BEAUTIFUL BERGEN

 With our train travel from Flam to Bergen taking up the best part of 4 hours, we were keen to get out & get walking upon disembarking.

The first 'unusual' (ie; not-what-one-would-expect-to-see-in-a-train-station) thing to grab my attention, was that there was a wool/knitting shop in the train station! BRILLIANT!  Someone has realised that some of us like to do something over the train travel hours.  I was tempted to go, but knew we needed to get going!!

The next thing that grabbed me, was.... the wonderful man-hole covers!

 Bergen is a vibrant city teeming with people from all over the world. It is designated as a World Heritage City & we were keen to walk the streets & find out why.
It has been named 'city of culture' in the past, & it is clear that the arts are celebrated here.  The composer Edvard Grieg lived here & at the moment they appear to have an extensive concert programme on celebrating his work.
Street art also seems to have a place amidst these old walls.  One of the first pieces we encountered was... precious!

Bergen is an active port & there is as much going on in the water as there is out of it!  Beautiful streamlined yachts were moored to the marina side, which gave us some unexpected window shopping opportunities.  Or... it would have if we were in the market for a yacht!
The fish market is a sprawling area of stalls not far from the water's edge & we were drawn in by the tempting smells of various cooked seafood dishes. We had planned to eat there, but our cash was low, so we needed an ATM first. We finally found a bank at 3.15pm only to find that they shut at 3pm...and their ATM's are inaccessible from then too.(  I will endeavour to refrain from moaning about our local bank's 4pm closure in future!!!)

Most people come to Bergen to see these beautifully coloured old buildings.  They are  known as the Bryggen, which means 'wharf'. Back in the 1300's some gentlemen from the German Hanseatic league set up an import/export business on this site.  They were so successful & powerful that they dominated the market for 400 years.  A massive fire burnt down the original buildings as well as the city in the 1700's, but the buildings were rebuilt on to the original foundations. There are still offices in these buildings that relate to businesses connected with the port, but mostly they are tourism oriented.

We are staying in an apartment here, just as we did in Flam, with the hope that self catering will be gentler on expenses, especially as we know we have a run of Hotel accommodation coming up. We found the local supermarket chain, which, of all things, is named 'kiwi' & the staff wear bright green clothes! Thankful for a much bigger & better range of options, we made some choices, whipped up as healthy & tasty a meal as we could, & sat out on our porch to eat ...with this view.
Bergen is proving to be beautiful already.