As Bergen is a coastal city, once a great Hanseatic trading port, most of the walking is pretty flat as long as you stay near the old centre. But if you want to go further, it is all up hill.
There are two older parts of town that we visited, the first was an area of old warehouses, many of them reconstructed as they keep on burning down. The other part was the older residential areas with narrow roads and walkways between them.
We walked down the alleyways between the old warehouses and was surprised at the scale of the construction – the size of the wooden beams seems to be excessive compared to today’s building methods. This area is now mostly a tourist haunt, there are shops selling woollen goods and craft and expensive cloths. The old manual cranes are still used – not for hauling up goods into warehouses, but for lowering the rubbish bins to the street for collection !
Next we walked though some of the older residential area.s We found them much more pleasant that the old commercial area as the houses were still in use and had gardens and personal decorations. In the middle of the street, the cobbles are placed on a angle so that the horses get a grip in the icy winter conditions. We also found a few interesting churches on our wanderings.
We enjoyed Bergen, possible helped by such lovely weather. Although a tourist hotspot it handles it well. We felt that this was not a city just for visitors, locals still lived and worked here and we met them as they walked their children to school and went shopping.
Next – A visit to Bergen’s Aquarium