2012.09.27 - Day 7 (Bergen)

Some background on Bergen...Bergen is the second largest city in Norway after Oslo and on the west coast of the country. It's popular because it's easy to get to many of Norway's famous fjords from there.

After an exhausting travel day the day prior, I decided to sleep in a bit so I would be well rested for the rest of my Bergen and Norway trip. I might have slept in a bit too long and when I finally arose, it was more like lunch time instead of breakfast :-(. So being the health conscious person that I am, I ended up having to settle for pizza since it was the quickest and closest thing that I could find. When I ordered the pizza, I thought I was only getting a slice, but it ended up being pretty much a whole pizza. This slowed me down even more as I had to return to the bed & breakfast that I was staying at to drop off the remainder of what I couldn't eat.

The street where my bed and breakfast was on (Ironically, I forgot to take a picture of the actual street that the b&b was on, but fortunately, wikipedia had a picture of it for me!). My b&b is the one on the left with the sign.

Now that I was finally on my way, I stopped at the closest tourist attraction to me which was something called Bergenhus Fortress. So like Oslo which had the Akershus Fortress, Bergen had the Bergenhus Fortress (noticing a similarity here :-)...btw, "hus" in Norwegian means "house"). They were both started around the same time and both kind of had a similar purpose and architecture. Also, Bergen was the capital of Norway before Oslo, so it played an important role in Norway's history. The Bergenhus Fortress is at the entrance of the harbor of Bergen and conveniently enough right by my b&b. I actually would cut thru the fortress grounds while I was there because it was a shortcut back. Unfortunately, only one of the buildings was open, but it least it was the tallest and probably coolest one :-)

View of Bergenhus Fortress from the other side of the harbor (I have to note I stole this picture from the Internet as I did not get a good shot myself); I toured the tall building all the way to the right in the photo.

Grounds of Bergenhus

More shots of the grounds of Bergenhus

Haakon's Hall (Didn't get to go inside, but it looks cool from the outside)

Rosenkrantz Tower (the one building I could go in)

From the top of Rosenkrantz Tower overlooking Bergen

From the top of Rosenkrantz Tower overlooking the Bergen harbor

After I was done with the Bergenhus stuff, I proceeded to head to the tourist office to get some more information. On the way to the tourist office, I had to pass Bergen's probably most famous landmarks that is called the Bryggen. The Bryggen is a set of "commercial buildings lining the eastern side of the fjord coming into Bergen." It's on the UNESCO list for World Cultural Heritage sites. Basically, these warehouses have been there in some form or another since the 1300s where merchants traded goods particularly fish. They have distinct shapes, colors and the fact that they are all leaning.

View of the Bryggen from the other side of the Bergen harbor

The Bryggen as the sun begins to set with the Rosenkrantz Tower from Bergenhus in the background

When I arrived at the tourist office, I inquired about the "Norway in a Nutshell" tour that I had purchased online the day before. This fjord tour was set to go out on Friday morning and last the whole day. I had read good things about the tour and had planned my trip to Bergen around it. Seeing that there was only availability left on Thursday and Friday, I changed my trip (and with it a change fee from the airlines...argh) so that I would fly to Tromso in the north first earlier in the week and be in Bergen later in the week. When I asked the tourist office about where to pick up the tickets, meet with the tour, etc, I found much to my dismay that the tour was not a guided one! The tour was basically just a bunch of train, bus and boat tickets sold as a package.

Disappointed, but not defeated, I left the tourist office with some advice of the "to sees" around the city. My next stop took me to a funicular up the side of one of the mountains to get a better view of the city from above.

Bergen fish market

One of Bergen's main walkways

Funicular that goes to the top of Bergen (yes...I stole this picture too)

Half way up view of Bergen

At the top of the mountain overlooking Bergen

Me with Bergen below me

Close up of me with Bergen in the background

When I got the top of Bergen, I ran into a nice retired couple from California. They had been traveling around Scandinavia in an RV. Not only did they take my picture, they offered some helpful Stockholm advice as they had just visited and it was next on my itinerary.

As we were waiting for the funicular to go back down, a big cloud swept through and you were no longer able to see Bergen very well below. Additionally, the previous drizzle turned into rain. Having no umbrella, I was getting cold quite quickly. It basically rained the whole time while I was in Bergen. Due to its geography, Bergen is notorious for its rainfall and gets 2250 inches of rain per year on average (to compare, Chicago gets about 36 inches). After the funicular, I basically just walked around the city for a while taking in the sights. In my opinion, Bergen has a nicer layout and is overall more beautiful than Oslo.

After the end of my walk, I returned to the b&b for a bit before heading out to buy groceries. As I had previously mentioned in a different post, I was trying to be more cost conscious since everything was so expensive in Norway. Now that I had a stove and refrigerator, I was going to make sure I made use of them.  I ended the night with a small home cooked meal (I think I made a veggie omelette :-). I went to bed excited because I knew the next day was finally going to bring me the much anticipated fjords...and unlike the Northern Lights, they were going to be there no matter what!