July 11 – Exploring Bergen

With an early start we explored Bergen. It is a beautiful city. We were spoiled today -- in a place where it has been known to rain 300 days a year, we had a cloudless sky and temperatures in the mid-80's. Bergen has a population of around 252,000 people, which is quite a lot of the 4.5 million people of Norway. Bergen began as a trading port up the fjord. There is a waterfront area called Bryggen, built by the German trading contingent, which consists of wooden warehouses built shoulder-to-shoulder. Like most traditional buildings in Norway, they are painted in bright orange, green, blue, and red. The wooden foundations were free of rot for many years because they were soaked with salt water. When the new stone esplanade was built in front of Bryggen (“new” is a very relative word here...), fresh water began to pool up around the foudations and slowly rotted them away. As a result, the charming frames of this technicolor UNESCO site are gently falling over onto one another.

We walked around the center of town a bit and enjoyed browsing the waterfront fish market -- it is similar to Pike Place market, but a little smaller and focused almost entirely on fish. It was a little bit of a tourist trap (especially the prices...), but very fun!

Bergen is surrounded by seven mountains. We rode a funicular to Føien, a spot at the top of the mountain nearest the city center. There was a nice viewing platform, a restaurant, and access to an expansive network of hiking trails. We could see all of Bergen and many of the surrounding islands and waterways. It was quite a treat to be there without rain or fog. Svein and Bibbi pointed out a house just below the tramway, about halfway up the mountain, which belongs to another Lavik.

After coming home Bibbi taught us to make a traditional Norwegian meal of meat cakes, which are similar to meatballs.