter parts of Norway but there are sunnier interludes too, such as this end of day view from Fløyen over and beyond the city's harbour.

There had been rain that day like so many others, yet this flourish was no impossibility. It makes me think of what happens in Ireland after a rain-bearing weather front has passed east. The shores may be foreign, but there is much that is familiar too. In times when many think of exceptionalism, such commonality is a thought worth holding and guarding.