Four Days in Bergen (August 11, 12, 13, 14, 2023)

August 11, 2023 to August 14, 2023

We Love Bergen

This is a cool city. We’re digging it. The wharf area (where we are staying at the historic Hotel Havnekontoret) is charming with boats, small businesses, amazing fish markets, zillions of restaurants, etc. It would be better if there were less tourists and rain but hey, you can’t have everything!

We arrived yesterday evening in lovely weather (to be savored and appreciated). The bike ride from the dropoff point of the fjordboat to the hotel (only about 1 km) took awhile because of the crowds. Bergen has a port that accommodates mega-sized cruise ships and that creates lopsided crowds.

Our hotel is lovely. It’s right in the middle of the action, but is an old, traditional hotel with nice public rooms and great service. I’m sitting in the comfortable lobby having an espresso martini while I write this. Our room has a tub to boot. Almost as good, besides a superior breakfast, is that this hotel also serves an “evening meal” every night as part of the room rate. The first night we arrived it was “taco night” which cracked us up as we had had taco salad for lunch in Rosendal. Given we had not had much Mexican food in the last two months, two taco meals in one day was no problem. There was an excellent salad bar which was great because we have longed for more reliable salad consumption.

The following morning Dave set out to do laundry. For those of you who read our blog last year, you know he had many Adventures in Laundry last fall and you haven’t heard about as many of his efforts this time around. It’s not because we have stopped washing clothes (at least entirely); it’s more that he has figured stuff out so there is not as much to report! I will admit that we have gotten a bit more relaxed about the whole thing; the weather has been cool so we find ourselves wearing our clothes a few times before they need washing. (It’s a bad sign when I see Dave sniff his socks!). The laundry effort in Bergen was a bit of a mixed bag. The evening before, he had ridden out to this place (about 5 km away) to make sure it would be open- having been stung on several occasions by summer hours (ie: not open at normal times). Since it looked like it would be open Saturday morning, he cut short our leisurely Saturday breakfast to arrive at the posted opening hour of 10 am. When he arrived he learned he didn’t have enough Norwegian cash to do his two loads and there was no cash machine or ATM at the site. The instructions to a nearby ATM came from the woman operating the place, and were confusing and complicated. Fortunately he got further instructions from another customer and also fortunately, the proprietor agreed to start his loads. While he dashed off to get cash, the laundromat got very crowded. If the kind proprietress hadn't begun his loads, he would have had a long wait for machines and a even longer wait for driers. 80% of the customers were American!

Saturday was projected to be the only nice day in Bergen so while Dave did our laundry I decided to go for a walk. I hiked up to an old historical Fire Station above our hotel, took a few pics of the City, then walked to the Leprosy Museum. The streets in old Bergen are twisty, narrow and cobble-stoned, and I was glad I was not on a bike. I picked the Leprosy Museum because I was pretty sure Dave wouldn’t be disappointed that he missed it, and I wanted a nice quiet morning- I had some confidence there wouldn’t be a rush of folks at the Leprosy Museum! Actually, it was quiet, and Dave wasn’t disappointed he didn’t go with me, but it was interesting none the less.

The oldest church in Bergen, constructed in the Twelfth Century. Formally called the Mariakirchen, but colloquially referred to as the German church, for all the Germans in the Hanseatic League who attended it.

The Skansen firehouse, constructed in 1906. Bergen has had a chronic problem with fires for the last 1000 years, due mainly to its predominantly wooden housing.

Jill's view of the city from the firehouse.

Norway has long been a leader in leprosy research and there was a leprosy hospital on the site of the Museum for centuries. It burned down a few times - a curse of living in Bergen is numerous fires- but the latest hospital was from the 1800s. It didn’t look great; numerous small rooms, each with two tiny, short cots, and the rooms surrounded an interior open public room. I suspect for the times it was considered acceptable. Gerhard Hansen was a famous doctor/researcher from Bergen who more or less established that leprosy was transmitted by a bacteria. In many places leprosy is called “Hansen’s Disease”. In later years he was somewhat maligned for his research methods (he deliberately tried to infect people to prove his theory) so his reputation is mixed.

A stock photo of the interior of the Leprosy Museum (because Jill forgot to take any pictures).

That afternoon Dave and I rode out to the Fyllingsdalen tunnel; we had had this little adventure planned on our calendar for quite some time. The 2.9 km Fyllinsdallen tunnel was opened in April 2023 exclusively for cyclists and pedestrians. The Norwegians needed a tunnel as an emergency outlet for the nearby subway and decided to spend a few millions more krone to make a tunnel that could be used by peds and cyclists. It runs through a mountain and has significantly decreased the time needed to cycle commute into Bergen. The cool factor of this puppy is high, as the pics show. The ride also gave us a chance to see more of Bergen than the touristy wharf area. Even better, just as we were entering we met three Norwegian women on Trek e-bikes. One of the women had been a student at the University of Oregon at the same time I was there (early 1980s) on a scholarship. We forgot to take their picture, to our regret- it was a fun talk.

When we were maneuvering our bikes into the hotel on our return we met a very nice couple from Billings, Montana. They had been relatively serious cyclists in the past -the husband Paul, a retired surgeon (Alice is a retired nurse.), had ridden across the US several times, but hadn’t been riding much recently. They looked at our e-bikes and listened to our adventures with great interest. We ran into them several times over the next few days and I think I convinced Alice she should look at an e-bike, to get back out there!

