Bergen

Bergen

• 23 Jun 2010

I arrived in Stockholm yesterday to a perfect sunny day, just the way I like my summers to be. Armed with my Stockholm card, I'm off to Skansen then I'm on the search for some homewares to use in my food photography. I'll be in Sweden for the rest of the week then Sunday I'm heading to the UK.

Here are the last of my images from Norway. Bergen was the final stop on the Norway in a Nutshell tour and I wonder if I'd have liked Bergen better if the tour had begun there. After the peace and quiet of Fläm, I found the hustle and bustle of Bergen a bit confronting. I'd had great difficulty booking a room in Bergen 3 months back and according to a note attached to the door of the Information Centre, there wasn't a single bed available in the town.

The places I enjoyed the most in Bergen were the ones that took me away from the tourist crowds - the back streets behind Bryggen; the funicular to Mt. Flöyen followed by a hike up the top; the West Norway Museum of Decorative Arts and the very sad, Leprosy Museum.

Bryggen seemed to be the starting point for many tours, so it was very busy. Many of the buildings are sinking, so some major restoration is taking place.

Just a few minutes walk away from Bryggen and up a fairly steep hill you can find all of these pretty wooden houses. I walked as far as Skansen, an old fire station overlooking a water hole.

I'd bought a Bergen card before I left Australia so I tried to see as many museums/sights as possible. The first of these was the Rosenkrantz Tower.

I enjoyed my climb and the view from the top. Next museums to visit were the Kunst Museum and the Decorative Art Musuem, followed by the Leprosy Museum.

Each of the doorways you see led to a tiny room which housed a single leprosy patient. People spent their whole lives in one of those tiny rooms. It was a very Dickensian place.

The last discount involved a 50% reduction on the funicular to Mt. Floyen. I thought, ho-hum, another funicular, but the possibilty of doing a hike so close to the city was very appealling. In the end I'm glad I took the ride to the top and chose to do walk number 2 which took me to a lake. I soon discovered walk number 2 was a popular route for dog walkers and runners. The smell of the trees was lovely and fresh and so different from the Bergen below.

It was a nice way to end my last day in Norway because the following day I flew to Helsinki to start the Finnish leg of my trip. One of my lovely blog readers, Annika, gave me lots of tips for things to see and do in Helsinki. I'll tell you all about them the next time I post, but until then,

Jillian