Wandering Bergen

We lucked out with the weather. Friday started clear and stayed that way, and it looks as if Saturday should be similarly nice for our trip through Sognefjord and the Flam railway. The basic plan was just to wander around town, letting our feet find whatever opportunity of interest they could. We started out wandering through the shops in the preserved wooden warehouses of the Bryggen wharf area right next door to the hotel where Gi couldn't resist posing with a couple of new friends. There have been businesses trading on this site for more than 700 years, but it wasn't really clear to me how old the present buildings have stood there -- fires have ravaged the area on numerous occasions, and it's easy to see why given how spaced they are.

We eventually walked around to the other side of the old inner harbor and out along the Nordnes peninsula to the aquarium (Akvariet). Not to be confused with the Georgia Aquarium, the Monterey Aquarium, the Shedd or any other big-time operation, we nonetheless enjoyed watching the penguins and the seal show, as well as walking around the indoor reptile and fish exhibits.

After the aquarium, we looped back around to near where we started and caught a lift on the Floybanen, a funicular (cable-drawn) railway that ends about 1000 feet up the mountain above Bergen.

We sat overlooking the rest of Bergen, east and south of the harbor area, and I had enough time to enjoy a cigar.

The mountaintop is a protected watershed area for the city water supply, but there are numerous trails winding through forests of spruce and beech. We opted for a short hike around a small lake called Skomakerdiket where a few people were grilling out or pushing strollers. If you want to get away from the city in a hurry for some peace and quiet, I sure this area is the perfect spot.

We had to head down off the mountain a bit early since we had purchased tickets for the symphony that evening and needed time to get to the hotel and get cleaned up. When we were looking at information about the Bergen International Festival online a few weeks ago I had noticed that the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra was celebrating their 60th anniversary with a concert that included Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor and a selection of his pieces from Peer Gynt. I have had a fondness for Grieg's Peer Gynt music ever since receiving a box set of albums one Christmas when I was about 7 or 8 years old.

Given the Grieg is one of Bergen's native sons, it seemed particularly appropriate to hear his music performed here live. And I wasn't disappointed -- it was particularly cool to hear some of the dialog from Ibsen's play, as well as some of the operatic solos, performed in Norwegian, a first for me. The concert was held in Grieghallen, a relatively modern concert hall (1978) that has excellent acoustics and holds about 1500 people. Gi and I guessed that it was probably at about 80% capacity for the concert, which was probably pretty good for a Friday night, but something of a shame considering the quality of the music.

Strangely enough one of my more vivid memories of the evening had nothing to do with the music, but in fact involved the audience. While waiting for Gi to return from the powder room I was looking around the crow and suddenly noticed myself feeling as if I had shrunk!? In every direction were men and women over 6 feet tall, most with heads of gray or even white hair, and many of them going over 6'4". I happened to look online later and found a report that the Norwegians and Dutch are now considered the world's tallest in average height (a bit more than an inch taller than the American average). The report discussed diet and improved health but frankly I preferred imagining that I was seeing some remaining vestige of Viking heritage running through that crowd.