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We visited Bergen in August, 2002 on our way back from the Nordcap. Bergen is a seaport on the west coast and is a popular beginning point for those coming to visit the western fjords. Below is a panorama of the waterfront of Bergen. At left is the old Bryggen area of the city.
Bryggen is the oldest section of town and was the area where the workers from the German Hanseatic League lived and worked. The tenements pictured below are the remaining buildings. Each tenement was a series of 5 to 10 houses with an assembly room at the rear. Because everything was built out of wood, the fire danger was extremely high, so cooking, heating and lighting was allowed only in the communal meeting room at the rear.
The photos below shows the jumble of buildings that resulted and the narrow passageways between the tenements. The Bryggen museum has a good tour that explains the history of the area that includes visiting one of the old houses as well as a reproduction of the assembly rooms. The living conditions were somewhat less than desirable by today’s standards.
The picture below was taken in the area where the misty clouds are located in the panorama at the top of the page. The two views were taken on different days and show how changeable the weather can be. Above it is overcast and it had rained extremely heavily during the previous night. The morning of the following day we had blue skies and sunshine.
We took the opportunity to ride the cable railway (Fløibanen Furnicular) which will took us up the hillside - we did not want to walk. It is an 8 minute ride to the top of Møunt Floyen. The picture below left was taken as we descended the hill back down to the area of the town that can be seen in the right side of the picture above. At the extreme right of the area with all the buildings, which is hidden by the trees on the right hand side of the picture at left, the ferries from the United Kingdom dock.
Above right is a picture of the oldest building in Bergen still in use - St. Mary’s Church. It is billed as one of the most outstanding Romanesque churches in the country. It was built over 850 years ago and served as a church for the Hanseatic Merchants between 1408 and 1766. Unfortunately the church is only open when a concert is being conducted during the summer and you must attend the concert to get into the church.
In the picture aabove you can see the area that is located at the bottom of the “U” shown in the panorama taken from the top of the hill. The area at the left and below the water is used by various vendors for a fish/vegitable/fruit market as well as many places where sweaters and other items are available for purchase. During our stay in Bergen we spent several days at the home of Hilde Stoltz and her husband Sigurdur Bjarnason. We learned from Hilde that the locals get very upset when they come into town to do their marketing and have to push the tourists who are busy taking pictures like the one below out of the way so they can do their shopping.
We went into town with Hilde and Sigurdur on Saturday when they do their weekly shopping. After we had completed our purchases we headed up a small alley where we found two benches in a nice secluded area - this was an excellent place to enjoy the jam filled buns and juice we had purchased at the bakery for a mid morning snack.
We learned while we were at the market that the sea food stew that Hilde had prepared the night before had contained Monkfish. The stew also had shrimp and a white sauce flavored with dill served over freshly boiled potatoes. MMMM good. Having never seen a Monkfish before we were quite interested to see what one looked like. When we were at the fish market Hilde pointed to the good looking specimen at above, left and told us that this is a Monkfish! We thought it was interesting that we could purchase our fish and get the Value Added Tax (VAT) back. We wonder if we have to show the customs people the purchase when we are leaving the country like you do in the European Union?
Oh ya, almost forgot about the cute Troll that was at the top of the Funicular ride - the Troll is the one above right!
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