Arriving in the Beautiful City of Bergen, Norway

Having experienced four days in Kenya on a safari, we were ready to move on to new adventures. For one thing we were ready to move. The safaris basically involved riding around in a Land Rover most of the day so there was little opportunity to move about. We were headed to Bergen, Norway and hoped that this would provide us with some opportunities to get out and get some exercise.

We left Nairobi, Kenya at about 11:00 at night with the idea that we would get some sleep on our flight north. Of course that never seems to work out, but this time I did manage to sleep a little. Our journey first took us to Paris which turned out to be frustrating. We went through the usual security check when we arrived, and security tagged three of my items to be checked for explosive powder. That caused a delay. We then had to go to another terminal on a bus which took a while. We got to the terminal and again passed through security, and again they tagged my laptop for checking. I felt annoyed with the extra time this took. Fortunately our layover time was sufficient for all of that.

From Paris we flew to Oslo where we had a short layover and then it was on to Bergen. At the Bergen airport we caught the light rail which took us right into downtown Bergen. They have a good system here where you pay with your credit card, and if they need to check for your ticket, they just check the card. No physical ticket needed.

We had a bumpy walk to our hotel as Bergen has a lot of cobblestone roads and walkways, but we made it OK. Check-in was a little slow, but we eventually made it to our room. Andrea stayed at the airport to meet her friend Jacob so they arrived a little later. That night we went out for a Mexican meal at a nearby restaurant. The portions were smaller than we were used to, but it was enough. Since we were all tired, we just went to bed early.

Saturday morning started out with a good breakfast at the hotel. There were quite a few options. Then we set out to explore the town. Our hotel sits on a peninsula so we walked down to the end to see what was there. We passed a church and then came to the end. A large area for kids to play took up a lot of space. On the water side we saw a number of large boats including a large cruise ship. I greeted an older Norwegian gentleman there, and we struck up a conversation. He had once worked on a cruise ship and had been to Los Angeles. It was interesting to talk to him and hear about some of his experiences.

We walked back from the end of the peninsula to the main part of Bergen’s old town which they call the Fish Market. Along the way we could look across Vågen Harbor at the buildings on the other side and the hillside behind it. The buildings along the water front have a very distinctive facade which gives a classic look to the city.

On the way to the fish market we passed a sign for a World Cup viewing location. Norway did well in this year’s event, and Norwegians had a lot of excitement around the World Cup.

Arriving at the Fish Market, we caught site of some of the offerings there. We are used to this kind of market because of the Pike Place Market in Seattle. However, some of the sea creatures for sale surprised us. We definitely weren’t tempted to buy anything there. I did take a bite of sausage at one of the vendors. He was offering moose, reindeer, and whale sausage samples. I tried the reindeer sausage. The meat taste wasn’t that bad, but the sausage itself was quite salty.

After we stopped to get some refreshment at the local Starbucks, we wandered down one of the streets to see what we might find. We came across two churches. Unfortunately neither one was open to go inside. However, one is open during the week so we’ll go back. There were some other buildings that had interesting architecture including the Hotel Bergen. We also encountered a large troll, a common figure in Norway.

We walked back to Bergen’s waterfront and continued down the side known as Bryggen which has the iconic facades. Bryggen is actually a UNESCO world heritage area. It turns out that the exterior facades are only the beginning. There are some long alleys that lead back into the block and one can find a number of shops, artists, and snack shops in these old parts of the buildings. The alleys were somewhat narrow in places and not particularly parallel but fun to explore. We checked out a number of the shops and ended up buying a painting of a church for our collection.

We stopped for some ice cream and then continued down to Bergenhus Fortress. At one point this was the home of a king. Visitors can explore two large structures for an entrance fee. One is the tower and the other is the banquet hall for the king. We decided against doing either at this time and just explored around the grounds. Most of the main buildings are around a spacious courtyard.

From the exterior, the banquet hall looks like a chapel. Around the outside of the buildings are some lovely grounds. One can see the exterior walls of the fort. The exteriors of some of the buildings were themselves quite interesting as they were made of rocks. One element that intrigued me was a sign on a building that said Urinal. Below the sign was a trough. However there was a fence all along the wall blocking the trough. I couldn’t determine if the urinal was the trough or something inside the closed building.

By now we were getting tired so we wandered back to our hotel to nap as we were still trying to catch up on our short nights in Africa and an overnight flight. We walked back along the Bryggen waterfront enjoying the architecture.

We ended our day in Bergen having burgers at a nearby restaurant. Tomorrow would bring even more adventures as we continue exploring this lovely city.