Beguiling Bergen

Roaming around Bergen

Our last cruise port was Bergen, the rainiest city in Europe. Our day was cloudy, but our luck held out and we saw no rain. Our weather for this whole trip has been remarkably good, especially for a country that sees more than its share of cold and rain.

Frank sizes up a wooden sculpture

We were able to walk right off the ship and down to the old wharf area called Bryggen. We admired an impressive 3-masted ship moored along with several other ships of all descriptions, right in the harbor. The waterfront was also lined with unusual wooden sculptures, part of an international wooden art exhibit.

Typical Bryggen structures along the waterfront

The Bryggen area is a UNESCO site and tall clapboard houses faced the harbor in a charming display. Lots of interesting-looking shops, but we needed to find the Bryggen Museum where our walking tour was scheduled to begin. Unfortunately, our tour was way overbooked, and Rebecca, our young tour guide, was overwhelmed. However, we still managed to appreciate her tour and the sights of Bryggen.

Narrow passageways in Bryggen

Bergen is one of Europe’s oldest port cities, and in the 1300’s it became part of the Hanseatic League, a group of German merchants who controlled pretty much all of the trade in Northern Europe. These German men (women were not permitted) formed what was basically a German colony and lived a strange existence totally dedicated to making money.

Our guide Rebecca in one of the Assembly Rooms

Although the wooden buildings of Bryggen have burnt down numerous times, the current restorations were built using original techniques, and the medieval layout was retained. The result is a fascinating rabbit warren of narrow streets and tall skinny buildings. 

The men lived in tenements with an Assembly Room for each grouping of buildings. Because fire was a constant threat, the Assembly Rooms were the only rooms with heat. And the merchants were the only ones permitted to use the special rooms. The laws of the city said that heating devices were not allowed in private homes.  As you can imagine, they spent a lot of time in the one heated area making laws for the colony, resolving issues, and enjoying leisure time. (We assume drinking was involved.)

How could anyone throw this one
into the sea?

BTW fraternizing with women was strictly prohibited. If a couple were caught together, the woman would be thrown into the sea. And the man? Well, he would have to buy a keg of beer and share it with his mates!

Racks of drying cod

We visited an old Assembly Room and a display on Bryggen’s prime product: cod. Most of the cod was caught further north and air-dried on large wooden racks. Rebecca told us a dried cod is good for 25 years. All you need to do is reconstitute it with some water and fry it in a pan. We think we’ll stick with the fresh stuff!

Merchant's "cupboard bed"  with woman's portrait

Our last stop was the Hanseatic Museum where we got to see some of the old living arrangements. This was a very regimented kind of life, and the merchants were clearly at the top of the food chain. With no heat in most of the homes, everyone slept in weird “cupboard” beds; these were enclosed boxes in which they climbed into and closed the door (to retain body heat). An unheated room during a Norwegian winter got quite cold. The merchants slept in private rooms with fancy cupboards. One merchant bed had a portrait of a woman painted on an inside panel. Maybe it was the merchant’s wife, or someone he could fantasize about(?).

Apprentice's double occupancy bunkbeds

Life was much harder for the young apprentices who slept in cupboard beds stacked on top of each other as bunkbeds – where they slept two to a bed. The merchants were so strict that if a boy got into trouble, he had to swim in the sea alongside merchants in row boats who kept whacking him with sticks. These boys were not paupers but from middle-to-upper class families. Apparently, they were willing to endure the miserable conditions in order to have the chance to become rich.

Eating and drinking at Anne Madam Restaurant

After the tour, we ate lunch at Anne Madam (Anne figured the name was a good omen). It must have been true because the food was great, and we got to drink the excellent local beer called “Hansa” on draft. Anne even got to eat fish, cod of course, and chips. (Hopefully, it wasn’t the 25-year-old variety!) We topped off our day at an ice cream stand where we tried a famous local brand called Hennig-Olsen – delish!

More pics:

Waterfront buildings in Bryggen

Charming streets of Bergen

Hanseatic Museum

Dilly dilly!