Day 18 Bergen



We are staying at the Magic hotel in downtown Bergen.  It is ideally located and has a quirky decorative style, which I doubt would be to many people's taste.  It is also quite a small room with the bed jammed against the wall.

The bathroom.



Someone is jammed against the wall for the night.

One quick mention about the beds is that the bed always has two single duvets, never one double.  And it is folded in half lengthwise and laid out on the bed as per photo.  Very odd.  There is always a mattress topper that has the sheet covering it, the sheet doesn't tuck in under the mattress, it is often left uncovered.   

We spent the morning wandering the shops as there was a drizzly rain.  There was not a lot to see that we haven’t already seen elsewhere, or can’t get in NZ.  So we wandered down to the wharf area, which is closed at the moment for pedestrian only access due to the Tall Ships race and has a bit of a carnival atmosphere, with all kinds of temporary stalls selling all kinds of food.


The Bryggen wharf area is a collection of buildings that are a couple of hundred years old.  This city was once the hub for trade as far back as the 1000’s and has some quite interesting buildings, although they are inhabited by very touristy shops.






By early afternoon the rain had cleared and the sun had come out, so we decided to head up the Floyen cable car to get a view over the city.  The queue was horrendous, every other man and his dog (literally) had the same idea.  

 We’d booked online so were able to skip the queue for tickets and head straight to the cable car entrance, but there was still about a 20 minute wait to get on for the short ride to the top.  Once there, nice views over the city, and it’s bigger than I initially thought.


The building with the green roof under the white arrow is where we stayed. 

There are two big cruise ships in town, as well as the aforementioned tall ships, so there seems to be thousands of tourists, and that is reflected in the number of tat shops selling trolls, knitware and moose related gimmicks.  

Bergen seems to be just another big city, and while we don’t hate it, there’s not much to love here either.  One day is plenty of time here.  We finished the evening with a walk to the wharf and a hot dog for dinner from one of the stalls.  These cost $22 for two, a large sausage in a bread roll with a squirt of sauce.  We had been warned, but the food is really expensive.  My two small bottles of sparkling water cost $7 at the supermarket.  Ouch.

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