Dan had a conference in Norway, so I tagged along.
Bergen was established in the 11th century and is currently the second largest city in Norway. We stayed in the old town part of Bergen. Apparently it was Constitution weekend, with Constitution Day being the 17th. More on that later.
Bergen is a common cruise ship destination for North-Atlantic cruises.
A view of Bryggen, the old wharf town of Bergen.
These were a few pictures I took in the evening after we arrived. The sun didn't start to set until 22:30. There was a lot of daylight. Maybe too much.
This concludes our adventure for today.
The next morning Dan went off to his conference and I walked around town. I walked a lot.
My first discovery were individual luges for all your luging needs.
A random park with knobby trees.
Another random park (Nordnesparken), with lovely views.
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The park also had a Pacific-Northwest style totem pole. Seattle and Bergen are sister cities and Seattle gifted the totem pole to celebrate Bergen's 900th anniversary.
It's also the site of a geocache, which is why I was in the park in the first place.
Some interesting graffiti.
There's a dock thing over here. I stuck my hand in the water. It was very cold.
Panoramic view from the tip of the park.
Look! Dew drops on crenated leaves!
(Or possibly serrated leaves, I'm not a botanist.)
Views towards more modern day Bergen.
I wish the wind had been blowing a little so the flag would show better, but oh well.
This kid was trying really hard to get into this......tree house...platform...thing.
They're taking away the flowers!
The beautiful gazebo park.
Giant tulips. These were like the size of softballs...if softballs were tulip shaped.
Pretty flowers!
One of many silly fountains.
The main downtown park.
This is the best fountain.
What do you want to make?
I dunno, how about a crying kid getting spit on by fish?
Awesome! Let's do it!
And back to the main square downtown area.
Bryggen:
And into Bryggen, the old wharf district. It is very wooden and cockeyed.
I later found out that this is a statue of a salted dried cod.
And onto RosenKrantz Tower:
The whole complex is Bergenhus Fortress, but I only investigated the tower portion. It's more of a big block house than a tower. As far as climbing things go, it was a bit lackluster, but oh well.
Some of its origins are from the 1200's but it was reconstructed and added on to throughout the centuries. It is also considered one of the most important Renaissance monuments in Norway according to visitbergen.com.
The stairs were kind of neat. And steep.
Views from the roof:
Changes in the tower over time. The oldest is confusingly the right-most model.
This is a copy of the gravestone of Rosenkrantz and his wife.
A map of the tower.
I took more photos of the rooms in the tower, but they were kind of boring empty spaces. So I didn't bother to put them in the blog. There was one room that tried to tell the story of the witch hunts that happened in Norway, but it wasn't in any order that made sense to me. All I got out of it was that the USA wasn't the only country that went witch mad at one point.
Kids playing on the cannons and a man walking his dog along the fortress walls.
I wandered off a bit more and came across some sort of war museum or something. It was free and I was waiting for Dan to be done with his nonsense, so I went it. The first exhibit was all about the history of Norwegian women in war. It was pretty cool from what I could figure out.
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The first one was a "nurses" outfit from the battle of Stiklestad in 1030.
The rest are women's uniforms from WWI through the 1980's. |
This is some sort of Situation Map. I just thought it looked neat.
The iconic front of Bryggen.
Each of these stores sells the same stuff to tourists. Most of them were full of sweaters.
About this time Dan called to say he was done for the day. So I went back to our hotel to meet him. I may have taken a nap before going out again. I had done a lot of walking.
More random graffiti!
On of the big attractions in Bergen is the funicular.
I really wanted to take it up the hill, and so I dragged Dan with me.
It had spectacular views of Bergen and the surrounding areas.
In the middle of this photo is an orange platform in the water. Next to it is a German submarine. I got to meet some of the German Submariners because they held a geocaching meet up later in the evening. It was cool to meet other geocachers.
The octagon of water is the lake in the middle of the park with all the silly fountains.
There was also a weird kid's park that was troll themed. I'm not so sure about this.
The sign says "Please don't disturb the invisible witch hunter."
Sorry Hags, you aren't allowed in the Bergen woods.
Also this weird dog statue.
Look! It's us! Dan and I were there!
Riding back down the funicular! It was like riding a really slow rollercoaster. So....not terribly exciting, but the view was nice.
We wandered off to meet the German Submariners as previously discussed and then had dinner and went to bed.
This concludes our adventures for today.
