June 16
We were blessed with an unusually beautiful sunny day to explore Bergen. This third largest city (250,000 population) on the western coast of Norway gets 300 days of rain annually.
Our guest house (Skive House) was suitable for our 2 nights in Bergen. We had three of the four rooms which all shared one shower and two toilets. The house was within walking distance to historic area by the port and to the city center. Though a bit of a hike uphill, reminding us of our little room in Samos last year.
We started our day meeting the cute young couple from Minnesota in the fourth bedroom of our guest house. They went to St. Olaf College in Minnesota (where Bonnie wanted to go when she was 18) and were visiting relatives in Norway. After a leisure start enjoying coffee and conversation, we began our day walking down to the harbor and centre city.
Our first destination was the old trading wharfs called Byrgge and the Hanseatic Museum. Bergen was one of the administrative centers for the Hanseatic League, a powerful merchant trade association in Northern Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. Fish (dried cod) was the primary export from Norway. The Byrgge area was where the Germans lived, all men working in the fishing industry. The original buildings were all wood and were leveled by fires several times over the centuries. The museum is one of the oldest and best preserved wooden buildings in Bryggen and has most of the original furnishings. (The colorful buildings to the left of this picture is the area called Byrgge).
Even the hari krishnas were running around taking pictures with their ipads – wonder if sometimes people aren’t seeing the world they are exploring because they are too busy taking selfies of themselves in every scenic setting.
We split our group and Bonnie stayed with Bill and me. We decided to just cruise the neighborhoods and stroll in and out of whatever shops we passed. No churches or museums today! However Bill did made us climb to the top of a huge pedestrian walkway to a church.
The streets of the touristy parts of Bergen were crowded with all the cruise passengers. We spent the day just walking and exploring. We had lunch at the food court of the mall. Very expensive but delicious sandwiches. 2 sandwiches and 1 coffee was $30! Food and alcohol are very high in Norway. We were definitely away from the tourist areas and walking among the locals. Bill found lefse and Barb & Les returned with a smoked fish which we enjoyed as a snack back at our guest house.
Such a beautiful day to explore this city filled with open green spaces, surrounded by seven mountains and very lush from all the rain.
Back out in the evening to take the funicular to the top of the city. Bergen has a funicular to ride up to the top of Mt. Floyen which looks down over the city and has many trails. This park has been in existence since the 1800’s. The view at the top was magnificent – even staring into the sun at 7pm.
We walked through a section of the forest that had trolls and signs posting not to disturb the baby dinosaurs or the witches. (Bonnie sent pictures of the signs to Drew!).
After much debate about whether to walk down to town or take the funicular, we walked. What a beautiful trail, fairly steep and green. Bonnie says this walk was the highlight of our day. “Words and photos can’t do it justice. The forest was deep lush green, full of moss covered rocks, forest ferns, and of course trickling water collecting and running through the rocks in mini waterfalls.”And lots of fit good looking Norwegian youth in fashionable athletic wear running up and down the steep path. We walked down with a Norwegian women and her 10 year old daughter – had a nice chat about the country and their lifestyles.
Once we made it down to the houses perched on the hill, we took the stair shortcuts to get down from one street to the next.
Our day ended day with an Italian dinner, very good choice and our waitress was from Moldavia. (Most of the servers on this trip are not from Scandinavia).
And Bonnie got a virtual medal on her Samsung step counter ….20,000 steps! No wonder our feet hurt!