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Bergen - Part 12
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
The most beautiful city in Norway with a mix of history and culture that can't be beat.
Bergen I love you. Not Ingrid the famous actress, because that is spelled differently, but the town of Bergen.
We arrived off the docks, which are where cruise ships usually stop, and began our tour with a local guide. Our first stop was to walk by the Medieval banquet hall, Håkonshallen. While in Norway you’ll find most of the places have names, which are not easily pronounceable, so you learn to nod your head knowingly and smile. The hall is impressively large and shows the life of King Håkon Håkonsson who reigned from 1247 - 1261.
Okay, from here the going got better and better.
Our next stop was the most beautiful church that I’ve ever seen, St. Mary's Church, the oldest building still existing in Bergen. Why is it beautiful? That’s a good question. It’s simple. It is wrought of stone and wood. It’s not perfectly painted, but it is completely natural. Some of the walls seem to have aged worse than others. And in the center of it all is the most ornate and beautifully carved wooden pulpit you’ll ever see. A complete diamond in the rough. Some guides list this church as the sixth or seventh church to see in all of Bergen. Those guide books deserve to be burnt for such an offense.
From St. Mary’s Church one of the town’s biggest highlights must be the Hanseatic League. The league was basically the German local trading office, which was staffed by a group of men who live there during the summer season. The buildings are more tight-knit then one can expect, which makes it a sight to see. Imagine ten city blocks of wooden buildings squished up in the space of five. Maybe not that exactly, but you get the idea. It’s a complete maze of wooden buildings taking you back in time.
From there we ran up to the funicular. Just like the famous opera aria, the funicular is a quick diagonal "train" ride" that takes you to the top of the mountain overlooking Bergen. This is one of the highlights of the city and for good reason. Margherita stood there taking pictures from every direction for hours, since it gives you a great overview of the city and you can’t get lost later on.
Some people ride the funicular back down, others walk. Margherita made it very clear that the people who walk down are foolish and she would not be one of them. I disagreed, however my vote and my ability to sleep at night aren’t always correlated.
Just when you exit the funicular to the left is a little hidden away neighborhood where you learn why there are no overweight Norwegians. The neighborhood is made up of dozens of houses squished together, with roads so tight there is no way a car could even consider going through. To get home or to work you need to walk up half a mountain through these alleyways squished between your neighbor’s house and your own.
We walked to the main market from here, which is a good dropping off point, and we said goodbye to our guide.
The market of Bergen sells every type of local fish and delicacy that you could imagine. There were hordes of Japanese tourists buying whale meat, in addition to the smoked salmon, crabs and other local delights. We stuck with simple shrimp sandwiches and a Danish. Even though we weren’t in Denmark it seemed a good eat to buy....
From the market, Margherita ran towards shopping again. There are three major shopping malls in Bergen, all surrounding the town square. I tried to explain that Bergen was a very beautiful city and we should see it all, however she explained that she bought a great evening gown in Trondheim for only 22 bucks and there were a few dozen more weddings we had to go to this year. In her Italian American family they have a wedding a month for no apparent reason and somehow this convoluted logic meant that Bergen was a great place to visit because she could get her dresses.
One mall, two malls, three malls more. We ran through the malls in a few hours, while constantly translating Norwegian kroners to "real money".
"Yes Gracie, it’s a good deal in real money."
She would never make a great diplomat.
While running back and forth I convinced her to jump out of the mall in enough time to see the West Norway Museum of Decorative Art. A museum, which is made up of a Scandinavian furniture collection and a Chinese art collection. The furniture collection showcases all that is unique in Scandinavian furniture, where it seems that the goal is to make furniture that doesn’t look like furniture but you can convince the customer it is furniture.
The Chinese art collection is the result of General Johan Wilhelm Normann Munthe who, while serving and updating the Chinese army collected some artifacts that the Chinese government wants back.
It was almost time for home, but we needed to stop at the troll store to buy some trolls for some friends.
We got the boat, and hurriedly changed, as tonight was the captain’s farewell reception. Some of the guests got jealous because the captain spoke Sicilian with Margherita again but she loved the attention.
SilverSea Cruises - Part 1
Copenhagen - Part 2
SilverSea at Sea - Part 3
Alesund - Part 4
Geiranger - Part 5
Trondheim - Part 6
Traveling the Fjords - Part 7
The North Cape - Part 8
Hammerfest - Part 9
Cruising the Fjords - Part 10
Cruising the Fjords - Part 11
Bergen - Part 12
Gudvagen and Flaam - Part 13
Cruising - Part 14
Copenhagen and Departure - Part 15
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