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Bergen, Norway
Down on the west coast they got a saying, if you ain't drinking then you ain't playing
Bergen is Norway’s second largest city, nestled on its west coast with easy-ish access to the fjords and the North Sea and all of the really pretty parts of the country. And while it may be the second biggest city in Norway, that doesn’t mean that it’s all that big. Bergen County, New Jersey (possibly named after Bergen, Norway- thanks for nothing, Wikipedia) has four times as many people, as well as a hell of a lot more malls, more traffic, more toll roads and at least twice as many Shake Shacks. Still I dare you to find a telephone pole anywhere in Bergen County (or in any other county actually) that’s half as fun as this one located on Stromgaten right across from the railway station. Hahaha indeed.
Bergen is more than a telephone pole across from the railway station with a fading and torn poster of a girl laughing. It used to be something bigger, one of the Hanseatic League cities that traded with other far off exotic ports like Lubeck and Bruges. For 600 years there have been wooden buildings at Bryggen Wharf, although like all wooden buildings they do burn down from time to time. They also aren’t all that straight. Starting with centuries of bad foundations, the remarkably photogenic buildings tip every which way, with marginally scary alleys between them that often look more like a movie set than like the UNESCO World Heritage Site that they actually are.
From the Festplassen, it’s an easy enough ride on the Bybanen out to the Fantoft Stave Church, although there may be warnings along the way. On the trail through the Norwegian wood, someone took the time to write “not real” on the sign directing visitors to the church. What they mean by this is that instead of going to visit a 900 year old church, you’re really going to see one that’s not even old enough to drive. The original church looked a lot like this one but was intentionally burned to the ground 15 years ago for reasons that probably made a lot of sense to the arsonist at the time. Today it’s like nothing ever happened, the replica stands where the last one stood and unless some graffiti on a sign told me differently, I would never have even noticed.
Right from downtown and only a block away from the Bryggen Wharf, the Floibanen train ascends up to a thousand feet above the North Sea to give you quick and easy views of where you just came from.
If getting up to Mount Floyen is easy (and it is), then the other Bergen summit is its exact opposite. First off it’s pretty far out of town, with annoying, low clearance double decker buses slowly providing connections once or twice an hour. Then the way up is an exceptionally small, slow moving cable car with at least an hour wait at any given time. And on a perfectly clear Sunday in a city where it rains more than it doesn’t, the crushing crowds of locals can make it feel like more than one needs to bear.
Mount Ulriken is twice as far from Bergen and twice as high as Mount Floyen, but its real advantage is that it takes you up above the treeline and right deep into the backcountry. Easily marked trails head off in all directions and the views, both close up and far away, make it hard to pick which trail is the best one to try next.
