Beautiful Bergen

Jose K has been nagging at me to write up an entry about our Bergen trip. He of course is standing on the moral high ground of having contributed 2 successive entries in a row.

So despite the looming exams (in 2 weeks time) and the pile of unread required reading sitting heavily on my desk, here I am sitting in front of the laptop on a sunny Saturday morning.

Our first sight of Bergen was the Bergen train station. After a whole day of travelling, we left Oslo at 8 am in the morning and reached Bergen at 8pm, it was a welcome sight.


We stayed at Marken Gjestehus which was nice and had the cheapest double room we could find. 480 NOK per night. Cheap for these parts of the world. Plus it was located midway between the harbour and the train station so location wise, it was really good. Here's the view from our room. Pretty isn't?

Before going to Bergen, I kept hearing from people that it was a really beautiful place and the guidebooks keep going on about how it was such a wonderful and great city.

I am happy to report that Bergen did not disappoint. It really is beautiful place. Location wise, it is surrounded by 7 mountains and 7 fjords- the stuff of legends. We took the Fløibanen funicular to the top of Mt Fløyen. Check out the amazing view of the city!


The incline is about 26 degrees. Here's a picture of us going down, it was quite exciting.

You can also hike down to the city but the ticket seller sold us return tickets without being asked. I guess Jose K and I do not look like the hiking sort.



Bergen is famous for its historic waterfront buildings which are on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The buildings are located in the old quarter of Bryggen and was part of the thriving harbour scene of the Hanseatic merchants. I thought they looked very Nordic, the architecture is very unique.



Another Bergen characteristic is the weather. Bergen is supposed to be the wettest city in Norway and it's supposed to rain at least 275 days of the year.

We thought that since we were visiting in early April ie spring, we would be safe. But no.. on our second day there we experienced rain, snow, hailstones in a single morning. It was really strange, the bad weather just came in sudden bursts and then it cleared up and then it started all over again. The native Bergens (Bergenians?) took it all very calmly. They just waited at the corners of buildings for the weather to get better and then continued with their business. I guess they are used to it.

This picture was taken from the sanctuary of the lobby of a shopping mall. We went into it to escape hailstones but by the time I took the picture, it had given way to snowflakes. As you can see, the umbrella is an essential accessory here.


I really enjoyed our short trip to Bergen. The whole trip including our version of Norway in a Nutshell finally gave me a sense of what Norway is really like.