Today we learned about fires and the way they shaped Bergen or an area within the city called Bryggen. From the start of the Viking time there were many fires caused by the buildings being made from wood, close proximity and open fire within the buildings. The process was that they would then rebuild directly on top of the previous building and then another fire disaster.
As you see here, layers upon layers of fires. In 1950s the rebuild consisted of 62 buildings.
The Hanseatic league and German’s both settled in this area from 1300 – 1754. They took care of the trade of cod throughout Europe. This was lucrative for Bergen at the time.
From 150 to 1300s Rune writing or carving stick characters into wood as written communication was used by Norse people. This was their graffiti or social media of the day.
St. Mary’s church was built in 1170. Originally catholic, it is now Lutheran. A lone survivor of all of the fires due to its stone facade.
The Føibanen Funicular goes up 1000 ft. in 7 minutes or it would if it didn’t stop a few times on the way. The views from the top are breathtaking and we wished we would have gone up right when we came to town. We paid for a round trip, but started a walk down the path and never quit. 56 minutes and a little over 2 miles later we were down to the center city. And hungry!
Our guide from the Bryggen museum suggested that we eat a lamb cabbage meal called Fårikål. A place called Penguin or Pinguen was supposed to have this dish. They did not, but I had a stew and Bryan has a fish meatloaf. A funny thing was that this bar, which reminded me of a “Cheers” kind of place, had Boulevard 7, a beer from Kansas City that we can’t even get in Texas.
Below are pictures from our morning walk around the harbor.
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