Bergen

 

Bergen

The time has come to say something of our holiday. I’ll start with Bergen, partly because it was our first step off ship since we left Newcastle.

By the time we were ready to leave ship, it was raining. My,was it raining. We were intending to walk along Bryggen, the Hanseatic dockside, lined with its multi-coloured wooden buildings. In view of the rain we decided instead to see if the hop-on-hop-off bus, parked just outside the dock area was wheelchair accessible. It was.

Even then we were thinking we would get off around stop No 4, the Tollbookaia viewpoint. It would be a short walk to stop 5 to re-catch the bus. However, by the time we got there, it was so wet it was impossible to see anything. We stopped on the bus.

It gave us a tour of the city & filled in some of the history of the place. Many of the important sites were passed. We were struck by just how steep some of the roads were. One road was so steep the cobbles were laid upright so people & horses had something to stop the just rolling down the hill all the time. We were very grateful the Fox didn’t have to push me. 

See the oh so steep road up to the Bergen Museum

 

Konde Kunst Museum, building 1, opposite the bus stop

We eventually got off at stop 10, near the Kode Kunst Museum, which is Bergen art gallery. It consists of 4 separate buildings. We had decided the one we thought we were most interested in was Museum 3, with the Rasman Meyers’ Collection, including a large collection of work by Edvard Munch. Apart from “The Scream”, we knew little of his work. There were in fact 3 rooms of his paintings, laid out in chronological order.

It was interesting to see the progression of his work. His paintings from his younger days, revealed a competent artist, but there was no distinctive voice there. They were typical late Victorian works. However, he then went to Paris & discovered impressionism & “modern art”.

As time went by, to my mind, he seemed to strip back faces etc. to the skull, leaving the rather bleak face shown in “The Scream”. It was as though he was trying to get below the surface of the people portrayed into their souls. We learnt he did in the end have a mental breakdown. His art seemed more joyous as he regained his mental stability.

It was fascinating to get a feel for his art.  However there were other artists whose work was worthy of viewing. I particularly liked a painting of a typical Naples street. The narrow street had lines of washing strung across it. It was so full of life. I could have spent hours just working out what all the characters were up to. Unfortunately I didn’t take in the artist’s name or the title of the piece.

After a couple of hours there, if it had been dry, we would have enjoyed the Lille Lungegårdsvann park & maybe felt up to tackling another building of the gallery before returning to the ship. Instead we headed back to the bus. We continued the tour of the city, eventually reaching the dockside once more.

From what we could see from the bus as we passed, the fish & the flower markets seemed fabulous. Bryggen, a UNESCO site, would certainly have been worthy of an explore.

Opposite the fish market, taken from the bus

In the Bryggen part of of town, taken from the bus

We liked Bergen. However it was wet. We gather from the bus commentary it rains more often than not. It was one of the disadvantages of being on a cruise. You have just the one day in port so if it’s wet, hard luck. That day was certainly wet. For all that we spent most of the time on the bus, in the art gallery or the bus shelter, we were soaked through. And I mean that. My cape, jumper, T-shirt, skirt, all needed to be taken off to dry in the cabin. For once I got changed for dinner with good will.

One day it would be nice to go again, maybe stay there for a while, to really appreciate the city.