Bryggen
“How much does the room cost in your hotel?” “NK800 without bathroom in the room and NK900 with bathroom. Do you need sheets and towels?” “Well, obviously…” “ In this case is an extra NK70/person” This was in Bergen, the second largest city in Norway and we picked this hotel because it had parking. On the door it was a sign that you have to pay for parking but nobody bothered. This was a youth hostel but the youth age was very relative.
After the breakfast we packed, left the luggage in the car and after we waited for the drenching rain to stop took a bus for NK25 into the city, kids riding free. Bergen is a very nice city. An old city part of the famous Hanseatic League was a major trading port in the 15-17th century and latter. The German merchants came and set shops in Bryggen, the old part of town where the league was securing for them a sort of monopoly in fish trading. In a deeply religious country the fish was an important food eaten mainly during the lent. The high prices commanded by fish made the merchants rich and the houses they built in the harbor, UNESCO protected, are even today centers for businesses companies with offices on their upper floors.
We visited the city center with its beautiful buildings around Johanes Kirche and Bryggen with its old houses in the highly animated harbor where ships were helping to recover another ship that sunk that morning. New technology, old ways. The fish market was in full swing and we had an eye on it for lunch/dinner like all the other tourists. Beside fish of all form, there are lots of souvenir places, cheese, salami, jam, fruit and vegetable, etc. all sold at quite steep prices. We walked in Bryggen that is a charm of the place. The old buildings have pulleys that were and still are used to carry merchandise on the top floors balconies that hang over the tiny alleys. From there we took a short walk and got in the Floihban, a train on steep tracks that was bringing people on top of the hill from where the view over Bergen is astounding. Not too much time was left so we walked down and went to visit the Hanseatic Museum, located in the first house in Bryggen, a UNESCO protected building. The museum has the original layout of a merchant house during the league, with the floors where the merchant and his family was living and the floors for apprentices, a desired position that was placing the person on the track to become a merchant and a member of the League having him set for life. The visit was followed by dinner in the fish market where the food was average but expensive. After a little more walk in Bryggen I took a bus, got to the hotel, picked up the car and picked up everybody from the city and drove all the way to Voss, one hour, to the same B&B we got info the night before. Before going to sleep I had to do a Skype to NYC not to get too detached from work…..
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