Bergen / Norway

Saturday 10.09.2016

It has been raining more or less constantly during the night. The sky is dull and cloudy, and for the first time on this vacation, I allow myself a relaxed morning and don't get up until after 10:00 am. The weather forecast says that it will improve in the afternoon. So why rush? I bought blueberry buttermilk, crispbread, and shrimp salad at the supermarket yesterday, which will be my breakfast now.

When I start walking, it is dry and I walk to the Schötstube, a part of the Hanseatic Museum.

Meetings and celebrations of the Hanseatic merchants took place here - but it is closed. Never mind, I walk around the harbor basin to the other side and up the streets to a neighborhood that has narrow steep streets and old wooden houses. I wanted to visit the cathedral before, but it is covered with a construction tarp for renovation and the door is closed.

All these small streets that I reach now are called "...mauet". Knøsesmauet is particularly well-known, but other streets and corners are also worth seeing.

The district with the wooden houses is really picturesque and a source for beautiful photos. Especially because the sun has come out now. I actually want to go back to the city, but I get lost and end up on the other side of the hill at the other harbor basin and have to climb up the hill again to reach the other side. I walk through the shopping street, where a few shops are still open, and at 3:30 pm I arrive at the market square at the tourist information center.

Right there, I see a local hop-on-hop-off bus from the local provider, which sells a 2-day pass including the Fløien funicular railway for 380 NOK (about 40 EUR). I get on board and there are only 3 or 4 other people with me. I spend almost an hour rocking around Bergen and listening to some information through headphones. I realize that I have already walked almost everything on foot.

So I'm back in the center around 4:30 pm and stroll around here a bit, go to the Moose Shop again and get some more moose souvenirs. At the market, I see whale meat for the first time in my life, it looks so gloomy that I don't find it appealing even from a visual perspective, and I prefer to have whales alive.

I sit down in Bryggen in front of the colorful houses, go into some of these narrow alleys again, and just manage to get a coffee in a café before it closes. My feet are sore and I'm glad that the weather was so nice and held up. Slowly, I'm getting hungry and I'm afraid that I either get some packaged sandwich to eat or need a small loan.

I don't feel like having crispbread and buttermilk again for dinner and I also need it for breakfast tomorrow. In the parallel street to my apartment, I find a small Chinese restaurant and can order the cheapest dish for a reasonable 115 NOK (around 13 EUR) and take it with me. So I sit down pretty exhausted on the edge of my bed and eat fried rice, before I collapse after a 9 km walk (according to the pedometer on my phone) and fall asleep pretty quickly.