Having a fun day in Bergen -- The city among the seven mountains.

 

Bergen seems to have collected names for itself over the years. The one I choose for my blog title - the City among the seven mountains. 

The playwright Ludvig Holberg whose square we visited today, felt so inspired by his visit to the Seven hills of Rome that he decided that his home town must also be blessed with a corresponding seven mountains. Sadly, which mountains belong to the group is unclear! Apparently the list always includes Ulriken, 643 metres (2,110 ft); Løvstakken, 477 metres (1,565 ft); Fløyfjellet, 400 metres (1,300 ft); Damsgårdsfjellet, 317 metres (1,040 ft) plus three from the following list: Askøyfjellet, 231 metres (758 ft), Blåmanen, 554 metres (1,818 ft), Lyderhorn, 396 metres (1,299 ft), Rundemanen, 568 metres (1,864 ft), Sandviksfjellet, 417 metres (1,368 ft). But whichever you choose to get to the mythical number seven you certainly feel deep in a valley below the mountains when you walk through this seaside city.

But more of our walk later, first back to the beginning of the day.

Breakfast

I woke up at 4.11am feeling wide awake, I began editing the photos from the last two days, not something I'd had chance to do before. 

Drew woke up at 5.30am and I make us Earl Grey Tea, the tea making faculties here, like in Oslo are excellent.

I do my ablutions at 6am and Drew gets up at 6.30am and does his ablutions while I upload the edited photos to Flickr.

Today we travel up not down to breakfast, the hotel floorspace at ground level is one unit's width, while the floors above cover three spaces. At ground level those spaces are used by a McDonald's and a restaurant called Egon. 

It is on the seventh floor that we have breakfast, taking the gentle approach and not arriving until 7.15am. Though as we anticipated the hotel is much quieter than the Oslo one and is  very quiet at this time for breakfast, there were only five other guests in the room at the same time as us.

While the selection here was less wide than that in Oslo, it was still an excellent breakfast.

We go back up to the room at 8am watching the rain pour down outside. It is part of the impact of Storm Floris which is quite extensive and having an impact in the UK as well as here. 

Walking in Bergen

We leave the room at 9.30am and exit through reception with our macs firmly on. This was a close estimation to our route for the day, though Google Maps don't pick up on the Funicular, it assumes we walked up the mountain and we didn't. Also, as Google Maps only allows you to select 10 locations it doesn't show the ferry trip across the fjord and walk back to the hotel.

Fishmarket

Given Bergen's location between the mountains and the sea it is no surprise fishing plays a large part in the life of the city. 

The two fish markets, the open-air market and the covered market, make this clear. 

The open-air market has stood in the same place in Bergen, where the Fjord narrows enough for it to be bridged, since the 1200s. It has a wide range of fish available on its stalls, including shellfish, salmon and anemones. It also has a wide range of caviars. [Co-pilot's note: WHALE STEAKS!!, you forgot to tell them about the Whale Steaks.]

Restaurants stand between the stalls and provide opportunity for the fishing folk and their families to feed their customers on site.[Co-pilot's note: with Whale Burgers! Reindeer Hot Dogs! etc.]

Mathallen, the indoor market, opened in 2012 and provides similar range of products in a more formal setting. The restaurants in here seem to be more formal than the tent like arrangements in the main market.

Along with the two markets, the Fish Market area provides great views of the boats in the Fjord.

  

Ludvig Holberg Square

Opposite the Fish Market is a statue of Bergen born Ludvig Holberg. The statue has stood here since December 3rd, 1884, when a grand event market its opening, with specially composed music by the Norwegian Composer, Edvard Grieg.

Holberg, a Danish-Norwegian poet, playwright, philosopher and historian was a famed professor at the University of Copenhagen and lectured in universities across Europe including at Oxford and Cambridge. He was born in Bergen in 1684 and died in 1754, straddling the 17th and 18th centuries, a great time of renewal in the thinking and studying of the great European Universities of which Copenhagen was one.

We pass the school where Holberg learnt Latin later in the morning. 

The church of the Holy Cross - Korskirken

At the other end of Holberg's square is a large church, known as Korskirken or Church of the Holy Cross. Its name was a dedication to the devotion to the Holy Cross which developed in the later Roman Empire following the Emporar Constantine's mother, St. Helena, visiting Jerusalem and finding the site of Jesus death. Later in its life the church continued to be known as Cross church as it developed a cruciform shape. The church was built in a Romanesque style in the 12th Century (Started in 1130 completed around 1150), but was extended post-reformation to take on its current shape. It was built on the dock as the seafarers church, but land reclamation over time has meant the sea is now much further away. The church wasn't open when we visited, but had great external information signs.

Bergen Cathedral - Bergen Domkirke - St. Olav's Cathedral

One building many names, the Cathedral in Bergen was first built as a Parish Church for the city. The Cross Church looked after the docks and fishermen, St. Olav's Church for the wealthy townsfolk. 

While there is no recorded date the original church must have been built before 1150, as it is recorded in the history of King Sverre Sigurdsson (Who lived 1145 to 1202). It was adopted by the Franciscan's in the 1200s who developed it and built their Friary around it. In keeping with the Franciscan style it was a plain church inside. 

When the Reformation came to Norway, the first Lutheran Bishop, Gjeble Pederssøn, made it his Cathedral and it has retained that title since. While very austerely Lutheran in style the Domskirke is an attractive, prayerful church. 