That night Dave and I had a signature dinner at Restaurant 1877. I had booked this event several months before, and it delivered. We had multiple tiny courses of amazing seafood.

We can highly recommend this wonderful if pricey spot.

One of the dining areas in Restaurant 1877.

The extraordinary scallop course--Dave's fave.

Before turning in for the night, we decided to go to the top of the tower of our hotel to catch the view of Bergen at night.

The following day we had planned to ride 12 km out to Grieg’s house. Grieg was a famous Norwegian composer who had a house in Troldhaugen, just south of Bergen, but the weather turned rainy so we bagged it. We opted instead for a walk to the ferry port to do reconnaissance for our upcoming trip for the following Tuesday. Afterwards we walked through the fish market at the wharf which has the most beautiful selection of fish - both in terms of quality and variety- we had ever seen. It made Dave want to cook, desperately. We ate some crazy delicious fish and chips.

Seriously. If preparing the freshest fish possible is your thing, as it is mine, Norway's the place to be.

We were having a FaceTime call with our son, daughter-in-law and grandson that afternoon when a seagull started tapping on our room's window . FYI, seagulls in Norway look like everything and everybody here: healthy, well-tended, clean. It’s weird; there are no bedraggled dirty seagulls in Norway! At first we thought this guy who was rapping, gently tapping on our chamber door, er, window was trying to get in from the rain. Dave later suggested it may have learned that if it tapped on windows and humans were inside, they might give him food. Regardless, it provided some amusement. Our grandson, during the call, thought it was funny to see a bird at our window.

Monday we did a 90 minute tour at the Bryggens museum, which gives you an excellent overview of Bergen history, which we needed. Bergen was created as a city in 1070 at the end of the Viking Era. It was the site of the Norwegian royal court when Norway was finally united after a 110 year civil war when King Haakon put down a final rebellion in 1240. In the 1350s it became one of the Hanseatic League’s four trading posts (“kontorets”), the others being Bruge, London and Novgorod. The Hanseatic League was an organization of traders - mostly German but also Dutch and Belgian - who organized as many as 100 cities on the coast of Northern Europe to make trade possible. It traded herring in Scandinavia with wool and luxury goods from Russia down to London. At the time there were a large number of small fiefdoms and principalities, and lack of rules made trading difficult and dangerous. The League organized their own army and negotiated with cities to ensure trade could take place unmolested. The League’s reign lasted from around 1250 to 1750 when its power was weakened by the rise of nation states and the Reformation, which created divergent alliances. In Bergen, members of the League, mostly German, lived in a segregated enclave of Bergen by the wharf, called Bryggen. They conducted trading activities for a number of years before returning to their homelands. These traders did not mingle with the locals and were forbidden from marrying Norwegian women. Bryggen didn’t close until the 1750s, the last kontoret to do so. Because of Bryggen, Bergen took on a very distinctive look with small wooden houses.

In 1955 archaeologists discovered a rich historical record which turned into a 16 year archaeological dig and ultimately the construction of the Bryggen museum which is situated on the site of the dig. The primary reason for the existence of the archaeological record was the fact that the town of Bergen had burnt down dozens of times between 1198 and 1944 and each time the locals just built over the remains. Before the discovery there was a strong sentiment to tear down the old wooden houses, but the discovery provided an opportunity to rethink that decision and preserve the area. Bryggen is now a UNESCO heritage site and is the primary attractor of tourists to Bergen.

Our guide in the museum explaining the purpose of rune sticks which she characterized as today's equivalent of text messages--quick communications to be disposed of rather than kept.

After the museum tour we walked over to the fish market and had a fancy fish lunch: rose fish, which Dave thought might be redfish, followed by raspberry sorbet topped with pink champagne. Incredibly decadent.

At the table next to us, we met Betty and Kathy, from Minnesota. They were touring Stockholm, Oslo, and Bergen with three other female family members, exploring their Swedish roots. (An outsize number of US tourists we have met are from Minnesota, with Swedish or Norwegian backgrounds). Their group had been caught up in Storm Hans, and their planned train trip to Flam from Oslo was cancelled because the train line was down. We have heard several of these stories and it makes us feel fortunate not to have been caught in it (other than having to endure several days of really bad rain).

Betty and Kathy, not sure which was which.

Our final evening we walked over to King Haakon’s Hall, originally constructed between 1247 and 1261 as a rare and expensive stone building. We learned in the Bryggen Museum that during this time there were fewer than a few dozen stone masons in all of Norway making stoneworks extremely expensive and rare. The hall has been destroyed and rebuilt several times and tonight it was hosting a classical concert in conjunction with the Grieg Music Festival. We listened to two women, a 17-year old prodigy violinist and a pianist to accompany her. We listened to pieces by Grieg, Bull, and Franck. It was wonderful music in a unique and historical place.

In addition to being a beautiful backdrop for the concert, the acoustics of the space were exceptional.

We topped it off by enjoying a scotch (Dave) and espresso martini (Jill) in our hotel lobby. We really liked our hotel: nice lobby, great tub, great staff. The only thing is that practically everyone staying there was American, about our age, and disconcertedly like us- and of course part of the reason we travel is so we can meet people that are not like us!

Sorry for such a long entry. We off tomorrow for Denmark.

Today's ride: 25 km (16 miles)
Total: 1,492 km (927 miles)

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