Bloggingsouls.com: Bergen

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May 14, 2008

Bergen

We pulled into the train station at Bergen around 8:30 at night. Unfortunately, there weren't any taxis by the station so we had to make our way to the other side of Bergen where the apartment we were staying in was located. Our apartment was located on a charming, narrow cobblestone street and we were happy to discover the apartment itself was very cozy, certainly nicer than the apartment we had stayed in Oslo. We went to a central part of Oslo for dinner and walked back to our apartment.

I had wanted to ascend two mountains in Bergen, Mt Floyen and Mt Ulriken but didn't realize until we got to the tourism office that the cable car up Mt Ulriken was closed. We hopped on a bus and checked out Old Town Bergen instead . Afterwards, we checked out Bergen's famous fish market which was interesting but small and tried going here for lunch but, unfortunately, they hadn't opened yet so we settled for a mediocre Thai restaurant nearby. We went to the Bergen Art Museum mostly because they had a Picasso exhibit but were disappointed to find the exhibit was comprised of two rooms of paintings and one room of sketches.

Our next and final stop was Mt Floyen--a funicular takes up the mountain and you have the option of taking it back down or walking. Having read that the trails take you through forests and lakes, we opted for the latter. The first part of the walk was easy--winding through forests. The final leg, which winded through a descending residential neighborhood was a little trickier. We had to walk through people's backyards down steps and downhill streets but felt a sense of accomplishment when we reached the bottom of the mountain.

We decided to splurge and eat at an upscale restaurant near our apartment. We finally tried fish soup, a local Norwegian specialty, which was nice but very creamy.

We had pretty much seen everything we wanted to see in Bergen on Tuesday so we spent Wednesday just strolling the city before catching our afternoon ferry to Stavanger. This partially meant shopping for me but everything was so expensive that the only thing I bought was a pair of pants from Fretex, Norway's Salvation Army.

Typical cobblestone street in Bergen