Fløyen Funicular Railway

On leaving the Cathedral we walk along some fascinating streets with steep alleys climbing up to the mountains and down to the town on either side of the road.

This leads us to the Fløyen Funicular Railway, a popular tourist trip up the Fløyen Mountain. The journey up to Fløyen, which is 320 meters above sea level, takes just 5 to 8 minutes. The Funicular is more like a modern train than a traditional funicular, but is quite fun.

Viewpoint of Bergen

The top of the Funicular gives great views of Bergen, but as we arrived, so did the promised rain clouds associated with Storm Floris - the flag was blowing like crazy and everyone was struggling to stand up in the wind, let alone get close to the viewing platform. 

Thankfully it eased a little and we were able to take views of the city below, all be it views impacted by rain on the camara lens!

We then came to a children's playground with a Troll with whom Drew made friends. The troll pointed the way to a number of his relatives in the Troll Forest.

Troll Forest - Trollskogen

The promotional blurb for Trollskogen says:

Here children can go on a journey of discovery and use their imagination, while along the path several different troll creatures appear and small obstacles that must be overcome.

I wish to demure, it isn't just children who can have great fun in this well planned and risky, but secure environment. We loved our time finding and seeing the various, varied, members of the Trollskogen family. 

Hanseatic Museum 

Drew is convinced that I am obsessed by Hanseatic history. I can confirm that since our visit to Boston, Lincolnshire, and King's Lynn back in 2022 and our subsequent visits to many places with Hanseatic connections in Germany, Latvia and Estonia as well as the great Hanse market hall in Norwich. I have been interested in this trading power, which was as, if not more powerful than many of the political entities (like the Holy Roman Empire) of its time. Indeed, it overlapped such entities. 

Drew's sense of my obsession has been enhanced by my friend Robin, who has also travelled to various Hanseatic places in the low countries, sharing his photos on Flickr as he goes. The deep sigh that comes across the room when Drew notices Robin is on his travels, indicates that I might be lost in this period of history while I look at his latest photos. 

 

So, of course on coming back down from Mount Fløyen it was the Bryggen area of Bergen with its long Hanseatic connection to which we head. The main Hanseatic Museum is currently closed for renovation [Co-pilot's note: Oh dear, how sad, never mind!] but has some well developed notice boards on the hoarding of the repair - they can be seen here and the next few images. 

It also has the reality of buildings built as storage spaces all along the sea front in Bryggen.  

Also, the museum has a series of Assembly Rooms from Hanseatic days in the Schøtstuene building, which are still open for a visit. The idea of a society and proto-nation built upon trade and commerce is fascinating. As someone with a degree in Economics and a Masters in Business, of course this era of mercantile political power fascinates me. So, perhaps I do have an obsession, well if so Bergen is a great way to feed it.  I'll let the photos show the details of the well preserved assembly rooms, where traders gathered to eat, buy and sell, and to vote on the policies of the league. 

Bryggens Museum

From the Hanseatic Museum our next stop was the City Museum of Bryggen with its large statue of the wonderfully named Snorri Sturluson.

Much of the history of the town itself focusses on the great fire of 1702 and the two 20th century fires in 1916 and 1955. 

Bergenhus Fortress

From the museum we walked the short distance to the Bergenhus Fortress - the oldest and best preserved fortifications in Norway. 

Central to the Fortress is the commanding Rosenkrantz Tower. Of course the name puts me in mind of the text from Shakespeare's Hamlet where instead of the king's letter asking his English friends to kill Hamlet, Hamlet amends it to lead to "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" which Tom Stoppard then built on in his play of that name in the 1960s. The prosaic truth is that the tower is named for another Rosencrantz, the governor of the fortress in the 1560s who gave it its current form building on the remains of the residence of King Eirik Magnusson, who was the last king to hold court in Bergen who died in 1299.

The fortress also contains the first Bergen Cathedral. The original site of Christ Church, which was built by King Olav Kyrre during the period 1066–1093 is now an area marked out by trees. The importance of the area for both royal and episcopal rule led to it having the relics of Saint Sunniva translated here in 1170. Bergen during this time was the the capital of Norway. In addition to  Christ Church and the King's residence there were several other churches, the bishop's residence, and a Dominican monastery in the area. When the Lutheran Cathedral was established where we visited this morning, Christ Church was knocked down and the area was further fortified. 

Beffen Ferry

Just a short walk along the port from the Rosenkrantz Tower is a small ferry that takes people the quick way between this side of the city and the other, with the bridge being a good distance further off. It also provides some great views of the city from the boat.

It only takes 5 minutes and we are outside the Nykirken, the new church which was built to accommodate the town as it expanded onto the south side of the Fjord.

Espresso House

As we left the Ferry and began to walk back to the hotel, the rain changed from being drizzle to a full scale pouring. We made our way back to the coffee shop opposite the hotel and stopped for an Americano and Latte while we dried off a bit. The nearest coffee shop to the hotel is an Espresso House, our go to brand in Scandinavia. 

Back to the hotel 

We arrive back to the hotel at 2.15pm and I spend the afternoon blogging about earlier parts of the holiday. 

Tonight is our second 'poncy dinner' of the holiday, so that will be the topic of my next post.