Bergen; Friday, 27 October, 2006
First stop, at the top of a particularly steep hill, in the university quarter was the Johanneskirken, a red brick church which has impressive views over the city and fjords. The church itself is quite plain on the inside, or looked as much through the closed doors, it appears to only be open for very limited hours (which don't appear to include Sundays!). The church stands at the end of the main street which runs down to the fish market, and from it's elevated position offers stunning views. I meandered back through the city to the Cathedral.
The cathedral is a much plainer church from the outside, and according to the guidebooks is similarly plain inside, sadly it was closed, with no indication that it had any intention of opening. I wandered back along the lanes at the back of the Bryggen to the Mariakirken, the oldest church still in use in the city, and one of the oldest in the country. According to the guidebooks it is well worth looking around.
For the third time in the morning my attempts to visit something were thwarted. This time as I approached the church I spotted that there was a hearse and funeral cars parked outside. No matter how impressive the church, I'm not about to go blundering into someone's funeral to have a look, so I decided to give it a miss, which is a shame as the church is only open for 90 minutes a day Tuesday to Friday. I was left wondering how the people of Bergen go to church if all the churches are shut on Sunday?
I walked back along the Bryggen to the Fish market, and finally found something open. The Hanseatic museum is based in an old merchant’s house and has exhibitions spread over three floors. The ground floor shows what the storeroom would be like, with displays on the different products that they traded. The first floor tells some history of the league, as well as having examples of rooms that the merchants, and their servants, would have lived in. On the top floor are further rooms and an exhibit on the trading that went on inn Bergen (almost all Cod based including, inexcusably, cod-liver oil) Walking around the building you have to remind yourself that you are not actually drunk as none of the floors are level and there isn't a single right angle in the whole place.
By the time I left the museum it was early afternoon and I had achieved a visit to only one attraction and a lot of finding things closed. Sadly, at this point a quick flick through the Bergen guide showed that this was unlikely to be rectified. Bergen is most definitely a summer city. By late October the museums that are still open are usually only open for a couple of hours! Instead, as it was such a pleasant day, I thought I would catch the bus out to the cable car that goes up to Mount Ulriken, at 642m the highest of the seven peaks that surround Bergen.
After tracking down the bus (turned out to be the sole trolley-bus route) I caught it out to the hospital on the edge of town where the signs point to the cable car station. A strenuous 10 minutes walk later I found myself at the lower station and confronted by a sign "Due to poor weather conditions on the mountain the cable car is closed". At this point I decided that the rest of the afternoon was probably best written off, caught the bus back into town and went back to the hotel to read a book until it was time for dinner!
Sadly, even this proved to be a task too far, even with no lunch, no snacks and only a can of cola all day, Breakfast was still causing through my veins and other internal bits, and by 7pm I still didn't feel like a full meal. Instead, I popped out to take a wander around the city at night, picked up a sandwich from a seven eleven and collapsed back into bed for an early night a little after 9pm!
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