As with our honeymoon in Iceland, I’ve split Norway into two parts: Oslo and Bergen. I’ll start with Bergen below, for Oslo, please visit here.
A Few Days in Norway’s West
Alex went to Norway a few years ago and declared Bergen his favorite city. Naturally, that made me want to visit it and when my mother invited me to plan a trip for us and my sister, I knew Bergen had to be the first stop.
The Fjords
Bergen sits on the inside edge of a fjord, so the greatest and most important thing to do in Bergen is to take a fjord tour. Several companies offer options, including multi-day adventures, but our two-hour round trip was really delightful and probably the highlight of the trip for me.
Mount Fløyen
Another excellent way to spend the day is taking the funicular to the top of Mount Fløyen. The ride itself was really fun and the view of the city and fjord from the top was spectacular!
Once at the top, there’s a restarant, playground, zipline course, climbing area, and a variety of hiking trails.
Also on top of the mountain was a Trollskogen (troll forest)! We had a lot of fun wandering through the rough carvings and appreciating their fun faces.
Once you’re finished exploring the top of the mountain, you can either take the funicular back down or a free option is to take a downhill, sloping hike back to the city center. We opted for this option and found it to be a wonderful way to spend an hour or so.
Bergen Food
Bergens Fiskesuppe
This fish soup is a classic dish of Bergen and has a comfort-food feel. We went to an all-soup restaurant (Zupperia) for lunch and I do not regret my choice of this warm Bergen staple.
Sausages
Just like in Iceland, these Scandinavians also appreciate a good hot dog! With delightful sausages like reindeer and elk, along with even more delightful toppings like fried onion and lingonberry sauce, this cheap Norwegian snack is available at Trekroneren and certainly worth a stop!
Cafes
All over Bergen there are delightful cafes that offer not only coffee, but sandwiches as well. At one we got Belgian-style hot chocolate with a “skollingsbole” – a kind of cinnamon roll without icing. We also used these cafes to get sandwiches as a cheap alternative for lunch!
Museums
Bergen Science Center – VilVite
We loved our time at VilVite. The museum is geared toward kids, but there was so much fun to be had, regardless of age. We played with Virtual Reality consoles, we learned about the human body, there was an entire room filled with Legos, we were eventually kicked out when the museum closed for the evening!
There are, of course, quite a few museums on Bergen’s history throughout the city. An open air museum, a fortress museum, a museum about leprosy, Bergen has it all! We opted to skip these and enjoy the science center across the city and I have no regrets!
Bonus Picture
Bergen had a lot of lovely street art and murals once we got out of town, this was my favorite:
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